Category: Gear

I’ve just spent some money on some Runderwear – perhaps it’s to try to get them to stop bombarding me with adverts, I don’t know!

Anyway, I decided I would try their original running pants and a pair of socks.  Socks have been causing me some worry – I used always liked the Lidl / Aldi running socks but in recent years they have stopped selling the nice ones and the new ones feel far more synthetic.  The “feel” of the socks is not nearly as pleasant as it used to be.

So, enter Runderwear.  Their socks feel much nicer to the touch, although they are a little thicker than I am used to.  Maybe that will cushion my feet somewhat, although I am a little worried about how they will fit in my shoe.

The pants are very synthetic feeling; very stretchy and very soft. 

So, I’ll be wearing these tomorrow on my LSR, and will see how they feel.

My old shoes have clocked up pretty close to 400 miles, so it’s definitely time to be replacing them.

I’ve been pretty much solidly an Asics man for shoes since I bought my first pair of GT-2100s. I guess I’m just a creature of habit, but I’ve never had any reason to change.

So, to replace my Asics Gel Kayano model 23 from last year, I’ve excitingly gone for Asics Gel Kayano 24s… Who says I’m not original?

Hopefully they will last me through the marathon and beyond.

I’ve not been posting in here much recently, but I have been keeping up with some running.  Normally only a couple of runs a week, but enough to keep my legs turning over.

The varying weather conditions have been making me think about what I will need for the winter, however, and I have built up a little bit of a shopping list.  Specifically, I think I am going to be looking for:

• New shoes.  Strava tells me that my current shoes have done just over 300 miles, plus there will be some treadmill running it doesn’t know about.  So new shoes some time over the marathon training programme will be needed
• An running belt – both the SPI Belt and the Flipbelt seem to get great reviews on reddit, I’m not sure which to go for.
• A bluetooth heart rate monitor.  My Apple watch is okay, but I’ve done a couple of cmparisons which prove that the heart rate data from the Apple Watch is really not terribly good.  And given that I am trying to use heart rate as a major component of my running, I need a heart rate monitor I can trust.  I do, of course, have the option of using my older Garmin, but that goes back to wearing two watches.  And getting away from that was why I went for the Apple Watch in the first place!  Something like this Wahoo TICKR monitor might be the right thing, though it is quite a low priority.
• A pair of warm thermal running leggings.  I do wonder about the compression ones, but they do seem awfully expensive.  And I might need another pair of “normal” running tights too
• Possibly another running jacket – it’s frequently wet here in Scotland and my one jacket may not be able to be washed and dried in time for use

Running is supposed to be a cheap hobby – but I seem to be able to find lots to spend my money on…

I was thinking about the training plan for the marathon, and realised that it called for me to be out running on Wednesday evenings.  I plan to take in a hill on that run, and the road back home from that hill is not illuminated.

So, I started looking around for reflective running clothing.  I struggled to find what I want, but was inspired by an advert from the SportPursuit flash sale site.   It was offering Craft Sportswear reflective running tights.

Sadly they didn’t have my size, but I was able to find them on Amazon.  In normal use, they don’t look anything special, but when you shine a light on them…