Blurring the lines between a running race, scavenger hunt and obstacle course, the Frawgstomp Metro Dash attempts to do it all with a fun run that’s 10k in distance with 10 physical obstacles and 10 clues to guide teams of two from point to point. Obstacles tire flips, box jump sets, speed sled runs, and acro-yoga challenges. Participants have up to five hours to complete the course, which is set by clues they’ll receive on their mobile phones. Running the course is encouraged by KineticShift, but participants can walk, run or take public transportation.
A series of Metro Dash races starts in Philadelphia on April 10 and includes a number of additional cities including Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, Norfolk, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston. Sign up for the race at Active.com.
When I go for a bike ride, I typically take my driver’s license. When I run, I don’t often take as much. It’s not fun to think about the possibility of getting hurt, but if I do, an emergency crew won’t know who I am. That’s where Road ID comes in. It’s the basic information for quick reference. There are two wrist strap models, the Wrist ID Sport and Wrist ID Elite. The Sport ID allows seven lines of text, etched into a metal plate and threaded on a nylon wrist strap. This can include your name and address, emergency contact numbers, and other pertinent information. Wrist ID Elite has a rubberized band, but carries the same vitals.
Road ID Interactive is the next level up, and gives you two lines of text on the front of the plate, and a serial and PIN number on the back that can provide even more information. With an online profile, you can update your address, emergency contact numbers, insurance information, and other details in your Emergency Response Profile. The ERP can be accessed over the phone or online.
This is an effective way to provide information if you’re not able to do that yourself. Emergency crews are used to medical jewelry such as a bracelet or necklace that alerts of health issues. This is another identifier for you. It lightens your load so you don’t have to take a driver’s license or other ID when you go, or supplements that with information more useful in an emergency situation.
Garmin Forefunner 110 tracks progress on your workouts so you can keep your eye on pace.
When your feet hit the road, you have different demands on GPS than in your car. You don’t need turn-by-turn directions, you need data. Speed. Distance. Devices for runners are sometimes bulky, sometimes difficult to use. Garmin is about to release its Forerunner 110. This GPS device is a watch, and just about the size of an average sport watch or heart rate monitor. It’s packed with featuers.
Forerunner 110 has GPS and a heart rate monitor. Once you set it at the beginning of a run it tracks where you go on your run and your heart rate. From this data it calculates your pace, distance run, calories burned, and stores the information until you upload it to your profile on Garmin Connect. You can track your training progress, look back on a whole season of running, or just see where you’ve been by keeping data on your profile. This is one addition to the standard heart rate monitor we like.
Adidas miCoach tracks progress during your run, and prompts you on your pace.
A heart rate monitor alone can only tell you so much about your run. It tracks your heart rate, and based on your age, calculates how many calories you burned, and some other data. Adidas adds to the monitor with miCoach. In addition to the chest strap to measure heart rate, it puts a sensor on a runner’s shoe, and an device on a runner’s arm. The shoe sensor adds more data by measuring distance, pace, and stride rate.
The device on the arm is the computer. It gathers and calculates data from the chest and shoe sensors. Then it tells you to speed up or slow down to get within four workout zones. Headphones plug into miCoach so you can hear its directions. The device is compatible with any MP3 player, so you can listen to music and also get prompts from miCoach.
At home miCoach syncs to an online profile at adidas.com/micoach, and tracks your workout. You can define your goals on the site whether it’s to get in shape or train for a marathon. Those goals then determine the direction you get while on your run. MiCoach costs about $69.99 for the arm piece, chest strap, and shoe sensor.
Are you looking for a lacrosse team to join? Are you looking for a running partner? Do you want to sell the bike you just replaced? Esportsboard is a new local classifieds just for sports and fitness. It’s like Craigslist.org, but just the athletics. The site lets you buy and sell used gear, equipment, and apparel; promote local services such as a trainer, pitching coach, or fishing guide; post announcements including teams looking for players; find people looking for partners for running or cycling; and promote tournaments, camps, and fund raisers. Anything sports-related, there’s a category.
