Gear

Winter Wish List Rehash

I guess it’s technically spring, although the weather in Duluth has been decidedly un-springlike. While outsiders all know the winters here are harsh, most people don’t know the springs are depressing. It sometimes feels like it’ll never get warm. I looked at the extended forecast and see one mild day (tomorrow) followed by highs in the low 40s to high 30s going all the way into April.

Anyway, I felt like whining a bit about the weather because it’s cold and my cold has come back again. Wahhhhh.

In December I came up with a gear wish list for cold weather, similar to the one I did for summer last year. In September I looked back at the summer list and evaluated what I’d acquired and what I hadn’t.

My cold weather gear wish list was as follows:

High Priority:
A new pair of gloves nope
Heavier-weight running tights nope
Head lamp yup
Superior Hiking Trail Membership yup
Upper Midwest Trail Runners Membership yup

Medium Priority:
A new sports bra nope
New hose for my hydration backpack nope
A heavyweight running hoodie yup

Low priority:
Another pair of shoes nope
New socks nope

I didn’t spend a lot of money on running stuff, which is a good thing! Especially since I had to spend a ton of money on other stuff. I got a headlamp, which I love, and I also got a reflective vest, which is not on the list but is a good safety item to have. I spent a decent amount of time running outside since it wasn’t absolute zero outside for weeks on end, and I felt a lot safer running at night with the headlamp and vest.

For Christmas, I got the medium weight Bulldog hoodie I talked about in the initial wish list post. I like it but it’s not really that warm. I ended up running with like four shirts on. I really did need to get new gloves and I didn’t. I’ve had a few instances where my hands have gotten extremely cold and a heavier-weight glove would have taken care of that.

I haven’t used my hydration backpack at all so there was no need to get a hose. I wanted to get new shoes and just… didn’t. I might get new shoes after Zumbro. Maybe. I ended up just wearing regular old socks all winter and my feet never got cold. I suffered through with the same old crappy sports bras I’ve always had, and I just wore tights over other tights instead of getting tights with a lining or long underwear or something. Next winter I really need some more advanced gear. I was getting sick of wearing so many layers.

I joined the UMTR and Superior Hiking Trail. So far I haven’t done anything with the memberships. I did get a sweet buff from UMTR that I wear all the time. I wore it at the airport, which was a mistake, because I ended up getting a pat-down from security. The UMTR has a set of race series that provides friendly competition throughout the year. I joined the Trail Run Series since it fits in with most of the races I have planned. The only outlier is the Wild Duluth 50K, which actually isn’t on any of the Series.

I didn’t do a winter running “bucket list” like I did for the summer, because I didn’t know what would be accessible and what wouldn’t be. I’m really looking forward to ticking off some items on this summer’s list. I’m really looking forward to it being warm enough to run without layers and without feeling chilled to the bone afterward. Maybe in May…

Cold Weather Gear Wish List

I’ve been getting outside to run on the weekends, but stuck inside during the week. I’ve noticed a couple things: first, it’s cold, and second, the treadmill is really rough on me. I need cold weather gear that will help me get outside during the week, and will keep me comfortable once it starts to get REALLY cold. While the 20s and teens might feel frigid right now, they’ll feel balmy in a month or so.

The next 2 weeks are going to be light on running as my semester winds down. I am digging in on the final touches of my capstone project, and running is going to take a backseat.

High Priority:
A new pair of gloves
Heavier-weight running tights
Head lamp
Superior Hiking Trail Membership
Upper Midwest Trail Runners Membership

I need a headlamp ASAP. I looked a bit on Black Friday but didn’t buy anything, so I need to get on that like, this weekend. For the gloves, I really need is a glove-mitten hybrid, but with fingerless gloves. I want the extra warmth a mitten provides, but I need dexterity to open up food on long runs. I don’t know if such an item exists. I’ll report back. My current running tights aren’t warm enough, and I end up with frigid thighs. I need some new tights, or a super slim pair of long underwear, otherwise I’m going to be rocking the shorts-over-tights look again.

The two memberships are important because I need to stop being such a lone wolf. I need to give back to the trails I’m beating up with my feet, and I need to meet some other runners and be more social.

Medium Priority:
A new sports bra
New hose for my hydration backpack
A heavyweight running hoodie

I didn’t use my hydration backpack in the summer because I used handhelds, but in the winter I will use it because I also cross-country ski, and one cannot use hand-held water bottles and cross country ski. It just won’t work. I’m still in search of a sports bra model that I like, so I’d like to pick up another one and continue the search while cutting down on laundry.

