Now I've gone through this whole 12 in 12 thang, I'm getting all introspective... As you most probably guessed by my last entry where looking behind me I have gazed at a distant horizon in the future. In doing so, I've been thinking (and yes it does hurt at times) about what I have learned and how things have changed and progressed over the last year. One of the major things has been my running wardrobe.
Plenty of blogs out there will have reviews of products by some lucky beggar who has been comped a freebie piece of kit or clothing and is obliged to put it to the test. I'm not (and never will) be one of those fortunate few, so over the course of the last year I have collected together and refined my personal running wardrobe to something I am happy with in all seasons.
Before I took this malarky seriously, I used to go out in a battered old t-shirt, old footy shorts and footy socks with a heavy cotton drill-top over the tee if it were cold enough to warrant it. Since evolving from the casual jogger to bat-shit crazy runs runner, these have now been jettisoned (although I still love my drill tops - one especially as it is my university football one) and it certainly has been the right decision - it has also meant that not once have I suffered from the dreaded jogger's nipple, which the rubbing of a cotton tee soaked in sweat would in the past give me every now and again, especially in the hot weather!
Some things I wear are a constant, others change. For example the constants are:
Underwear - a pair of cotton briefs worn inside the shorts as I am definitely not Superman.
Lonsdale neoprene support shorts, to hold my ailing groins & hips together.
Umbro football shorts as me in lycra (spandex for you crazy yanks) is far from a welcome sight.
Trekking socks - wicking & quick drying.
As an aside, the 3 pairs of socks I bought for these runs are now wearing out, so I will be looking for something new soon - as always I'll have to give them a try before a proper race!
I have 2 different base-layer tops, one for summer, one for winter. The winter one is a long sleeve thick one in black by Crane and the summer a thinner short sleeve Nike pro-combat in white. The top shirt varies, but either a 'tech' tee or a Farnborough footy shirt... For the tech tees I have tended to wear the white of Endurancelife, for the footy top it has been a 4 season's old FFC top by Lotto, which is a nice snug fit. For future races I suspect I will be mostly wearing one of my my 7x tees or the Reykjavik tee, as I am very proud to be entitled to wear them - like a badge of honour so as to speak :) In the heat of the summer marathons, I have never felt as though I was getting too hot or uncomfortably soggy wearing the two tops, so I suppose the science behind the base-layer theory and the wicking/ cooling theory is a sound one!
For the colder months a jacket is sported over the top of this. I certainly did not regret having one to run and wear in for the sub-zero temp of the Sussex race. In fact I was very impressed that I did not feel cold at any point, despite the driving rain and howling gale! This jacket is a lightweight black Regatta wind & shower proof zip-up with a flap for covering the zip, and for the slightly warmer yet still cold times, there's an ultra lightweight blue Dare2b shower-proof zip-up.
I always tend to run in sunnies, as I hate glare on my eyes. My running sunnies are a pair of wrap-around 'Evolution' ones that I also use for cycling. They are fitted with a light grey lens rather than rose or orange and they come from a local internet-based supplier to me: Sunglasses for Sport. I say local, they're in the next village down the A30!
Headwear tends to be a beany hat if needed for the extreme cold - the only time I kept it on for the vast majority of a race has been Sussex. I have been known to sport a buff around my neck as well - either the Snow+Rock from the XT Duathlon or the Brutal 10k one. In the sun I have been wearing a cycling cap as it is smaller and less obtrusive than a baseball cap plus the visor flips up and down. I trashed my Wessex CTC cap by washing it (the bill snapped inside) so I have replaced it with a bright yellow team 'Meractone Uno' one - the team of the late great Italian cyclist Marco Pantani.
When needed in the cold I sport a thin pair of Karrimor running gloves and a thicker pair for when it is REALLY cold. I don't like wearing too much extra clothing when running as I tend to be able to warm up easily, what with all the pie blubber I carry around on me, so I tend not have a hat, gloves nor buff on unless really necessary as they always seem to end-up in my pockets getting in the way after around 15 minutes of running. As a consequence, when its chilly immediately before a race it is just a case of being 'hard' enough to tough-out the chill until the start.
I suppose I should also mention my Camelbak as technically it is worn! I have abandoned the Vango one I started out with as it was not up-to it with regards to storage. One side-effect of the Camelbak is the waist belt causes my shirts to ride-up, so I have to safety-pin them down so as to not need to pull the tops down to where they should sit, covering my overhang.
Lastly there's the footwear. I have now acquired 3 sets of trail trainers. The first and most lightweight are the Asics ones, which are good for an ordinary dry/ damp trail. The second are an 'intermediate' pair when it comes to the grips - these are made by Karrimor and I have not actually run in these just yet! And the third are the seriously hard-core More Mile trainers which have grips on them the size of some of the hills I run-up. These are cracking for dealing with the hardest of terrain, although very spartan on the old comfort level!
So there you have it, a run-down of my wardrobe from top to bulbous bottom.
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