Friday, July 31, 2015

Saucony Breakthru

I couldn't keep my hands off of these on Running Warehouse. Look to be a little speedier than the Zealot but in the general vicinity in terms of shape, weight, with a little less cush. The price (and reviews) were right.

I ordered Tuesday with 2 day shipping leaving the Warehouse Wed., but UPS fucked it up, so I have to wait until Monday and can't run them at the Riley's Rumble.  But I had to let the cat out of the bag. Stay tuned.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Nexcare first aid tape

I manage to forget a lot of the low moments in races.  I guess its a lot like childbirth - if you remembered, you'd never do it again.

One indelibly burned into my mind is the end of the North Face DC half marathon.  I got a brutal case of nipple chafe around ten miles into what turned out to be a 14.3 mile hot slog. By the end of the race, I had what is commonly known as the "Sad Clown Face."

As the article says, men, don't forget you have nipples.  The best remedy for a while was duct tape, but removal always ended up a lot like this.

I finally discovered Nexcare first aid tape.  It stays on very well if you do your manscaping right, which means an electric, not a regular razor, please, on these parts.  And it comes off nice and easy, no screaming like the duct tape.

Once, I used it to cover a blister on the back of a heel.  It didn't stay as well as duct tape, but there's no hair down there so the painful removal isn't an issue.

Being summer and all, consider this a public service announcement.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Adidas Climachill

When I saw Sam Winebaum of RoadTrailRun reviewed and loved the Adidas Climachill 2nd generation running shirts, I ran out and got one (figuratively over the 'net).  I'm pleased to say it doesn't seem like a case of overhype (not that Sam falls for that kind of stuff anyway).

I wore the shirt for the first time on a 16M run/50 min walk/1M run.  I felt like I'd have an opportunity to see how it worked under a variety of conditions -- hot and humid outdoors, both under overcast and sunny skies, and inside on the treadmill.

From a very subjective viewpoint, the shirt seemed to do really well when there was a slight breeze (I assume this puts its enhanced evaporative qualities into overdrive) and indoors when sopping wet with sweat.  When I was running in still air, particularly in overcast conditions, it didn't feel much different from a Dryfit shirt.  But even when I didn't feel cooler, I liked the general cut and comfort of the shirt.

Given its fairly respectable $30 pricing on Running Warehouse, I'd say it was a worthwhile purchase.  Use the link in Sam's review so he'll have more money to do his super write-ups.

Edit 7/28/15: I wore for an entire 6 hour run in dew points over 60, temps in the 80s - and didn't change it once.  Several times I felt cool with a slight breeze!  It didn't help my calf cramps, but that's not on the label.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Garmin 620 - "hidden" features

I've had this watch for close to two years, and just discovered two "new" or "hidden" features.

The coolest one is direction - compass.  If you go into activity settings/data screen settings and start customizing, you can find the option to add direction in the menus.  I won't waste my time trying to describe exactly how to do it, but its there.

Proof:





















And even better, it seems to be accurate, as I was standing facing where the sun rises over my fence.

Speaking of sunrise, another neat feature is sunset/sunrise.  Could definitely be helpful in an overnight/late afternoon running situation.




Enjoy those 8:37 sunsets while they last.


Edit:  I was not wrong.  This feature wasn't in the watch from the initial release.  From digging around on dcrainmaker:



Like the FR610, the FR620 does not contain any form of navigational/course routing.  However, unlike the FR610, it doesn’t contain any ‘back to start’ type functionality that the FR610 had around getting back to the start of you run by providing basic compass style directional navigation.  The FR610 also provided current GPS coordinates, which the FR620 doesn’t provide.  Finally, it provided saved locations.  Which also isn’t available on the FR620.
Garmin has stated that they may look to add back some of these features in a future software update, but that they aren’t going to be available for launch.