Gear Comparison & Review: Hydration Belts

I'm at the point in my training where I need my water with me while I run. Up until now, I've just been stopping by my car or my house to refuel during my long runs. But when the runs get to be over the 10 mile mark, I don't want to run in circles just so I can get to my water. Boooooring. I prefer an out and back long run.

So a couple of weeks ago, I tore my house apart looking for my trusty Fuel Belt. Never did find the damn thing so I knew I needed to take a little trip to my favorite running store, Fleet Feet. I got there with the intention of buying one just like my old one, but as I stood there in front of the hydration belts, I realized that I had many new options to chose from. So I did a quick pros and cons list of the Fuel Belt.

Fuel Belt: I looked on their website to find that they don't even make the kind that I have anymore so I couldn't get a better picture. But you can see it here, without the bottle. It has just one water bottle and one small bottle for a recovery mix. It also has a big zipper pouch behind the bottles.

Here's my breakdown:

Pros:

-Big water bottle means water doesn't get warm so quickly

-Huge zipper pouch means I can carry all my junk-key, pepper spray, Gu, chapstick, cellphone

Cons:

-One big bottle means that the weight is not evenly distributed around my waist.

-Uneven distribution equals bouncing! bouncing! bouncing! and frequent readjustments and all that friction leaves my skin skin raw and sore (that could be 3 cons)

-I don't use the small bottle for anything, so that's wasted space

On to the new belt. With the help of my new friend Eric over at Fleet Feet, I chose the Amphipod RunLite 4 Hydration Belt.

As you can see, the design is very different. It has 4 bottles and one small pouch.

Pros:

-4 bottles mean a more even weight distribution

-The belt is totally adjustable in so many ways. The bottles can move around the belt, come off the belt or lay sideways on the belt. They can even slide off and on, if you prefer fewer or more bottles

-You can also add additional or larger pouches, if more space is needed

Cons:

-The water does get warm pretty quickly

-While the idea of the snap-back-into-place bottles seems great, I could never really get the hang of it. At least half a dozen times, when I thought they had clicked into place, they wound up dropping to the ground.

And that's it. Although I've only used the Amphipod belt once, it is the clear winner. Comfort wins, hands down. It's also convenient and adjustable to meet my needs. Now I just have to remember to freeze my water bottles and practice that clicking motion!

Skirting celebs...

It was a moment of weakness. There I was, standing in the “activewear” section of TJ Maxx, perusing through their measly selection that they call activewear, I mean if it has "spandex" in the material, they automatically throw it in that section. Anyway, I was hoping to score a pair of leggings for cheap, when there it was… a running skirt.

Now, I know… you’re thinking I’ve gone soft on you. I have always been adamantly against the running skirt. My thought process was always… I’m out here to push myself, not to look cute. I even admit to some prejudicial thoughts towards chicks in skirts at races. It’s always an extra incentive for me to school the chicks wearing running skirts.

So, imagine my surprise when not only did I pick up the running skirt… I looked at it, checked out the price ($6.99) and checked the size… Hmmm… “well, I guess I could try it out… especially for 7.00.” I told myself.

Yes, I’ve gone soft. I admit it. But, you see… Chic Runner looks so cute in hers and it doesn’t take away from her hardcore-ness at all! She would kick my ass in a half marathon. And she mentioned how comfortable they were.

So… yes, I bought it. And immediately, I regretted it. Like, seriously… I was in my car thinking to myself.. a skirt??? I’m going to run in a skirt now?? Who am I? But when I got home and tried it on, I thought it looked OK. And it seemed to cover the necessary areas properly.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to yesterday… it was a gorgeous 60+ degrees out and I was just going to do a little recovery jaunt of 3 miles. I thought… hmmm.. perfect opportunity to give the skirt a try. After snapping some pics for the blog… I opted to put on my 26.2 cap, just to make me feel a little more hardcore.

Ready for a night out on the town? Nope, going out for a run... This is when not having roommates is a bad thing... surely to god someone would have said to me.. "ummm..yeah, don't run in that."

