Guest Post: Mr. Neon’s Favourite Everyday Running Kit

When Neon asked me to write a guest post about my favourite piece of running kit, I thought that it was going to be a difficult task.  I really thought I would have to break down the pros and cons of each of my pieces of kit and that it would be a close run thing.  It isn’t however.

My favourite piece of kit is not my most glamorous or expensive (my Garmin).  It is not the most fundamental (my shoes), nor does it make a fashion statement about who I am (my shorts, tights or tops).

My favourite piece of kit is, I believe, the cheapest piece of running kit I own – and it is this:

Unlike Neon, my feet and legs are really not designed for running.  Given that I don’t think they are designed for swimming or cycling either – I’m hoping to eventually discover what my body is actually designed for.  At the moment I suspect it might be lazing on the couch.  But I digress.

I’ve tried all manner of solutions for a particular malady that I am struck with while running anything beyond 5km, blistering.  I’ve tried messing with my shoelaces, changing shoes, band-aids, Vaseline, wearing multiple pairs of socks – all with no success.  I wore Hilly Twin-Skins for the first time at the Edinburgh Marathon in 2012 though, and while I wasn’t blister less (which will never happen), I was far better off than I could have imagined.  The padding built into the heel, toes and just above the arch provides an extra layer of comfort that regular socks don’t have.  This padding also shifts with your foot, reducing any friction within the shoe and thus – the opportunity for blisters to form.

I’ve run with Hilly Twin-Skins in the rain with the same success, however I would recommend that in extreme situations like these that you double up your preventative measures (ie. Use some Vaseline as well).  I do this when running longer than 21km or so, as I find that at those distances I need the extra help.

For all of the focus on expensive GPS kit, shoes made of space-age fibres and technical tops that simultaneously measure your heart rate while analysing your blood for irregularities (this doesn’t exist. Yet.) it is reassuring to know that the most effective piece of kit is often the simplest.

Project Vienna Long Run Week 3

Most of the time I really like running along the Thames path.  Today, the uneven ground really hurt my foot – or, more likely, aggravated a foot-pain that started on my way to the river.  But, aside from that the run was pretty good.

Honestly, I should have  run the whole thing a fair bit slower than I did.  I used to do long-runs at 7:30 pace, and – as you’ll see – was a bit faster than that, particularly at the back half of the run.

The biggest negatives of today were the foot pain and that in the end I was really struggling to breathe.  I did push a bit harder than I should have because I just wanted to get home.

The biggest positive was hugging a giant, fluffy, blue octopus.  I wish I had got a photo!

Intended: 11-12km

Actual: 11.88km @ 6:17 min/km.

Addendum: Many years ago, in the folly of my youth, when Mr. Neon and I had only first started living together he used to run.  At the time I thought he ran a lot, but with the wisdom of time I realise he ran a perfectly acceptable amount.  The biggest thing that I found odd was that he would always complain of foot pain.  It got so bad at one point that he went to see a podiatrist, who wrapped both his feet in tape.  One terrible allergic reaction later, and poor Mr. Neon-to-be ended up spending three days sitting on the couch with his feet in a bucket of calamine lotion.

The thing that strikes me about today’s run and this story was the foot pain.  I often wondered why he didn’t just come home, why struggle though kilometers and kilometers of foot pain?  But, today, I did just that.  I was well within walking distance when the first twinge in my foot occurred.  After a brief self-assessment of the type of pain I was feeling (i.e. is this a pain that should make me stop or not?) I made the decision to keep going, even though I would likely be in pain at least on-and-off during the run.  Not without coincidence I also was listening to a book by Ed Ayers (who was, among other things, the founding editor of Running Times) called The Longest Race: A Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance.  A section that came up on my way down the Thames Path was about the oft-cited runners’ mantra ‘listen to your body.’  I think it’s really important for that to be in the forefront of every runner’s mind – if you hurt, it might not necessarily mean that you need to stop, but if you start thinking you can run though any pain then you are running headfirst into trouble (bad pun intended.)

Another thing I want to briefly comment on is the listening.  Today’s run was a bit of an experiment to listen to an audio book rather than music.  Music is great, and I will still listen to music, but I thought it might be nice to try the audio book out on my longer runs.  I have a tendency to ignore what’s going on around me, and what’s going on inside me, when I start getting into the music.  That’s partly what turned Thursday’s 6-8km tempo run into a 5km time-trial. So far, so good, on the book front.  Although, I might try something more melodic next time – maybe Homer’s Iliad.