Fortunately for me Brian is responsive, supportive and willing to read spam from wanna-be marathoners. He sent me three informative documents and the following comment:

“Your best bet is always to bring in your old shoes to a “real” running store where they can evaluate your foot strike style and point you to the right category of shoe.  As for socks.  Anything that is not made out of cotton will work.  If you have problems with blisters – you may want to consider “dual ply socks” which reduce friction.”

The three articles he provided were about running shoes, the wet-foot test and finding the right running shoes. These articles are long enough that they deserve a separate blog post to cover them. So, we wont cover those today but in the very near future.

I am now on a mission to find socks and a “real” running store.

How important are socks really? I am guessing that when you are running 6-10 miles or more they can be a critical factor. Anyway, I don’t have enough of them and a few have holes in the toes. I am not sure how that happened but a couple have at least on hole on the large toe. So, I am actually short a few pairs when you remove the holy ones.

This whole sock thing leaves unanswered questions like:

1. What brands should I look at?
2. What fabrics or styles are best?
3. Thick or thin?
4. How long should they last?
5. Where do the freaking holes come from?

Stay tuned for more intriguing dialog regarding the world’s unsolved sock related mysteries.