From the moment I stepped out of the stairwell and into the garage, I knew I was not a “running skirt” girl. But, despite the urge to run back upstairs and change into regular running shorts, I thought… 3 miles?? I can run in anything for 3 miles. (maybe even a gorilla suit).

What I forgot to mention, dear readers, is that this wasn’t at my usual time of 8am on Sunday morning. Nooooo sir. This was at 4:30pm on a Sunday afternoon. A brilliant Sunday afternoon, where everyone and their brothers were out for a run, a stroll, a burrito, whatever…. So, in my estimation, approximately 782 people saw me in this hideous getup.

I get started and ya know.. the skirt’s fine. I keep expecting it to flop up and expose the little biker shorts that are attached underneath, but it stays down surprisingly well. But, I can honestly tell you… I’ve never felt more ridiculous on a run. Like, seriously.. I’ve ran in some serious fashion disasters… (Orange and red outfits, purple and pink… like, I could seriously care less if I match on runs, etc), but this… this little feminine skirt made me feel like the biggest jackass. I was actually embarrassed while I ran. (Which, in itself is ridiculous, I realize… but I was just so aware of looking like such a lame-o).

I don’t know what the deal is… like, other girls look really cute and hardcore in them, but I don’t know… I don’t think I’m hot enough to carry off the look. The whole thing was a total ego-buster. I was tired and hot and suffocating from exhaust fumes (I’m the biggest baby about that) and plus I looked like an idiot and felt like one, too.

To make matters worse… I had a celebrity sighting on my run. I had to run past Ben Folds and his entourage...

Here's my inner dialogue:

Oh great, a huge group of dudes that I have to run past in this ridiculous skirt.
They better make room for me on the sidewalk… if they don’t, maybe I’ll say something this time.
No, I won’t, I’m just a pansy ass girl in a skirt. I can’t say anything.
Oh good, they’re making room for me…
Oh shit, that’s Ben Folds.
Ughh… I just ran past Ben Folds in a running skirt.

Soo.. yeah, my review is that it’s just as comfortable as a pair of running shorts… but, I just don’t have the moxie to pull it off. So, my $7.00 skirt will be reserved to lounging around the house (it is pretty dang comfy and stretchy).

**************************

Random Nerdy Tid-bit: So, the only redeeming thing about this god-awful run, was that I ALMOST had a “certification” moment. My favorite book of all time… The Moviegoer by Walker Percy is full of lots of awesomeness and I highly recommend you read it, if you haven’t already. (I’ve seriously read it at least 10 times… it’s THAT good.) Anyway… there is this whole thing in the book about certifying your existence in this world… here’s a snippet from the book that kind of explains the notion:

“…nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will lie there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.” – Walker Percy The Moviegoer.

So, yes… it’s kind of a stretch, I realize… but I felt like.. if the ONE Ben Folds (Five) song that I have on my running playlist had been playing the moment I passed by him… that would have been a certification moment. And that would have been a big enough deal to have forgotten about the damn skirt all together. And if you don't buy into the whole Walker Percy business, ya gotta admit... that would have been pretty damn FREAKY.

Product Review: Maximum Greens

Let’s talk a little about vitamins…I go through phases. Sometimes I’ll take a multi-vitamin everyday for like a month… and then I’ll go off them for like 3 months. In general, I think they’re just a bunch of hoo-hah that you just wind up peeing out.

A few weeks ago… my brother (whom I work with) called me into his office. He handed me a plastic bag.

“What’s this?”

“Check it out.”

I opened the bag and pulled out a box of vitamins.

“Vitamins?”

"Not just vitamins, life changing vitamins."

So, my brother heard about these whole foods vitamins on the radio awhile back and went to GNC and bought them. And, apparently they’ve changed his life or some shit. He’s got more energy, is losing weight, is more alert during the day, sleeping better, has a twinkle in his eye, a skip in his step and all that jazz… But… I was skeptical. I mean, it could just be the placebo effect, right?

Enter my real-life Debbie Downer: Jeff.