When you visit Esportsboard it recognizes what city you’re in, and asks if that’s where you’re looking. The site says it aggregates classifieds for over 4,500 local sports organizations, and serves 160 million Americans actively participating in sports and recreation. If you’re looking to put your kid in little league, or want to find a group of runners to train with, it’s a good place to find that, and get the gear to outfit you for your sport.
Are these really "energy drinks for your feet?" We'll find out soon.
Injuries with running often occur when you zig when you should have zagged, but now zigging and zagging is something to reduce the load on your leg muscles. Reebok has developed a new form of soles utilizing that it calls the ZigTech, a type of zig-zag foam. According to the company’s press release “ZigTech allows your key leg muscles to do less, so you can do more. Simply put, it’s like an energy drink for your feet.”
We’ve seen (and even tested) a few different running shoes, and these are something a bit different. Also notable is that the ZigTech shoes will retail for $100 when the brand hits stores later this month. We’ll be interested to see whether this will give us the zip we’re after.
Vibram Five Fingers shoes have five distinct toes on each to emulate your bare feet.
Sometimes technology advancements take you back to your natural state. In the case of Vibram Five Fingers, that’s barefoot. Vibram believes the 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles, and hundreds of sensory receptors, tendons, and ligaments in the foot are a marvel of evolution, and best left in their natural state. Of course living in Manhattan, or many other places, don’t make running or even walking barefoot welcoming. Perhaps the last realm of barefoot action is the beach, or possibly a grassy field. But we opt for the protection of shoes everywhere else.
Vibram Five Fingers “shoes” have five distinct toes on each foot, and the soul emulates a bare foot with an arch. The company claims going barefoot, or wearing its shoes, strengthens muscles in the feet and lower legs; improves range of motion in ankles, feet, and toes; enhances balance and agility by stimulating neural function; and improves posture and alignment by not creating heel lift. Vibram Five Fingers has a range of models that lend themselves to running, water sports, hiking, traveling, yoga, and other disciplines of fitness. There’s a few therapeutic shoes on the market that make claims like this, and we plan to follow the space and take a closer look.
The North Face and Polartec boost recycled materials and function.
Polartec’s Women’s El Cap Temple 1/4 Zip top from The North Face is made from sustainable resources. Part of the fleece manufacturer’s eco-engineering line, it contains a minimum of 50 percent recycled content, and both companies continue to push to raise the bar on post-consumer materials. Why opt for a garment with such a high content of reused materials? Each shirt saves 6.6 lbs in C02 emissions, and 0.17 gallons of gas.
The earth conscious gear has its benefits. The pique knit is soft on the skin. It carries an ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) of 30. The El Cap Temple wicks moisture in a number of ways. It draws sweat and moisture away from skin while setting up a dry zone next to the skin. Moisture wicked to the surface is spread across the outer layer of the garment, and continues to make the top breathable. Wicking is crucial in a long sleeve garment, especially since it’s likely to act as a base layer for outside workouts.
The North Face’s Women’s El Cap Temple 1/4 Zip shirt is appropriate for a base layer in outdoor workouts over the winter. It’s also a great transitional top in those days nice enough to go out for a run, but not quite nice enough for short sleeves. The dual-layer fabric provides a degree of wind blocking, an important factor in transitional weather.
At 60 lumens the Energizer Micro LED Headlight will shed light on your evening run.
Evening runs get to be a bit daunting in the winter months. It gets dark, and you want to be sure you can see and be seen. That’s especially true in residential or even rural areas where streets may not be lit to brighter-than-day standards. It’s for these late-day runs and camping that the Energizer Micro LED Headlight comes in use. The LED light packs 60 lumens into a small light, and is waterproof to 1 meter, so you can even use it in the rain.