The running hoodie might be medium-priority, but I’ve already got one picked out. I’m getting this lovely maroon one from UMD Stores for myself once I accept a job offer. Whenever that might be. Although I need to make sure it has secure pockets. If not, I need to find a hoodie with zippered pockets.

Low priority:
Another pair of shoes
New socks

I have a coupon for shoes, so even though this is low priority, I’ll probably use it. I want to try some true trail shoes. And I guess I want to try out some different types of socks to see what works best for me in winter.

You can see my summer gear wish list here, and note that some items are on both. A headlamp for all seasons, please!

Summer Wish Lists

Months ago I planned a gear wish list and a State Park run wish list. Summer’s over, both meteorologically and astronomically, so I’m evaluating what I thought I wanted/needed and where I thought I’d go against what I actually acquired and achieved.

My gear wish list:
High priority
2 new sports bras I got one, which I like ok.
Head lamp I didn’t get a head lamp and just borrowed one for the solstice hike, but I didn’t need one anyway.
Handheld water bottle I got two during a sale and I use them all the time.

Medium priority:
New hose for my hydration backpack I haven’t touched my hydration pack all summer so there was no need to get this yet.
Second pair of running shoes Not in the budget.
Running shorts that actually work for me I have three pairs, and like two of them.
Body Glide Purchased and repurchased.

Low priority:
New hydration backpack Nope.

I am actually surprised at how I did. I thought I had more gear on the list than it turned out. I still think I need a better hydration pack for longer runs, but it can wait. The handhelds are nice and I got a great deal on them. Shorts are great, I like them a lot better than capris. Body Glide works, though it’s not as slippery as I thought. This is the only way capris are superior to shorts – less friction. My shoes are going to be cooked by the time I’m done with my goal race, so I’m thinking rotating through two pairs will be my SOP going forward.

My State Park trails list
Banning No
Jay Cooke Yes
Gooseberry Falls Yes, just in the nick of time
Split Rock Lighthouse Yes
Tettegouche Yes, kind of
George Crosby Manitou No
Temperance River No
Cascade River No
Grand Portage No
Soudan Underground Mine No
Itasca (maybe) No
Lake Bemidji (maybe) No

So I didn’t do very well there. Once I signed up for the Harder ‘N Hell Half, I felt like I needed to spend my time on those trails, learning the course. I might go to Lake Itasca in a couple weeks, but not to run, so it doesn’t count.

I’ll have a similar gear wish list for fall, and maybe some more generic running goals. At some point, listing off state parks is going to get old.

The Trouble With Strava

I joined Strava last week, in order to connect with women I know from an online community, and I kind of regret it.

Strava was clearly created with competitive runners in mind. The ones who size each other up at the starting line, who take photos of their feet on their treadmills or their running watches in order to “prove” their best workouts while conveniently leaving out the struggles, who speed up when passed during a training run but slow down later on, who go on every Runner’s World forum thread and make snide comments about people who dare to run marathons against their sage advice (which they don’t follow themselves). There are a lot of really great, fun, inclusive runners out there, but yeesh, there are a lot of smug jerks.

Strava is all about comparing yourself to others. When I click on someone’s profile, it immediately gives me a comparison to that person, pitting my PRs, training times, training miles, YTD miles, everything up against that person. I always lose (except I always win in the “average time/week” category because I am so slow), which is fine, but I don’t see the point of such an in-your-face comparison. It also shows how many people I pass during runs. I don’t actually pass people; I am sometimes overtaken, and I guess I go by people heading in the opposite direction, and walkers, but I’m not passing other runners. Again, I don’t have a problem with this. It just confirms this app was not designed for people like me.

I am the slowest person in my group, too. By a lot. Last week my average pace according to Strava was 16:24 (it eliminates times when I’m not moving so it gives a slightly different pace than other apps), and the next closest person was a minute and a half faster, and the next closest person was 4.5 minutes faster. The average pace of the fastest woman in the group was 9 minutes faster than mine. 9 minutes! I can’t even run a mile in 9 minutes! I don’t think. Maybe one single mile. I am out of my depth! But still #1 in total running time! Go me! I wonder what the fast woman thinks about having someone like me in the group. She probably doesn’t think about it at all.

I’m not quitting the app or anything, and I’m sticking with the group (getting and giving kudos is kind of nice), but I would not recommend it for a runner who prefers to run their own race, rather than getting caught up in how they compare to others.

