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Never ending boot saga continues

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
As long as you don't buckle tight and stay flexed at the ankle, you will be fine for a couple of hours. Plan on a longish lunch and take the boots off. Let DH go buy your food and just give your feet time to recoup from the morning.
Good advice. I'm taking cheap $2 Ikea slippers to put on when I take my boots off for lunch. I originally got them for "camp shoes" backpacking, but forgot to take them, so I think they will serve this purpose well. They weigh nothing.
 

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Day 1 Update:

I wore a thin liner sock, thinnest I have. We did a warm up day and stuck to greens and blues around Ramcharger and Southern Comfort.

The side of foot pain was the biggest issue today with both boots. The toe pain was better, I think from wearing liner socks and my diy liner stretch at home before we left. The pain was about a 8/10 if standing around, and 5/10 when on easy green cruisers. Took the kenjas.

I noticed that my balance just felt off. Especially on the steeper parts of blues. I found d that when I would try to stay forward, I would get in the backseat, if that makes sense. I normally don't hesitation staying forward on blacks, let alone blues, so that was kind of disheartening. I felt like my skiing regressed to a low intermediate between the pain and the balance issues.

When we broke for lunch after 6 runs, I yanked out the heel lifts and spoilers. Those Ikea slippers were clutch. I felt around the liner on the outside midfoot where I felt the pain, and it seems like some of the foam is squishing part of the side of my foot underneath it. Like there is a little squashed layer of my outside foot skin that is getting pinched between a foam overlap and the foot bed.

Skiied a few more runs after lunch, still blues and greens. Big improvement with my balance and edging with the heel lifts and spoilers removed.

I did notice that I still can't flex the boots, even though I removed the bolt. My shins got sore trying. I think the heel lift was helping me flex, but messing up my balance. I may have to get these puppies softened a bit. They are 95 flex, whatever that is worth. When I tried really, really hard to flex them, my heel came up a bit.

Either removing the lift helped put my foot in a better place in the shell, or the liners did pack out a tiny bit (in a good way), but only a tiny bit. I could still feel my pulse in my feet at the end of the day waiting for DH to bring the car up, but I did get through the day, and the last few runs my toes didn't hurt.

If I could get the side of foot pain under control, I'd be darn happy. It does get maddening.... Grinding teeth in the lift line, reciting state capitals in my head to distract myself from the pain maddening lol.

But hey, better than I feared. I thought I might only be able to do like 5 runs. I don't think I can do anything beyond blues in these though. I might send DH off on his own to explore the blacks and I'll cruise greens and blues this trip. I still feel like I am not as in control or as comfortable as I would like. I used to mostly do black runs, so I'm kind of disappointed. But maybe I should have never been doing blacks in the first place, and I was just doing them with bad technique and not actually skiing well. Who knows?

BTW, Big Sky is absolutely beautiful and awesome.
 

contesstant

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
If the area you are having pain is an area where the foam has been injected, the fitter can put acetone in there to "dissolve" some of the foam. I'm glad you tried sock liners instead of socks. Sounds like it's working OK for now, although that lateral foot pain is a bummer for you.

You were smart to pull the heel lifts and spoilers. As for stiffness, have you tried buckling the top buckles loose-ish? Just to get you by? I will say that the Mach 1s are what I would call a "lively" boot, and yes, quite stiff for a 95. They are very responsive and take some getting used to for sure. Throw in a very stiff ski like the Kenja, and I can see why you struggled a bit. I hope at least the snow is soft!
 

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
If the area you are having pain is an area where the foam has been injected, the fitter can put acetone in there to "dissolve" some of the foam. I'm glad you tried sock liners instead of socks. Sounds like it's working OK for now, although that lateral foot pain is a bummer for you.

You were smart to pull the heel lifts and spoilers. As for stiffness, have you tried buckling the top buckles loose-ish? Just to get you by? I will say that the Mach 1s are what I would call a "lively" boot, and yes, quite stiff for a 95. They are very responsive and take some getting used to for sure. Throw in a very stiff ski like the Kenja, and I can see why you struggled a bit. I hope at least the snow is soft!
I loosened them a bit, I'll do a bit more tomorrow.

