It was only a gentle dozen years ago that I decided to accept my daughter Susan’s invitation to do a mud run with her in central Kentucky. My son Dan and his wife Christie joined us. I was nervous as a squirrel with anxiety disorder before the race but ended up having a great time.

I also learned a bit about footwear choices.

Vicariously, I learned from Dan that running three-point-two miles without socks is a terrible idea. Wet feet plus hills plus distance equals lots of blisters. Experientially, I learned that trail sandals weren’t the way to go, either.

Getting the occasional pebble on a dirt trail was an acceptable consequence for the comfort of Keen. Going through the pond was a different matter.

With every step, as I begin to lift my foot, the tiny bit of separation between sole of foot and insole of shoe created a small but powerful vacuum that sucked in sand, grit, gravel, and the occasional tiny stone or piece of stick. By the time I sloshed my way up the opposite bank, it felt like my sandals were packed with wet BB’s. Unpolished BB’s, mind you.

I’ve done multiple mudruns with nearly all of my kids, three daughters-in-law, a nephew, two of my siblings and several friends. Whether running alone or with family, all of my races since that first one have been run with tightly laced athletic shoes.

I still get some unwelcome stowaways but nothing like the crowds the sandals brought onboard. I still like wearing sandals in other situations, though. Especially while riding around on my little tractor or my fast orange Zero Turn mower. I’ve worn them so much this summer that I actually have sandal suntans on both feet. I like the coolness of fresh air circulating around my pedapods and the convenience of no socks. For some situations, at least.

They don’t work so well for tromping around in the horse lot. Too much sand and grit in the round pen, too many small stones and sticks and other drawbacks in the paddock. I avoid the muck pocks and take time to shake out my sandals when I’m done with the chores. But mostly, when it’s time for actual working on surfaces that tend to overly share with my footwear, I wear hiking boots subverted to work boot applications.

There are times in life when we inadvertently encounter different terrain than what we’d expected. Even when wearing the perfect footwear for the long hikes, we may still encounter the every now and then of something caught in a shoe.

Sit on the nearest boulder, shake out the boot, wipe off the chance scruff from the bottom of your foot and reload. And when you know that your path is going to include some rough stuff, some gritty circumstances, some twerps and twigs and such, maybe consider wearing something more apt than sandals. There’s even a time and place for flip flops. Hiking the Grand Canyon ain’t it.

We can’t avoid every unpleasant situation in life. But there are plenty of times when we can just walk around the muck instead of charging right through it. Consider the terrain, avoid the pain.