Picking up on a couple of points from Nell on the Brasher Superlites and from Nandy on the plantar fasciitis.
I wore my new Brasher Superlites at Easter 2009 when I made my pilgrimage (with tent) from Winchester to Canterbury in southern England, a distance of a bit under 250km in 9 days walking on a mixture of paths and country roads. The insoles collapsed almost flat under my heels, and as the soles were so thin, there was very little cushioning between my heel and the ground. While I was walking, there was some discomfort, but it was just something that I was aware of, nowhere near enough to make me even consider giving up. But when I returned home, wow! Getting up in the morning, my heels were painful, and during the day, I was very uncomfortable walking especially when getting up from a chair. The pain first thing in the morning is one of the classic symptoms of planta fasciitis. My work colleagues had their suspicions confirmed that this walking idea was for mad-men!
So what did I do? I bought some Sorborthane thin inserts
http://www.sorbothane.co.uk/product2217.html?section=47§ionTitle=Full+Strike+Insoles&preview=1 for my work shoes to cushion my heels while I was at work, and this seemed to work fine. I’ve seen somewhere that Sorbothane claim that their inserts dissipate 94% of the shock on the heel.
I tried their Double Strike inserts
http://www.sorbothane.co.uk/producta374.html?section=56§ionTitle=Double+Strike for my boots, but they did not work for me.
So onto their Sorbo Pro inserts
http://www.sorbothane.co.uk/product...tionTitle=Shock+stopper+-+Sorbo+Pro&preview=1, and these were perfect for my feet. I wore them in my Brashers on my pilgrimage at the end of May from my home just west of Birmingham to St Davids [*] in SW Wales. This was again 9 days walking, this time averaging over 35km per day with a tent, walking from early morning until sunset, and later some days. Much of it, certainly towards the end, was on small country roads, hence hard underfoot. I had absolutely no problem at all with my feet. Indeed, at the campsite at St Davids, when talking to the young man in the next tent about what I had done, he commented on how my boots must have been really good to do that without difficulty. He was a 20-something soldier on leave so should know something about yomping long distances with a rucksack, and I was a 51 year-old, then at least 6kg (about a stone) overweight.
I wore these same Brasher Superlite boots, now re-soled with Vibram, and the Sorbo Pro inserts on my 4th pilgrimage of the year (Le Puy-en-Velay to St-Gilles-du-Gard) in October, and again, absolutely no problem. The feet were just there, no blisters, no pain, no nothing!
I can certainly recommend these Sorbo Pro inserts to replace the inserts in similar circumstances, but there are others available, the best known being Superfeet.
http://www.superfeet.co.uk
I have no connection with either Sorbothane or Brasher, just a happy user of the two in combination. I have not needed inserts before I bought the Brashers, with boots from Trezeta and Berghaus being fine without special inserts.
Hope that may have given you some ideas
Mike
[*] St Davids is the smallest city in the UK, with a population of under 2,000, and with a magnificent cathedral.
For those of you speaking American English, a city in UK English is, historically, a town (or here a village)
with a cathedral. More recently a city can be so named if it has received a royal decree – but it is not just any town/village as in US English.
It was also where a car slowed and I heard a “Hola Peregrino” from another pilgrim to Santiago who had seen my scallop attached to my rucksack!