Injinji Sock Review (and Upcoming Giveaway)

DO NOT FRET! There are NO "gross foot photos" in this post!
(I just wanted to put that out there so I don't scare any of my regular readers away.)

As many of you know, I have been known to have foot / toe / blister issues when I go for longer / harder runs. Here's a quick listing of 4 recent posts that contain my nasty feet:

- My feet after my first 25K last month.

- A sweet photo from after my most recent triathlon back in July.

- After my last 10 mile race about a year ago.

- A few photos from last summer when I ran with a cat toy in my shoe. Yep.

My readers have been suggesting I try Injinji toe socks for a while. (Although I doubt they'd help with cat-toy-in-my-shoes issues.) And as luck would have it, one of the PR firms that sometimes sends me things to try is now working with Injinji. So I was sent 4 pairs a few months ago. There IS a God.

I first tried on a "normal" pair around the house. They felt good - no big deal. Then I tried a short, easy run in them about a month ago. Again, they worked fine. But I'm picky about socks that I workout in - would they work for longer or harder workouts? They seemed thin and "not technical," so would they work?

I decided to REALLY try them out on my 13 miler with Henry 10 days ago. It was the end of my biggest week of running in YEARS. Here's what they looked like at the start of my run:

I figured 13 miles was no joke - that's a solid distance for me right now. (In the past 5 months, I've only had 4 other runs of 13 miles or more.) AND I was going to do a few "race pace" miles in the middle of the run, so it wasn't going to just be easy running.

I ended up doing 13.01 miles with Henry and the stroller in 1:34:09, and I did the middle HILLY 6.5 miles at an average of 6:44 / mile (43:49 for 6.5 miles, with mile splits of 6:51.5, 7:14.7 [HILLY], 7:01.7 [HILLY], 6:58.2, 6:22.7, 6:13.6, and 3:10.9 for the final 0.5). My feet felt FINE. I was actually kind of surprised. Here's how they looked post-run:

I also wore them for some hard/fast running recently at the "Kitten Mile" that I just posted about. I broke out the rainbow Injinji's for that race:

Here's the only downside I've been able to come up with: I can't get into them quickly. When I posted about my biggest running week in years, I had 5 runs that week. The final run was with Henry when I tried out the socks; that was a planned "you're going to need a nap, so let's run" run. Three out of the other 4 runs were with Henry too, but those were last minute "OH MY GOD you need to settle down a bit so let's go on a run" runs. (He was having a lot of teething pains that week.) Oh, and the remaining run was a 4:30 am track workout by myself.

If I had to put on Injinji's for those 3 "quick let's go and calm you down" runs, I'd be held back as I was cramming my toes into their specific toe-holes. (THAT was a weird sentence.) Because when I try to slip on the socks quickly, it looks like this:

A bunch of stuck toes.

So yes, the only downside is that they take about 3 times longer to put on than "regular" socks.

I have 2 more pairs I still haven't tried out. One is thicker, and one is a bit thinner:

So if I can do a 13 mile long run with some faster miles in the middle AND a shorter / faster race and have no toe / foot issues, then SOMETHING is working right! I may have found new running socks!

I let the Injinji people know that I liked their socks, and they said they had 15 pairs for me to giveaway. So stop back tomorrow for that! Thanks everyone! And thanks Injinji for the sweet socks!

Oh, and check out my "Kitten Mile" race report 1 post down.