Barefoot Shoes and Socks

Today I am going to write about something a little different. A few days ago I saw a child with a huge hole in at least one sock and I commented “for once you’re the one with holes in your socks, rather than me. Usually I do have holes in my socks, and when the child noticed he pointed this out in public once.

After this incident I started to throw socks away as soon as they got holes, to avoid such a comment. For some reason it bothered me to have holes in my socks in a context where I had to take off my shoes. That’s not actually what this blog post is about.

Barefoot Shoes are Kinder to Feet

I noticed that all the signs of wear and tear that I had on my feet, as a result of wearing normal shoes are gone from my feet. My feet have recovered from having the toes, heels and other parts of the foot rubbing against parts of the shoes. The result is more elegant feet, thanks to soft barefoot shoes.

Intact Socks

I have been using the same socks for weeks, or even months at this point and they are barely worn. At one point, with normal shoes, I was wearing through socks within weeks. It got so bad that I was starting to worry about how expensive it would be to buy new socks every few weeks. With barefoot shoes that problem seems to be gone.

Five million steps

Over the last twelve months I have still taken over 4.9 million steps, so it’s not that I am walking less. I am cycling more, but I’m still in the five million steps per twelve month period range. My walking habit is consistent.

Softer Steps

When you walk with normal shoes the shoes do the work of amortising every step, so every step comes down with force, especially around the heel, where holes would begin to appear with some socks. With barefoot shoes you’re not crushing that part of the sock so the sock has a longer life expectancy

More Space for Toes

Plenty of people who write about barefoot shoes speak about the bigger “toe box”. With normal shoes you instantly feel that the foot has less space. This difference in room for the toes could contribute to the tips of socks wearing against the shoes, forming toe holes on socks.

Barefoot Barefoot Shoes

Since some people wear barefoot shoes, barefoot, without socks, it would make sense for the shoes to be designed to be barefoot friendly, to avoid friction points and more. It would make sense for shoes to be made to be comfortable.

And Finally

This observation is based on wearing a single pair of barefoot shoes for over 500 kilometres. If I wear another pair of barefoot shoes I might notice that the wear and tear of socks is different. usually new socks cost about 20 CHF for a week’s worth of socks. If I need to replace them twice, in the lifespan of a pair of shoes then I could buy a pair of shoes that is 20-40CHF more expensive, and the price of new socks would be offset, by not needing to buy socks as regularly.

I wrote that last part as a joke, rather than a serious consideration. I am happy to have stopped wearing through socks so quickly, at last.