Jeff is one of my best friends. We met in college and he is the one friend that I talk to everyday. And when I say “talk to,” I mean “argue with”. He is the yin to my yang. We never agree on anything and anytime I’m excited about something… he brings me down and vice versa. It sounds terrible, I realize… but it works. He’s a science dude and in general is skeptical of all the “crazy health/fitness/weight loss ideas” I come up with. But, he’s also self-diagnosed himself with certain vitamin deficiencies and talks about multi-vitamins on occasion. These things… in my eyes, makes him a vitamin/medical expert. So, I sent him the link to the vitamins.

His response was to send me a link to the nutritional information on the same webpage with this note: "Holy SHIT, if the daily value of something is 100%, is it really necessary to have 4000% of something?" (They have over 4000% of your suggested daily intake of B12 among insane amounts of lots of other stuff).

Wah-Wah.

I knew he’d come through with something negative about it.

A couple of days later though… the idea had gotten the best of him and he’d bought the stuff and just like my brother, he was on the maximum greens love wagon.

"Ohhhh... I get up in the morning so much easier... ohhhh... I have so much energy. You should really check these out dude, you're so active that I'm sure they'd work for you."

So, I finally took an excursion to GNC and picked some up. They were 20 bucks for a month's supply. Two enormous horse pills a day.

I haven’t been taking it for very long, so, I hope to be able to update you about how freaking awesome I'm feeling next week... but as of right now, I've only noticed one thing: fluorescent yellow urine. Seriously... it's like I'm peeing lemon-lime Gatorade. (Hopefully that’s not just proving my point of the vitamins actually going down the drain instead of being absorbed into my body).

*** Strangely enough... even though these vitamins have like a bazillion percents of everything you can possibly imagine... it doesn't have 100% of your calcium intake, so if you're a chick like me who has osteoporosis in your family, you need to keep that in mind...

Week One Recap

One down...17 to go! Ain't no thang!

I had a great first week of training with zero slacking. If you know me, you know that zero slacking (when it comes to running) is kind of a big deal. I followed Coach Hal's plan to a T and got in 30 miles for the week, including a hill workout, a pace workout and a 10 mile long run on Saturday. I even did my strength training last week. I am on a roll, baby!

I even forgot my headphones on Saturday so I had to go without my tunes for my long run. I feared it would be a very long run, but actually the time just flew by! It was a nice change of pace (no pun intended) to be more aware of the beautiful and serene environment all around. I like to call it Reflective Running. Quiet and reflective running is also good for eavesdropping on other runners' conversations. That's always interesting.

So while I'm excited about my progress, I can't pretend that I'm not disappointed about not dropping a few pounds (like I'd hoped and expected). I know that I'm building muscle back up and that muscle weighs more than fat, but I've been going pretty strong for a couple of weeks now and the scale hasn't budged. That is so freakin frustrating.

I have this fear that I've reached that age where losing weight is no longer (relatively) easy. You know what I mean? I've always heard that it's harder to lose weight when you get older. So does this mean that I'm at that age?? I'm not sure I can handle that. Can you see that I'm freaking out here?

Maybe I should go on a long, reflective run to calm down...

Product Review: G2 by Gatorade

Allow me to introduce you to my new sports drink of choice:

Gatorade G2. In Orange flavor, preferably (I had to drink the grape flavor in the Eugene Marathon, and it worked alright, but it's no artificial orange flavor, I tell ya).

Sure, I was put off by the hype, too. Especially those commercials where the grass was following Derek Jeter as he walked and sipped. Ugggh. Anything with Derek Jeter in it turns me off. Oh, and the general gatorade commercials, where they've got beloved Keith Jackson talking about the origins of gatorade. Please. That's the LAST thing that makes me want to drink gatorade. Knowing that it was originally made for the Florida Gators. Blech. (Although, I must admit... if my alma mater had discovered it would be called Cockade... and I'm not quite sure that would have caught on.)

