The Gear

Running is like any other sport or activity. People have their preferences of particular equipment. Tennis players use specific size racquet heads and string tightness. Hockey players have their preferred sticks and skates. Baseball players favor specific brands of bats, and so on.

With runners, it mostly comes down to the shoes. Like the above examples, runners chose what works for them and what feels right. That being said, I'm not endorsing one brand over and other because one is actually better than the other, but I'm just letting everyone know what has worked for me for specific reasons, and for not-so-specific reasons.

First of all, the shoes. My very first pair of shoes made for running were the New Balance 1223's. I picked New Balance because I had always heard good things about them, and my wife liked New Balance. One day we went to the New Balance Store to pick up a pair of new shoes for her and I ended up getting a pair for myself. The salesperson recommended the 1223's because of my over-pronation and the 1223's were highly-recommended stability shoes. Having never really worn running shoes, they felt odd because I had always bought athletic shoes that were comfy, almost to the point of tight-fitting. Buying running shoes are a completely different matter since your feet tend to expand 1/2 size or more while running.

The 1223's were great until I could feel them start going away. I started getting heel pain after runs and it had been about 8 months since I had bought them, even though I didn't put a ton of mileage on them.

I decided awhile back that when the time came to buy new shoes, I would go to a running store to see what other brands and models were out there. I went to Luke's Locker Room in Fort Worth for my shoe search. I had been there a few times to buy other running accessories and their staff was always very knowledgeable when it came to providing great advice. After analyzing the tread wear on my 1223's, the salesperson had me try on a pair of the updated New Balance 1224's (the successor to my existing 1223's), a pair of ASICS Gel Kayano 14's and a pair of Mizunos (I don't remember the model).

The 1224's felt different than the 1223's. I couldn't pinpoint what the difference was, but it felt maybe a bit bulkier. I tried the Gel Kayanos and they felt pretty good. They were bulkier than the 1223's but they felt more comfortable than my New Balance ever did. The Mizunos didn't feel right at all so I took home the ASICS shoes. They've been great shoes so far and my legs have felt better on my rest days since I started wearing the ASICS.

I have no preference for clothing. It's pretty much anything that wicks moisture and anything that isn't too short. Since we're getting into the colder months, I've been wearing a long-sleeve Nike shirt which also wicks moisture, on top of a regular technical T-shirt. It hasn't felt too much warmer wearing two shirts so I'm probably going to invest in another long sleeve shirt so I'm not constantly washing my existing one.

Again since we are in the colder months, I've started wearing gloves, and sometimes wearing gloves when it isn't that cold. I'm not sure what it is, but I'd rather wear gloves than not wearing gloves when there's even a hint of cold weather. I've also started wearing a wool or synthetic wool toque/beanie/cap. Typically in the warmer months I don't wear hats or headbands or visors as I tend to expel a lot of heat through my head.

The last item I've acquired recently is a pair of running tights. I haven't had a chance to wear them yet since it hasn't dropped to a temperature where I thought I would need them. My cut-off point would be 5 degrees Celsius...any colder than that and they're going on! I'm confident that it's going to get that cold sooner or later. I have a 5K in St. Louis on Thanksgiving Day and I'm confident it's going to be cold enough to wear them during that run, but I'd like to give them a trial run before that event. More than likely I'm also going to wear them for my half marathon in December as well.

Lastly, I'm pretty much a poster boy of the Nikeplus system. I have an iPod Nano, the Nikeplus add-ons, the armband, and the Nikeplus wristband as well. I whole-heartedly endorse this system since you don't have to invest a lot of money ($60 for the wristband and an MP3 player if you want music) to get access to a lot of running stats and training tools on the Nike+ website. It's not as accurate as a Garmin or a GPS-based system, but it works for me. The combination of music and training prompts is great motivation and incentive for me.

Like I said, probably with the exception of the Nikeplus system, I'm not endorsing one brand over the other and they will work great for everyone. Each shoe brand fits differently and use slightly different materials and design so they are bound to be different for everyone. People perspire at different points and have different activity thresholds that cause them to perspire more. Some people don't mind cold...others are really sensitive to it. So go out and try out different things and see what works for you.