Naked As A Jaybird

I haven't been sleeping well lately; or sometimes not at all.  Not that this is any surprise or even unusual.  I don't think that I've ever slept well.  Could be the allergies.  Could be the stress of the job.  Could be the 5 trillion milligrams of caffeine that is in the OxyElite Pro that I've started taking again.  But that is a whole other post for another time.

5 trillion milligrams is 2,204,622.622 lbs or 1,000 tons.  That is a lot of caffeine.

Regardless, my insomnia has had some benefits; namely being able to research running gear in privacy while the rest of the house sleeps.  I don't care what they say, silence is golden.

With the KDF Marathon rushing toward me, and a bit of doubt having wormed its way into my head, I began brainstorming ways of making my run more comfortable.  Awesome Under Armour running shorts: check.  Balega socks: check.  Brooks Addiction 10s: check (which incidentally have become much more comfortable since the 20 miler I ran wearing them for the first time).  Bodyglide: Check.  Hydration and fuel: um, yeah.  The hydration belt.  That could use some tweaking.

On long runs I carry a lot of gear.  A lot of gear.  In addition to the four eight ounce bottles of liquid on my Amphipod Runlite 4 hydration belt (I love my Amphipod belt), I also carry my gels, my chews, my iPhone, and my handgun.  Yes, I said handgun.  All of those items combined add an extra four to five pounds to my waist.  That may not seem like a lot, but over distance it can become a nuisance; the weight of the belt slipping down my hips as I run.  Plus I often place the headphone wire from my iPhone under my shirt so that it isn't in the way of swinging arms, etc.  There is a comfort issue there as well, as the wire eventually becomes sweaty and begins to pull and twist and seemingly take on a life of its own.  There have been times when I'm certain that the iPhone has come alive and has attempted to strangle me by wrapping the headphone wire around my neck.  Stupid Skynet.  Anyway, I've also been through three or four pair of Apple headphones because they do not hold up well with sweat.  So with hours of quiet time, I turned to the internet to begin solving my gear issue.

Winner!  Armpocket Aero i-10!

Two very important lessons that I have learned in my lifetime have been 1) travel light and 2) load balance.  Those two things have serious relevance when related to running.  My primary concern was getting what weight that I could off of the belt, and so I turned my focus first toward the iPhone.  The most logical choice was an armband, but which one?  The trick was to find one that would support the phone without taking it out of the Otterbox Defender case that is protecting it (have I mentioned that I'm seriously hard on gear?).  I also needed something that wasn't going to slide down my arm.  I'll spare you the long boring details of my search but I settled on the Armpocket.  Although I had my sights set on the Sport i-20 with its "20 cubic inches of storage capacity", it took a physical trip to Best Buy (two days later) to test the actual product before I realized that the Armpocket Aero i-10 was perfect.  I mean perfect!  As though the Aero had been designed around the iPhone 4s in a Defender case.  The Sport wouldn't even zip closed with the iPhone inside, but the shape of the Aero pocket matched the Defender case perfectly and it zipped right up.

Now that the iPhone issue had been addressed, what to do about that pesky headphone wire?  Again, more research on the net.  The obvious solution was going to be some-type of wireless Bluetooth contraption.  Lots of choices and tons of reviews, but I had specific requirements.  They had to be light, practical, and had to stand up to sweat.  Lots and lots of sweat.  Finally, on a whim, I searched for "triathlon" and "bluetooth".  What I found was JayBird Gear Freedom JF3 Bluetooth Headphones.  "Official Training Headphones of USA Triathlon".  The JayBird website promised that I could "completely forget about" my headphones.  "Shakeproof" and "sweat proof'ed to the extreme".  So far so good.  I'm all about things "to the extreme".  I started digging for reviews; all of which were very positive.  But it was the following video that sold me.

I ordered my pair of JF3s with overnight shipping.  They arrive today.

I tested the Armpocket on yesterday's morning run (along with my new Nike Dri-fit Miler Singlet).  It (they) performed like a champ.  Combined with the JF3s, some of my hydration belt/irritating wire issues should be solved.  There is still the matter of the handgun, but I really don't think that running in my tactical dropleg thigh rig is going to be an option.  Oh, well.  Some improvement is better than none.

Perhaps I really am compensating for that sliver of doubt with new gear purchases.  But the truth is, when facing down that 26.2 miles, none of that is really going to matter.  It will come down to heart and drive.  Cool armbands, fancy headphones, and evenly distributed gear absolutely won't carry you through the distance.  Only determination will do that.  And I have plenty of it...and fancy new headphones now too.