The light is mounted to an adjustable elastic band that fits snugly around your head, and the single AA battery fits discreetly in the back. The light has three modes: bright 60 lumens, dimmed from 100 percent to 6 percent light, and light from two red LEDs. The bright spotlight is rated to provide two hours of power, while the red light will shine for up to eight hours on a single battery. The light itself can also be angled three ways while mounted on your forehead including straight ahead, and two angles facing down.
In our tests the spotlight was quite bright, and even at a dimmer setting we were able to see what was ahead of us, and even a little wider area. If you use the light for running, or doing work around the house, you’ll have no problems seeing where you’re headed. The interesting setting is the red light setting. This is best for camping or being able get around in a dark space but not necessarily doing work. The red color is a bit easier on the eyes, and doesn’t cause you to lose all sight when you turn out the light. We were able to see in detail objects at arms length, and even a little beyond. We could read text easily, and saw enough detail to get around tight areas without colliding into objects.
No matter the setting, we advise you to adjust the light to face down slightly. This will still shine a bright light in order for you to see and more importantly be seen. Yet you won’t blind oncoming traffic. You’ll also save your own eyes in case you look into the mirror. That bright light will shine right back in your eyes! There’s other headlights on the market we’d like to try, but we do think Energizer gets it right for providing different brightness and light settings, plus angles while keeping it light and secure enough to stay on your head while running or doing other activities.
This glove is made from silver fiber to keep your body temperature regulated.
Gloves are an essential for winter running. It’s important to cover all skin from exposure, but fingers are more susceptible to cold. The HVAC Glove from Brooks Sports packs some tech features into its grip. Its HVAC material is made with silver-embedded fibers to thermally balance body temperature, and transfer moisture. It also kills bacteria within an hour of contact so germs don’t build up from one run to the next. The finger tips have a polyurethane coating to aid dexterity and grip objects. The HVAC Glove also has a thumb pad that can operate an MP3 player with the gloves still on. That’s key to keeping warm on your next jaunt. Brooks also built in a magnet to keep gloves together when not in use. This way wherever you throw them, in a closet or a bag, you’ll pull them out together.
Sole custom footbeds provide support without the expense of orthodics.
Walk into a running shop and you’ll see a stand for shoe inserts. They offer more support than the sockliner. They also help make a worn out pair of shoes feel better. Custom footbeds from Sole use cork, a sustainable material, to provide support, springiness, and resilience. While they aren’t made for your individual feet as the name implies, at around $40 to $50 for a pair of Sole instead of a few hundred dollars, a pair provides enough support without going the custom route.
Sole footbeds consist of four layers: a moisture-wicking top sheet, a softec cushioning layer, a moldable orthopedic base, and high-density frame. The four layers create a deep heel cup and custom arch support. Whether you use them just for activities like running, or slip them into your casual shoes, the custom supports address foot problems such as overpronation, oversupination, plantar fasciitis, and shin splints. The company also says they can aid joint pain and back and neck pain.
As part of its green initiative, Sole sources its cork from wine bottles. Sole collects used corks from wineries, airlines, and other heavy drinkers to make their product. They’ve set up a cork collection program at ReCork.org. Reclaimed cork will be used for another line of footwear.
Life doesn’t have a soundtrack (which can be good or bad), but if you’d like to add a soundtrack to your activities the Tunebug Shake will help get you started or as the company touts it “Music 4 UR Melon.”
This mini-external sound generator (don’t think of it as just another speaker), mounts to your skate/snowboard or bike helmet. The Tunebug Shake features a 3.5mm audio jack, as well as Bluetooth technology. It runs on a LiPoly battery that can last longer likely than your legs! The Tunebug shake is available now for $119.95.
What happens when Germany’s Sennheiser, arguably the makers of some of the finest headphones in the world, with German athletic shoemaker Adidas? Well, the result is a new line of headphones that might just make you want to go the distance and then some! Sennheiser is showing the new MX 680 Sports headphones at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
More importantly, unlike many other headsets these have fitness in mind from the Dupont Kevlar reinforced cables to the earphones that have been designed for heavy movement. Best of all these feature a moisture protection system, whether it be rain or just sweat from a serious workout!