New Shoes: Mizuno Wave Prophecy 4

I am loath to give free advertising to a product, but I guess since we all do it inadvertently on social media by talking about movies we like, music we listen to, hobbies, food, etc., it doesn’t really matter if I post about some shoes.

This spring, I wrote about problems with my shoes. A reader recommended I contact the manufacturer, Mizuno, to see what they could do, and it turned out the shoes were under warranty. After I got the return approved, I finally got around to mailing them back in. I don’t know why going to the post office is something I put off the way most people put off the dentist, but it is.

I was given a choice of color for the Wave Prophecy 4s (I got such a great deal on the 3s because they were closing out the model, so they didn’t have them in stock), so I chose these:

When I got them, they looked like this:

IMG_20150608_201519260

So, they’re a bit brighter than I thought. I expected more of a minty green. I like them, but I prefer the color in the photo.

When I first started running in them a few weeks ago, my feet cramped a bit during the first few miles, especially on softer trails. Pain like that led me to use inserts in my shoes before, but I knew I’d run in a similar model of shoe without this pain, so I decided to run through it until the shoes were broken in more, and I don’t have the foot pain anymore.

These shoes are really heavy. They weigh 10.2 oz, making them Mizuno’s heaviest shoe (they actually have a shoe that only weighs 2.2 oz. I can’t even fathom that. It would be like wearing a flip-flop.) It doesn’t feel like I’m clomping around with cement shoes or anything like that, but when I switched over from my old shoes, I noticed a difference at first. The extra weight is from the cushion and the shock-absorbing sole. They really do absorb the pounding of the pavement nicely. Sometimes clods of mud or other debris get stuck in the shock-absorbing bottom of the shoe and rattle around a bit, but I have also noticed my feet don’t get as wet or as cold because the bottom of my foot isn’t actually touching the ground.

I don’t have any unusual fit issues with shoes, like extremely high arches, or an uncommon width. I haven’t had my gait analyzed or a professional shoe fitting (I chose these shoes originally because I wanted to see what a $200 shoe felt like, and they were on sale for like $80), so maybe I am completely unaware of some huge issue with the fit of my shoe. That makes this shoe review fairly useless, because I can’t say “Well the toe box is [wide/narrow/long/whatever] and the shoe is totally different from the previous model!” I don’t know, it’s a shoe. There are all these reviews on the shoe’s page where the reviewer said they loved the Prophecy 1 and 2, but the 3 sucked, and now the 4 is great! I don’t really get it. I had a durability issue with the 3, but I don’t notice that the 4 feels any different than the 3. Of course, I didn’t use the shoes back to back and analyze every step.

I am spoiling myself (specifically my feet, shins, and knee) with these shoes, because they are not worth the price to me at this point, but for someone with injury issues, they could definitely be worth the price, because they really do absorb a lot of the pounding that one’s body normally does during running. And I don’t know, maybe the “insulating” effect they have in the winter will make them worth my money sooner rather than later.

Hand Held Test Drive

I fulfilled one of the items on my summer gear wish list by purchasing a couple of hand-held water bottles.

I bought two UltrAspire hand-held water bottles from the Trail and Ultra Running store at a nice discount. They are having a blowout sale (I think they are shutting down the store and focusing more on content, but I’m not sure) so I bought two of these 20 oz hand-held water bottles for $7.00 apiece + shipping. I did absolutely zero research. They’re sold out now, probably thanks to their regram of my pic. I’m an influencer!

I took one of the bottles out for a test drive yesterday evening. I was running 6 trail miles, which I have done without a water bottle plenty of times, but I wanted to see how I liked it before hauling it along on some grueling 20 miler. (I don’t have any grueling 20 milers on my training calendar at the moment, but they’ll come.) I also was feeling pretty low on energy as my allergies have been bothering me, and I was so tired on Tuesday that I went home and took a nap after work.

I took a full water bottle (which had been sitting full in the fridge since Sunday, since I thought I’d be running Monday… nope… Tuesday… nope) and decided I wouldn’t drink anything til I was three miles in, just so I wouldn’t get sloshy. I didn’t really feel the extra weight, or at least I don’t think I did. I was running incredibly slowly and not even sweating much or feeling out of breath; I couldn’t find a higher mental gear. After the third mile, I took a couple sips of water and it perked me right up again and I was able to start really running and finish strong, sipping every mile or so.