Yeah and my kenjas are 163s, a size bigger than I should probably have. I feel like if I had a bit more flex I could do a lot better. I can't quite get as forward as I need to to feel confident. That in combo with the foot pain making me hesitate made me not want to do anything even mildly adventurous. DH tried to take me into a glade he found and loved and I took a green instead. Maybe I need to just stick to easy stuff and try to relearn to ski next year with a ton of intermediate lessons. I'm going to take the Santa Anas out tomorrow and see if that is any easier.

Lively is a good word for them. I like the feedback, I can really feel my edges when they engage more than ever. I love that part, but the complete inability to flex them is tough to manage. I feel like I have to resort to steering from my tails when it gets steeper because I just can't get forward enough to do it right.

I remember Dieter saying he can inject acetone. The spot that is giving me foot pain is where the foam is. Maybe they will break in a little more over the course of the trip....
 

vickie

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I posted in another thread about the forward lean of my boots which, I believe, has a similar effect to heel lifts.

Symptom was my toes were getting jammed into the end of my boots. The more days I wore the boots, the worse the pain. That seemed backwards. The bootfitter checked my balance in the boots as they were. I had a very small sweet spot where I was balanced. He put the equivalent of shims under the front of my boots. Suddenly I had a large range wherein I was balanced. He said that the forward lean of the boots was pushing me forward. Makes sense. He said that when you are too far forward -- into an unbalanced state -- you compensate by moving your weight back. When you move your weight back, it pushes your feet forward in your boots. Toe pain.

My boots have adjustable forward lean, fortunately, so he was able to fix it easily.

Based on my experience, I could see heel lifts causing you to feel unbalanced and to have toe pain.

While your boots may not be perfect yet, it sounds as if you've made a lot of progress.
 

tinymoose

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
If the area you are having pain is an area where the foam has been injected, the fitter can put acetone in there to "dissolve" some of the foam. I'm glad you tried sock liners instead of socks. Sounds like it's working OK for now, although that lateral foot pain is a bummer for you.

You were smart to pull the heel lifts and spoilers. As for stiffness, have you tried buckling the top buckles loose-ish? Just to get you by? I will say that the Mach 1s are what I would call a "lively" boot, and yes, quite stiff for a 95. They are very responsive and take some getting used to for sure. Throw in a very stiff ski like the Kenja, and I can see why you struggled a bit. I hope at least the snow is soft!

When I was in too stiff Fischer race boots with Zipfits that only made them stiffer, keeping the cuff buckles looser was a lifesaver. I still don't buckle mine down all that much tbh.

I'm sorry you didn't have more time to get these dialed in before your trip out west.
 

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
When I was in too stiff Fischer race boots with Zipfits that only made them stiffer, keeping the cuff buckles looser was a lifesaver. I still don't buckle mine down all that much tbh.

I'm sorry you didn't have more time to get these dialed in before your trip out west.
Believe it or not, I still have some room above my instep-meets-ankle area even with foam tongues in these. The poor tongues are stuffed, so I will throw an extra felt tong ur pad on to help with that tomorrow. I can go loose, but not too much. I did loosen my booster strap at the end of the day, and that helped a bit.

I wish I had had more time too, but such is life sometimes. It is forcing me to focus on basics again, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And I don't think my feet are actually bruising, but I'll check tomorrow. As long as they recover enough in the evenings, I think I will be okay to wait to go back to Dieter for work.
 

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I posted in another thread about the forward lean of my boots which, I believe, has a similar effect to heel lifts.

Symptom was my toes were getting jammed into the end of my boots. The more days I wore the boots, the worse the pain. That seemed backwards. The bootfitter checked my balance in the boots as they were. I had a very small sweet spot where I was balanced. He put the equivalent of shims under the front of my boots. Suddenly I had a large range wherein I was balanced. He said that the forward lean of the boots was pushing me forward. Makes sense. He said that when you are too far forward -- into an unbalanced state -- you compensate by moving your weight back. When you move your weight back, it pushes your feet forward in your boots. Toe pain.

My boots have adjustable forward lean, fortunately, so he was able to fix it easily.

Based on my experience, I could see heel lifts causing you to feel unbalanced and to have toe pain.

While your boots may not be perfect yet, it sounds as if you've made a lot of progress.
That sounds really accurate to what I experienced. A tiny sweet spot that I could not stay in, and when I tried to get forward I felt unbalanced and got backseat reflexively.
 

mustski

Angel Diva
I keep the cuff buckle looser on the colder day also. It does help with the flex. Why did he give you heel lifts? In my case, I need them because of a bone that keeps me from getting decent dorsiflexion. I know some fitters use heel lifts to take up space in the boot and that can toss you into the back seat if you don't need them. I also wonder about the ramp angle of your bindings. What bindings do you have? You are in a shorter boot now and ramp angle can be a definite problem.
 

