The End Of Sports Fashion As We Know It

I'm certain there are people who will disagree with me, but in many cases, I believe more textile is not always a good thing. Take triathlon, for instance. The first triathletes competed in little more than a Speedo & an itty bitty singlet, with maybe a pair of high-cut running shorts for the run leg of the event; this might have been because the first really good tri-geeks were swimmers or lifeguards. Then came the first compression wear, an offshoot of cycling shorts. These have been a blessing & a curse. It seems the compressive nylon lycra cycling shorts decreases the amount of muscle vibration on the run, thus decreasing the amount of fatigue & perhaps even thwarts the onset of muscle cramps in the later stages of the run.
But the next thing you know, there are athletes participating in triathlon in full tights, near-full tights, calf sleeves, arm warmers, & so on, & so on. My heavens, whatever happened to the travel light, travel fast dictum? Okay, so the compression wear is light, but it sure as hell doesn't seem all that fast to me. In many cases I'd worry like mad about the chance of heat stroke from all that coverage. I don't care about the fact Paula Radcliffe wears compression stockings when she races marathons; she looks like a dork, or whatever the female version of dork is. FloJo is dead, ladies (& gentlemen); get past it.

But, in much the same way I am with technical stuff - a semi-late adopter - I took the time to try & read some of the research on the benefits & drawbacks of using compression clothing; when, why, how long, & so on. Most of the researchers who have written for triathlon magazines say the jury is still out on the overall benefits, but believe there's a place for compression tops, tights, & stockings in the recovery from hard workout efforts. They don't see much benefit to racing in them, however.

Still, I am a (cheap) skeptic. I almost picked up some 2XU compression wear while at the IM 70.3 expo, but there was still the little bit of sticker shock; what if this stuff was all bupkus? When Sigvaris, an RRCA corporate sponsor, was looking for a population at the recent national convention who would be willing to try a pair of their athletic recovery socks, I figured this would be the perfect time to give stockings a shot. Sigvaris is in the medical compression wear field, but their latest stuff is a far cry from the TED hose or the Jobst stockings I encountered when working at the VA hospital.

First, the stockings I was given for the study are for athletic recovery. They went up to just below the knees & provided anywhere from 20-to-30 millimeters of pressure. But I have to admit the eight hours I spent in the stockings were a fairly comfortable experience. What's more, I didn't feel (too) beat up in the evening, or the next morning when I awakened after the evening's banquetizing & socializing. My right achilles tendon was a two-to-three on a one-to-ten scale of soreness, with ten being "shoot me now." But that's pretty much par for the course, especially the week after riding 56 miles, then running 13.1 miles in succession.

I wasn't looking for miracles from the Sigvaris stockings, so feeling good the next morning was definitely a positive outcome. My response to the use of the stockings seems to align with the referenced studies (Ali, Caine, & Snow, 2007; Engineering of Sport, 2009) on the Sigvaris website (http://www.athleticrecoverysock.com/medicalstudies.php). And naturally, you get what you pay for...as a thank you for participating in the study I'll receive another pair of stockings for personal use.

But don't expect to see me wearing them on the road during one of my long training runs. I'm not ready to become uber-geek. Or would that be uber-dork?

Is It Dark In Here Or Is It Me?

This past weekend was not only an epiphany of sorts about the insanity of excess, but a prelude to moving over to the dark side. I've written in the past about my love/hate relationship with technology; everything from the MP3 player to the heart rate monitor has lasted for an all-too-brief lifespan, mere days beyond the one-year warranty most manufacturers will honor. It's something that keeps me from jumping on the newest bandwagon, whether it's the newest Macintosh/Windows operating system or the smoothest-looking GPS gadget.

It's not just because I'm frugal, but I know the sum-bee is going to DIE AT THE WORST POSSIBLE MOMENT. Like race day.

My Speedo Aquabeat MP3 player decided to act up during the past week. I'm not certain whether it has to do with some of the music files I had becoming corrupted or some of the music files I found which might have had uninvited guests on board. Since I'm a Mac user, most of the viruses (viri?) & malware which malcontents use to terrorize the computing poulace are of little concern. Of course, I loan files to my non-firewall-using PC-owning friends at their own risk. Might have much to do with the recent bad scene. I had to literally reformat the player this weekend, but it seems the same outcome has happened. So, there are probably a handful of bad files on the player.