Next time, I won’t run with a full water bottle if I’m going on a medium-length run. I’m not looking at using it for full-on hydration, just to keep my mouth from getting dry. While it wasn’t super heavy, there’s no reason to carry 20 oz of water when I’m going to drink less than 10 during the run itself. On a hotter day I would of course carry more, so I could use it to keep cool.

So hey, after one use, I’m a believer. I could stuff my car keys in the little front pocket (they are on a carabiner so I clipped that to a little loop on the pocket for extra security), and I could easily stuff a snack in there too. I noticed a few drips leaking during the run, so I tightened the lid again and I think that fixed it. I hope. It wasn’t a bad leak, but I don’t want a leak at all.

On a long run or during a trail race, I could bring both and even fill one with some kind of fancy expensive sports drink and one with water, and maybe I could leave the hydration pack at home. I will have to try a two-fisted run one of these days, just to see what it feels like. Maybe on a hot day when I could try out the water/sports drink combo and hopefully not look too dorky carrying two hand held water bottles.

I wouldn’t bring it on a 5K or a race where I really needed to run fast. I think it would be more of an annoyance there. I might bring it to my 5 mile race, I might not. I think it’ll depend on how hot it is and how confident I am that I can run hard for 5 miles without dying. Right now I’m not sure.

Summer Gear Wish List

I’m trying not to go overboard on gadgets and gear and trying to stick to what I need to improve and accomplish my goals, but I’ve let some of my wants go by the wayside lately and now this list is getting a little long.

High priority:
2 new sports bras
Head lamp
Handheld water bottle

I must purchase the head lamp in the next couple weeks, in order to have it in time for my solstice plans. The hand-held is something I could probably get away with avoiding forever, but I need to get used to it, I need an easy spot to put my keys, and it’s going to get warm soon (I hope) so I’ll need water/whatever on longer runs for safety’s sake. I got tired of hauling my Powerade out of my hydration backpack on my last long trail run.

My favorite sports bra is falling apart, and the one I bought to replace it is terrible. I’m eventually going to do a review on it because it is so bad in so many ways.

Medium priority:
New hose for my hydration backpack
Second pair of running shoes
Running shorts that actually work for me
Body Glide

Obviously the Body Glide and the shorts go hand in hand. I don’t run in shorts currently because I’m always finding them riding up, bunching up, and causing all kinds of discomfort. I want to find a pair of shorts that I like. They must stay in place and not cause chafing. I will stick to capris and full-length tights if I can’t find a pair of shorts that I don’t have to constantly keep digging out of my crotch. Too much information, I know, but sorry. My thighs touch and probably always will, they make shorts a problem. Hence the Body Glide.

I would like a second pair of running shoes for a couple of reasons. First, because people say it’s a good thing to alternate shoes (prevents injury or something), and while that might be shoe manufacturer propaganda, I’ve bought into it, I guess. Second, because it gives me an option if my shoes are wet or muddy from the previous day’s run. Third, because I am still trying out options for shoes and want to see what’s right for me. Fourth, because I might want to swap them out during a race or super long training run if I’m having problems or my feet are soaked or something. Fifth, because I won’t have to break in new shoes as quickly, and I won’t have to run in crappy worn out shoes while I’m breaking the shoes in, as long as I space out my new shoe purchases.

Too many gross things have happened to the hose and mouthpiece to my hydration backpack for me to ever feel like it’s truly clean, which is one of the top reasons I don’t actually fill the bladder in it. The other reason is I need to clean the bladder. Nothing gross happened to that, it just has the usual deposits left behind by water.

Low priority:
New hydration backpack

I don’t really need a new hydration backpack, the one I currently have is adequate, but the newer ones are so convenient! Mine has one big pocket and no storage in the straps, so I can’t get easy access to anything, I have to take the pack off to reach the pocket. I’d like something that I can use more efficiently.

This is an annoying amount of stuff, and doesn’t include a list of stuff I need for fall as I start mapping out my fall races. The good news is I’m entering my final 6 months as a student, and I’ll only be part-time this fall and thus working more, so my finances should open up a bit. The bad news is I still don’t want to be a conspicuous consumer of a wasteful amount of running products. (Owning 2 hydration backpacks is probably conspicuous consumption.)

My goal is to be thoughtful and patient about purchasing new running stuff. Except about socks, I don’t need to think too hard about buying extra socks. But beyond socks, I shouldn’t be buying running stuff just to buy it, I should be buying gear that lasts a long time and serves a true purpose, and I should put some research into what I’m getting. Now, off to Google “best headlamps for running.”