Why I ditched ioMerino for another brand. And why I’m an idiot for doing it.

By Outsider, Sputnik

"I’m not paid to wear ioMerino, and not paid to say nice things about them, but I do get gear sent my way from time to time which is nice. So obviously, I wear it quite a bit. It helps that I absolutely love it. But I don’t wear it exclusively. I still wear Nike running shorts, for example, mostly because ioMerino don’t make shorts. But when it comes to socks, boxers, leggings, Tshirts, tanks, tops, and hoodies, etc I almost always wear ioMerino when I’m outside in the elements - whether i”m running, hiking, kayaking, riding or road tripping.

 Outsider Kat wearing her Ultra Long Sleeve in Dazzling Blue

In recent times though, I’ve seen an awful lot of people wearing those fancy toe socks. They’re very popular, and people really seem to love them. I even had a few pairs from before ioMerino made socks, stashed away in my cupboard. So recently, I fell for the oldest trick in the book: everyone's wearing them so they must be amazing. I signed up for a 50km trail run, put on my toes socks instead of my ioMerino socks, and off I went.

When I got to the first river crossing early on in the race, I did what I always do - run right through it. While everyone else was tiptoeing their way across trying to avoid getting wet feet, I just splashed on through like usual without thinking about it. Because that’s what I’d do in my ioMerino socks. 

Big. Mistake.

Everyone and every body are different, but for me, my toe socks did not even go close to managing the moisture as well as my ioMerino socks do. They may look fancy with those cute little toe bits, but they caused me all sorts of problems for the rest of the race. And afterwards, my feet were cracked and blistered from being soaking wet for 3+ hours out on the trails. That never happens with my ioMerino socks, not even in the pouring rain in the middle of winter. Lesson learned. ‘Popular’ does not necessarily equal ‘better’.

Sadly, I’m a slow learner, and a few weeks later I made a similar mistake. I was running on the beach after meeting some people I would be guiding across Cambodia on an adventure tour, and instead of wearing my ioMerino T-shirt, I’d decided to wear my Angkor Wat Half Marathon top. It seemed like a good idea to show off my Cambodia cred. But it wasn’t. 

Image: Run All the Trails tee  

My ioMerino top is super fine and soft and comfortable and never, ever causes me any problems with rubbing or chafing on my… ah… you know… come on guys, surely you’ve had a bit of nipple rub before, right? Well, my ioMerino never causes this issue, but as I was running home along the beach, I started to feel that abrasive rub. Damn. The only solution was to run shirtless on the beach, and while no one really needs to see me lumbering down the beach half naked, I figured I could get away with it on a relatively warm morning with not too many people around. So I tucked my crappy, synthetic, abrasive top into my shorts, and on I ran.  

Image: Altitude Tee in Red and Altitude Southern Cross Tee 

What I didn’t count on, was one of the local dogs would consider that flapping piece of material an invite to attack me. Like a red rag to a bull, that dog, which in fairness was quite a bit smaller than a bull, charged me and tried to bite my top flapping in the wind, biting me in the process. Twice. The bites weren’t anything serious, but it did remind me that wearing ioMerino has many benefits - including a few beyond the obvious ones. Like no nipple rub, and no dog bites. 

I think it’s safe to say I’ll be sticking to my ioMerino from now on."