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I keep the cuff buckle looser on the colder day also. It does help with the flex. Why did he give you heel lifts? In my case, I need them because of a bone that keeps me from getting decent dorsiflexion. I know some fitters use heel lifts to take up space in the boot and that can toss you into the back seat if you don't need them. I also wonder about the ramp angle of your bindings. What bindings do you have? You are in a shorter boot now and ramp angle can be a definite problem.
Not sure why he put the heel lift in.... Maybe to help me flex? He had me bend at the knees and noted that my butt goes back when I do.... But in retrospect that is a habit from doing squats in workouts, and I don't do that on skis, which he wouldn't have known.

My kenjas have tyrolia attack 12s, and my Santa Ana's have squire demos.
 

mustski

Angel Diva
I was wondering about ramp angle but I believe both those bindings have minimal ramp angle so that’s probably not the issue.
 

contesstant

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
You probably have instep room from removing the heel lifts. Still, if you feel more balanced, then keep them out.

Attacks are actually 5mm higher in the heel (I just recently measured all of my bindings and discovered this) whereas the Squire demos, at least the newer ones, are negative ramp, by just a hair. So, I'm guessing the Squires will feel better overall. I actually put Squire demos on my new Santa Ana 88s because of this, if you can believe that. I still have a horrible time stepping into them, but I'm so much more balanced in them, it's worth it to me.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@SquidWeaselYay, you keep saying that you are trying to flex the boot but can't. I think you think that not being able to flex the cuffs is to blame for being aft. Am I right on this?

Can you say more about the "trying" part? How do you "try?" What are you doing with your body, your legs, your feet, your arms and shoulders, as you try?

Also, at what point in a turn do you "try," the top of the turn before the skis point downhill, the middle when the skis are pointing downhill, or at the bottom as they point in the new direction?

How fast are these turns, and are they big wide-radius turns or little shorties?

Are you trying to flex the cuffs when you are traveling downhill with slow easy turns, only with high speed skiing, or with all turns?
 

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@SquidWeaselYay, you keep saying that you are trying to flex the boot but can't. I think you think that not being able to flex the cuffs is to blame for being aft. Am I right on this?

Can you say more about the "trying" part? How do you "try?" What are you doing with your body, your legs, your feet, your arms and shoulders, as you try?

Also, at what point in a turn do you "try," the top of the turn before the skis point downhill, the middle when the skis are pointing downhill, or at the bottom as they point in the new direction?

How fast are these turns, and are they big wide-radius turns or little shorties?

Are you trying to flex the cuffs when you are traveling downhill with slow easy turns, only with high speed skiing, or with all turns?
I tried to flex them yesterday with all turns, of any size. I tried flexing at all different points too, just to see what everything felt like.

Without the heel lifts I don't get thrown backseat anymore, but I am getting sore shins by pressuring the front of my boots hard and the boots not giving at all. Bumps are really bad with this and I have to take the full brunt in my knees.

I'm not sure how to explain.... Im leaning my mass forward, pressing my shins to the boot fronts and getting my butt forward over top my feet? I'm pole planting and trying to keep my shoulders straight downhill for short zero acceleration turns, and I'm turning my shoulders a little more than I should on big carves at the moment. I was going pretty fast, but then resorted to smearing after a while because I felt off balance (prior to removing heel lifts).

I can get forward better now.... But it hurts and the boots don't budge. They will when they are warm, like first run after a break, but after they get cold I can't get them to move even with throwing all my body weight at it while harnessing turn momentum.
 

SquidWeaselYay

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@liquidfeet If you have any experiments or diagnostic type drills or exercises you think might be good for me to try, I'm all ears. We are going to cruise some easy stuff this morning and see how things feel for me.
 

VickiK

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@contesstant
I actually put Squire demos on my new Santa Ana 88s because of this, if you can believe that. I still have a horrible time stepping into them, but I'm so much more balanced in them, it's worth it to me.

I thought Marker fixed the issue with stepping into the Squires, particularly for shorter BSLs. I guess not! I didn't paid attention to binding ramp angle and heel/toe lifts, nor the fine point of bindings in general, until those dratted Squires. Something new to learn...
 

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