Then, on Monday, not long after that the strap on my heart rate monitor decided to go toes up. I only use the inexpensive analog strap to communicate with the cardio machines at my local gym, or when I do a spinning class. After inserting a fresh battery I found the same bad thing happening...nothing. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

So, in order to really track all the mileage/yardage I say I do, the efforts I put in, & even have an estimate of where a mile might be on an unfamiliar course, I've stepped over to the dark side. I ordered the Garmin 305XT wrist-mounted GPS, which can be used while swimming. Cool. I'm not so certain how the heart rate strap will work when in water, but that's a different concern altogether.

One of the things which kept me from going to a system like this, where I can track workout data on a PC, was the fact most programs which help determine physiological trends over time were not Macintosh-friendly. I remained a (smug?) Mac afficionado for 15 years, developing the ability to move from Mac to PC with little difficulty. However, in the last year the software I need to develop road race events, triathlons, training schedules & the like have left my G4/OS 10.3.9-equipped Powerbook behind. I thought about moving up to the latest & greatest Mac, even took a good long look at what a local electronics superstore had to offer. My pathological frugality & fear of having the latest/greatest for once in my life made me tell my wife we'd wait a little while longer.

Doggone if my wife didn't have to purchase a laptop for an office intern a couple of weeks later. When the internship ended there was an extra laptop around the office with no real need to keep it. Seemed like a good time to sell the thing off and recoup the expense. Ooh, ooh, pick me...

So as of today I have a new laptop. It doesn't mean the end of the Mac, however. Maybe we'll set it up as a home e-mail/entertainment station so we don't have to mix business with pleasure. I guess I really haven't gone completely over to the dark side. But I'm at the point where it might be good to keep a flashlight handy.

Making Good on Threats

Run races for long enough, & eventually there are several risks which can become clearly apparent:

First, the risk of over-racing.

Second, the risk of over-partying.
Third, the risk of having too many race t-shirts.

The first two can hurt you really good. The third is much less of a physical threat, unless you try to carry out the entire ten-year race shirt stash in one fell swoop. I've talked about over-racing & over-partying in the past, but I don't think I've ever talked about the serious problem of having too many race t-shirts.

The problem is not so much having too many shirts as much as it is having too many plain white, generic-design race shirts. What is it with race directors who think they can get away with a minor - or no - variation of the same race logo every year? (All right, we were guilty of the same thing with our triathlon shirt, but they were colored & it's only the second year for the event.) As you approach the Fourth of July/Independence Day holiday season you can guarantee something that has some cheesy flag motif splashed all over the son of a gun. Death by overdose of red, white & blue...bleah...
Come on, guys. Let's use a little bit of imagination here. It's as bad as sponsoring a womens' exposition & calling it something like Sisters For Life. Sorry, I know my sister would barf at the thought of some of the girly-girl stuff displayed at such a shindig. Even the name would probably send her into an apoplectic fit.

Some of the guys I know who are also race directors would tell me, 'Mike, it costs too much to use a shirt that isn't cotton/white/plain print/(fill in the blank). We would take a major loss.' I've also known races which were awful courses, in awful conditions, during awful times of the year...had great shirts, good post-race parties, and efficient scoring. Now a great shirt might not make up for a crummy race, but the individual participant is more likely to wear the son of a gun out in public. Don't tell me anyone wears those white cotton wife-beaters I've seen given for local summer races.

You can only do two things - perhaps three - with a shirt like that. One is use it for bicycle maintenance. Or you can save them for those foreign mission trips...but then, I can hear the cries of the poor souls out in the mission field: 'what is this!?' So, rather than inflict undue punishment upon some poor souls out in the developing world, I think I'd rather use the plain white shirt as a pallette for the use of my imagination.

We had threatened to do something like this a couple of years ago when we first moved into our house. The pile of plain white cotton race shirts were growing exponentially and the no shirt option had not become popular. I joked about how we needed to do something cool with the shirts...like, say, tie dye them so we could stand to go out in public in a shirt that had a little character.

My wife decided the best way to do something like this was to make it a social thing. She's the kind of person who doesn't mind going out in public in a shirt with character, like a tie-dyed one...but she likes being a trend-(re)setter, too. Give her the chance to start a mini-revolution & she is all over the idea. She wanted to get rid of some of the excess stuff around the house, so it seemed only logical to her to have a yard sale/tie-dye party. She knew she could talk a few of her close friends, as well as my training partner & his wife, into joining in on the fun.

So, we sat out under a canopy in the driveway, basking in the warmth, socializing between customers & turning our excess into eccentricity. Nothing like a little bit of arts & crafts to bring out the inner hippie in everyone...without the threat of upcoming drug testing to dampen our spirits. If you're smart about the process of tie-dyeing, after a little trial and error, you can use the shirt design to your advantage. If it doesn't work, it's not like you have lost anything either...more bike maintenance cloths, right?