500 Mile March- Prelude

Well, this is my final evening of rest and relaxation; starting tomorrow I start my journey to run 500 miles in the month of March. Through the course of this little endeavor I will attempt to run the equivalent of 26km a day for 31 days while maintaining my current work and school schedule and I am going to try and make some of those miles quality- I won't be skimping out on the harder workouts for the sake of a few more slow miles. 

Part two of my little challenge involves diet. My diet since living at home has become abysmal. I've become addicted to sugary carbonated beverages and have all but given up making my own meals. This needs to change. As such I am making a stand against this lifestyle of excess. Every meal during the week will be made at home by myself or a loved one. I will permit myself one cheat meal a weekend for social events such as going out with my girlfriend or meeting up with friends. 

Part three is why I am doing this. It comes down to the fact that I need goals to work towards otherwise I get stuck in a rut and there's no getting out of it. This gives me a goal and something to strive towards. I've committed to racing a bunch this summer so I may as well get fit while I can.  

The major obstacles that I see:

1) The cold. The first week and a half of March are supposed to remain cold. I hate the cold. Having to log miles by yourself in the cold is the worst. 

2) Injury Risk. This is the longest stretch of time I have been running without getting injured. I've been able to put in decent miles before without getting injured before but never this many. I don't want to break down and get all mopey and sit in a corner thinking about how foolish I was for even attempting  something like this. I just have to stay on top of my recovery and  gear choice and I think I should be able to get 'er done!

Too often we see young people content to sit around on their computers or in front of their TV. Too often I've heard people say that they just don't have the time to run. Here is my challenge to you: Do SOMETHING ACTIVE  every day for the entire month of March. It doesn't matter what it is. Go to the gym and lift weights. Go to the pool and swim. Play a game of indoor soccer. Go for a walk. Something. Just do something active each day for the entire month. Chart your progress. Send me your pictures if you want and I will post them up for all of us to share.

I'll be posting daily updates every day from here on out so be sure to check back for updates. The updates will be short and sweet. Sometime just going over the gear I'm using to get through this, sometimes they are my personal tips for eating healthy, what I am doing for recovery, my musical tastes for different workouts, some of the different workouts that i will be doing, pictures of my adventures, what have you.

My next couples of blogs will surely be filled with random thoughts of a tired runner. They will probably be filled with horrible attempts at jokes and will most certainly be cringe worthy. You've been warned.

Drop me a line if you ever want to go for a run.

See you out there,

Evan

It's the pits: On Anti-odor Garments

I've just had the pleasure of sitting through my first round of product-rep "displays"/ meetings. It's an odd thing to have all these sales people come into your business carrying racks of blue-bagged clothes and wheeled bags full of the new shoes that are coming out with. Sure, you get some free stuff here and there, it gives you the chance to try it out, and I will be writing about some of the coolest things that are coming out in the next little while. But you start to see come commonalities between the companies. One of the "neatest" is the new anti-odor clothing that they have all been working on. While each manufacturer has their own unique and special name for their technology, and it goes without saying that each maintains that their new product is the best, it seems that all the high-end garments are headed towards anti-odor fibers.

All the new high-end tech and performance gear is headed towards these anti-microbial and anti-odor garments. And they all seem to be using something of the same sort of material as well- a silver nano-particle weave. Silver's use as an anti-biotic dates back to the 19th century where it was used in many bandages and disinfectants before anti-biotics started gaining wide use. Silver dollars were dropped into milk bottles to prevent milk curdling before the pasteurization process was made common place. The same thought process is now being applied to create these new antimicrobial running garments.

First, a little background info on how silver may work against microbes. While silver's antimicrobial properties have been know for hundreds of years, we still don't know exactly how it works. Some of the proposed mechanism are that it can bind to thiol groups and inactivate certain enzymes by altering certain bond types within cell membranes. Changes in bonds can alter protein shape and ultimately alter their function, usually for to the determent of the microbe. Silver has also been hypothesized to alter the actual DNA of these microbial organisms by again altering bonding between the two strands of DNA.

Running garments make perfect mediums for bacterial growth; they are damp and warm. Bacteria thrive in such an environment and when they reproduce and colonize, they create metabolic by-products. And while some bacteria can smell nice, a lot smell musty or just downright awful. You'll know from opening up your compost bin and getting a nice face full of that smell. It isn't exactly the most pleasant smelling bucket int he world. What the silver weave does is prevent the growth of these odor-causing bacteria.

Previous incarnations of anti-bacterial/anti-odor garments focused mainly on anti-bacterial sprays. These "fumigated" shirts worked well... so long as you never washed them. The problem with these old technologies was that the anti-bacterial spray was completely gone in 10 washes. This new silver weave allows for longer shirt life and keeps you smelling great. And who likes to smell rank all the time anyway?

Said no one ever

Not only that, but some of the companies have even developed new anti-bacterial sprays that last longer. For instance, the New Balance rep came in and said that the new spray they were working with depleted to 80% efficacy after 10 washes but then after that the efficacy remained at around 80% for the rest of the garment's wearability. This represents a huge step forward to creating performance garments that you aren't afraid to wear to the gym or on group runs as well as on your own daily runs.

**Remember to always wash your workout gear with a sports-specific wash. This will preserve the efficacy of both the silver fibers and the spray treatment.**

There's a bunch of cool and exciting stuff coming out in the next little while. I'll be sure to keep you posted on all the newest developments and products as I get them. Team Runner's Mark Signing off!