Okay, digressing... I didn't want to like the watered down, splenda infused sports drink. I really didn't. I mean, I know that drinking some type of sports drink is good for profuse sweaters like myself (yes, I'm one of those runners that end up with the white, gritty face mask after a long run). But... I bought some on a whim awhile back and I kinda fell in love with it. A bottle sat in my fridge for about 2 weeks until one day... while on a long run, I encountered a can of sunkist lying on the side of the road. I immediately started thinking about how yummy an orange soda would be. For the rest of the run, I fantasized about drinking an orange soda. When I got home and realized that I didn't have any orange soda... I remembered that I did have that bottle of orange G2 I had bought awhile back. I opened it, expecting not to like it... but, I loved it! It's not something that I want to drink more than 3-4 gulps of at a time, but it refreshing and remarkably thirst quenching. I always have a bottle in my fridge and love taking a big ole gulp after these steamy, summer runs.

Besides Running...

It's been raining for a week straight in Tennessee, which definitely makes for difficult running. I decided last night that I'm going to start looking out for good deals on treadmills for days like these.

I got a new pilates dvd when Amy and I were out shopping last weekend and I really like it. It's from Stott Pilates and is really similar to the Gaiam dvds' I've tried. I have a few yoga dvds made by Gaiam and have always enjoyed the calm, peaceful, mellow vibe. Sure, it is yoga so that's kinda the point, but the pilates one is very similar. It focuses on breathing, relaxing and focusing on the muscles at work. My Denise Austin pilates dvd gives an excellent workout, but her voice and super happy attitude can get a teensy bit annoying after awhile. It's nice to mix it up a bit. So since it's been raining a lot this week, I've tried to get back into my strength and cross training routines. I've done pilates a couple of times, did some weight and resistance training last night and this morning I got up and put in our Billy Blank's Bootcamp DVD. Man, that dude is crazy nuts. Just look at him. Look at those outfits. Look at those muscles. Dang, he's the real deal, hardcore.

I pretty much suck at boxing-type stuff. I don't think I was ever rotating the correct hip or leg or whatever while punching. I mean, I consider myself fairly coordinated, but this takes some practice...or maybe boxing experience.

I hung with Billy for about 25 minutes and then decided to go out for some sprints in the rain. It was a nice cool down and a good way to end the workout. Hopefully the rain will hold off for a bit this afternoon because I'd like to get a nice and easy 6 miler in. And then the weekend plan is to run 5 or 6 on Saturday and 9 on Sunday. Weather man says no rain over the weekend, but you know how much we trust the weathermen...

Have a great weekend!!

The Dangers and Oddity of Core Ball

For the past couple of years (maybe more?) the core ball has been pretty hot in the fitness world. I've always been into trying the new stuff like that, just so I know what all the hype is about. Plus it's good to mix things up sometimes because boredom is definitely a factor when it comes to workouts. So-that being said-it's not really characteristic of me to have not taken a core ball class or bought the ball and a DVD to try at home. I've done some crunches on the ball at the gym, but I knew that there were a whole lot of other cool things that could be done.

Well, a few months ago, I saw this at Costco:

This "Complete Collection" contains a core ball, 3 DVDs, a book, a resistance band, a web to go around the ball and a set of strength bands! And all of it was only $25!! So of course I had to buy it! The only thing it didn't have was an air pump, which was why I never opened the box until now.

This week, I've tried out two of the DVDs-one using the web and the other using the resistance bands. I have to say that a lot of the moves really crack me up. See, they like to alternate between strength exercises and cardio...and I don't really care to do the cardio because I obviously get that from running. But the cardio part is what is so funny...cause, I mean, bouncing up and down while sitting on the ball and clapping overhead is just silly. Greg apparently thought so too, since he busted out laughing when he saw me doing it. But you know...I guess everyone has to start somewhere, right? Maybe bouncing and clapping is a good place to start.

The strength training part was really good and challenging and I felt pretty sore after the workouts. There are tons of ways to use the ball and many of them require a little practice and experience, or else you run the risk of serious injury. I can tell you this from experience.

Balance is really key with a lot of the moves, and apparently I don't have any, because I crashed onto the floor-numerous times-while attempting moves. Plus, the ball has a way of flinging you out, so there's a chance that you'll fly into furniture or whatever else is in the room. So it may be best to do the core ball workouts in a completely empty warehouse with a soft foam floor.

