My FiveFingers

A fan site all about Minimalist Running, Barefoot running, and Healthy Living!

Join the Community

Search

Toe socks come back into the fold

by Emily Gindle » on Nov 07, 2010 8

Our shoes may not be traditional, but that doesn’t mean we have to go without socks. For me, toe socks are a crucial accessory to Fivefingers. The reason why has to do with some slightly embarrassing confessions about my feet. I’ll admit them here in the hopes of providing helpful diagnoses for others.

I have really short, stumpy toes. Combined with a narrow heel, my foot is not the standard Fivefingers foot, and I have lots of squishy space at the ends of toe pockets and the sides of the heel. A nice pair of Injini socks fills up my extra space, and they’re seamless, so if your feet are particularly sensitive to the seams and stitching in Fivefingers, these will gloss it over.

I hate to admit it to the internet at large, but I have really sweaty feet. Back when I ran in normal shoes, I had to wear two pairs of socks on long runs to keep my feet from blistering five miles from home. I started wearing wool Injinis as the first layer sock to wick sweat from between my toes where I would blister most, and it worked awesomely. Now in Fivefingers they keep my feet dry instead of clammy.

Luckily for me, sweaty feet never coincided with particularly smelly feet, but you could put a rose in a nylon shoe and it would reek. Synthetics just stink no matter what. A pair of socks keeps your shoes fresher, just like your mom taught you. Especially relevant if the whole goal of using your Fivefingers is for exercise.

Socks also help keep your piggies a little warmer. There’s only so much more material you can fit in such a slim profile shoe, but I’ve been known to get through the winter by nesting a thin liner sock inside my regular toe sock inside my Fivefingers shoe. Injinji just added a midweight sock to their lineup, which I’ll be sure to add to mine as the temperatures drop. For non-active uses like going to work in the winter, I still shelve my KSOs for a thick sock in a more traditional shoe, but the toe socks get me through as long as I keep my toes wiggling in winter workouts at the park or frigid pre-dawn runs.

You can now get toe socks in technical fabrics: Injini makes them out of Coolmax and merino wool. They come in liners, lightweights, midweights, and compression styles. They help with all kinds of fit issues, sensitive feet, sweat, smell, heat and cold. And that extra layer makes your toes spread just a little bit more, which I think feels great.

The prescription for winter: two pairs of toe socks inside the KSO Trek.

Submitted Comments

  1. Tyler Hurst says:

    I have the Injinji in two different styles and I love them. Very comfy to wear, even in sometimes normal shoes.

  2. Corey Nagle says:

    I’m about to pick some up for the first time (especially since I found them for $5 cheaper than anywhere else).

  3. bob says:

    are the classics good shoes?

  4. Corey says:

    I love my Classics for daily wear. More often than not, they’re my “go to” shoes for just about everything.

  5. Melanie Sheetz says:

    Omg! yes, wore them first time and felt hugged and comphy! so warm:)

  6. Eric Mann says:

    Hey, how do you guys size the Injinji socks? I wear a M42 in my KSO’s and they fit just right. Would I go with a Men’s Medium or Large on the sock size? Just want to try and figure out ahead of time as haven’t found them locally to try on for fit before buying…

  7. Corey says:

    Injinji has a sizing chart on their site based off regular US shoe sizes. A men’s medium is an 8-10.5 and a large is 11-13.

  8. Eric Mann says:

    Yeah, that is where I run in to decision issue: The Vibram website suggests a Medium for the M42 FiveFinger size, but I wear a US 11 shoe, which would match up with a Large…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.