On my easy three miler last Friday, I did something that I had never done before.

I ran sockless.

It was in the upper 90s and the thought of putting on some socks was making me sweaty just thinking about it. So I just slipped my shoes on over my bare feet.

This wasn’t some harebrained idea I had. I’ve read about many people running sockless in these particular shoes (my Skechers GoRun 3s, for the curious). The shoe is designed for it (supposedly). Since other people did it without issues, I figured it wouldn’t be an issue for me.

I was wrong.

First of all, I’m pretty sure my feet got sweatier without my sweat-wicking socks. But the main issue became apparent a mile or so into my run. There was a terrible, terrible hotspot in the place where I am prone to blisters, even with socks on. So, combined with all the extra sweat, no surprise I developed blisters there on both feet. There was also some uncomfortable rubbing on the top of my feet.

I was basically limping by the end of the run. Never doing that again.

Those of you out there that run sockless, how in the world do you do it? And why?