You can also use put the ball against a wall and then lean on it to do some squat moves. However, I recommend using a wall that doesn't move! See, I've been working out in the guest room, which also contains boxes not yet unpacked from the move. And well, there isn't an empty wall in that room, unless you count the sliding closet doors. I was a little weary of that spot, but I went ahead and cautiously tried a couple ups and downs...successfully. The doors didn't hold me for long because on my 4th squat, the door came off the track and I flew backwards into the closet. I'm sure it would have been absolutely hilarious to watch, but I sure wasn't laughing.

Another thing about the set is that it comes from Australia...so the instructors are all Australian. It's fun to listen to their accents, but sometimes the people really weird me out. They have creepy smiles on their faces all the time and they say things in a very monotone way. I understand that they are supposed to be upbeat and positive so that people are motivated, but who smiles while doing crunches?? Really!

The book also illustrates my case...the book is about 150 pages long and I'd say that there is at least one photo on every page, showing how to do the moves...and in every single picture, the instructors are grinning. Take a look at these very bad and blurry pictures...

Is it just me, or is this really bizarre? I think they are really robots.

2007

There is a running blog that I read pretty regularly called Boston Dreams and Michelin Stars. One of my favorite parts of the blog is his monthly recap of running, racing and cross-training. Seems like a fun idea...to take a sort of inventory...so get excited...I've decided to post my own numbers for 2007!!
But first a quick recap of the year:

The Good Stuff
*Running my first marathon and realizing that I'd been bitten by the bug! It's a good addiction to have...
*Running over 15 local races of all different lengths...5ks to Half-marathons...and since this was my first time to run most of these distances, I got tons of PRs! Isn't it great how that works?
*Got to long-distance/virtually/E-train with my best friend through blogging, running logs and email encouragements!
*Built up quite a nice running wardrobe. Who says you can't be fashionable while running?
*Getting my Polar running computer...love it!
*Experiencing the camaraderie between runners.

Blah
*Tore the ligaments around my ankle, sidelining me for a good 2.5 months. At least it was a football injury...that's kind of cool, I guess...unless you hear the specific details, but we won't go into that...I'll just remain cool in your mind.
*Thinking that I was going to die for the first 10 miles of the Frostbite Half-Marathon. Really.
*Not hitting the 1,000 mile point due to injury (but not due to all the days of slacking).

And now for 2007 by the numbers:
Total Miles: 925
Hours of Weights: 14
Hours of Abwork: 10
Hours of Pilate's: 14
Hours of Spinning: 10
Hours on the Elliptical: 7
Hours in the Pool: 1.5 (this is very sad)

So I feel like that's pretty good. My 2008 resolutions are to do more strength training and Pilate's as well as hill work, tempo and interval runs. And since Hal's advanced training plan incorporates hill work, tempo and interval runs, I think I just might get it done.

Training officially began on Monday and so far so good...my ankle is feeling alright and I'm set to hit the hills this afternoon! Woop Woop!

Week 4: Review

So, today officially marks 4 weeks of my marathon training. I'm feeling strong and healthy. And while I didn't get a lot of long run mileage in this first month, I feel like I did a good job basebuilding, which will hopefully payoff by not having any injury problems as I start increasing my mileage.

A review:
Total Mileage: 125.41 miles
Average Weekly Mileage: 31.35 miles per week
Longest Run: 10 miles
Shortest Run: 2.2 miles (ugghh that monday afternoon run tainted my stats!)
Rest Days: 6
Most MPW: 34
Pounds Lost: 10.5 (woo hoo!)
Races: 1 - 4 mile run.

Nutrition-wise, I'm feel like I'm doing a great job, too! I'm not super strict with my diet, I pretty much eat what I want to want, but I make sure that I still keep my daily calories in check. And I make smarter choices about my diet. I'm also taking care of my body with getting 7-8 hours of sleep most nights.

The next month Goals:
Get up to a 16 mile long run.
Average mid-30 mpws.
Race More.
Lose 5-7 more pounds.