Last the best of all the game!

Otherwise known as Wrightsock Review #2

I wore the SLTs Monday morning on a 3 mile tempo run. The first thing I noticed was that they were really thin. Even thinner than the SLRs. A lot thinner than I prefer, but they did a good job at keeping my dry, and were quite comfortable. I really liked how they hug my feet. Not too tight, but very supportive.

Monday was also the first day of cross country practice. I've moved up from the middle school to coach at the high school with a good friend of mine. We are really excited about the season and the group of kids we have. We are at a brand new school (in it's first full year), so there are only freshmen and sophomores (another grade level will be added each year until there are seniors). Since these kids will be competing against schools with juniors and seniors, we are really focusing on the kids having fun, with the hope that they will enjoy it and continue with cross country throughout high school. And hopefully the team will grow with each year.

For practice on Monday, I wore the SLXs. I didn't know how much running I'd be doing the first day of practice, so I was planning on having another run with them later in the week. I ended up running some intervals with the kids on the track, and it was HOT! 105 degrees here in Phoenix. My feet were very happy, though, in the SLXs (wish I could say the kids were as happy as my feet, but everyone came back the next day, so it must not have been too bad for them. ). The socks kept me quite dry and comfortable out there on the hot track.

Tuesday, I gave the SLRs another try at practice. It was an easy practice, but still very hot. I must say that they did a much better job the second time around. It probably helps to follow the directions to wash before wearing. And they are so comfy! I didn't want to take them off when I got home.

Wednesday morning, I ran a tough interval workout in the Running IIs. Again, I was surprised by the double layers and how comfortable they are. They did a good job keeping my feet dry, or at least keeping me from noticing the moisture. When I wiggled my toes while I was running, I could tell that they were wet. But how often do I wiggle my toes like that when I run, right? During the rest of my run, I didn't notice a thing.

I'm not kidding when I say it was a tough workout. I had planned to do a ladder workout of 400m, 800m, mile, 800m, 400m. I wanted to do them pretty fast, but I was so tired when I got up that I didn't think I'd be going very fast at all. But after the warm up, I surprised myself with a 1:20 for the 1/4. Not bad at all. Exactly what I originally wanted to run, actually. I was able to do the 1/2 in 2:45, and the mile in 5:48. Now that really surprised me. Last time I did this workout, I ran the mile in like 6:45. And I was still feeling pretty good, so I wanted to run the last two intervals faster than the first two. I did the 1/2 in 2:45 again, and the 1/4 in 1:15. Like I said, that was tough, but it felt so great to accomplish that after waking up thinking I'd be running pretty slow. Maybe it was the socks.

At this point I had tested out all the socks except for the Coolmesh, and as you can guess by the title of this post, I kinda liked them. I ran an easy 5 mile run this morning with a friend. We got a ton of rain last night, so it was really humid. We felt a few sprinkles on the run, but it didn't really rain on us. Taking all that into account, plus the wet sidewalks, these socks kept my feet dry as a bone. I really liked that they are a lot thinner than the other double layer socks I've tried--similar to the rest of my socks. These are by far the best socks (at least my favorite) of the bunch. I just wish they were a little lower. They come up a little higher on my ankles than I prefer, but I really enjoyed running in these socks.

This little experiment has been a lot of fun, adding a little novelty to each of my runs over the last couple weeks. I am excited to make the rounds again and see how each pair does the second time around. Thanks, Wrightsock! I've got some happy feet.