It seems that sweatshop have competition on their hands in the name of SimplySweat. This is by no means a bad thing, as a money saver by day I always like to scout around for the cheapest way to get my kit but am normally drawn back by the lure of the Sale and 20% vouchers…

SimplySweat enter the market offering respectable prices and a reasonably large range. However, the product list is still far narrower than Sweatshop. Every time I seem to look back it is growing and growing and following communication the things I found lacking from their stock were being sourced and possibly added in due course. What was missing? For me the sparse range of compression wear was an issue and something I first went looking for when I logged on. Following that I then headed over to look for the Adidas kit, I tend to prefer Adidas over other makes as the clothes fit, look nice and seem well made. Again, other than accessories, this was another gap on the SimplySweat portfolio. This may make it sound like they had nothing, however that was far from the case, trusty pair of X-socks added to my basket. I wear exclusively x-socks to run in, they just work for me, and whilst they aren’t cheap I’m happy to pay to avoid blisters! Another scout about and I had added some Gore shorts to the basket, it’s summer now and shorts are always very useful! One last thing caught my eyes the quick lock laces, I’ve seen these before but finally I bought them! Review to follow shortly…

All added to the basket in a reasonable fashion without any problems and the checkout process was simple. The only thing I disliked, and this criticism goes for most e-tailers is P&P. I think with Amazon charging nothing it’s easy to forget that another charge will crop up…The order came ultra quick, next day in fact, can’t grumble about that! Perhaps because it’s still in its infancy it was so quick but let’s hope that speed continues…!

Browsing around the active wear at Simply Sweat website it appears they also have an outlet for hiking, swimming and others. This separation of sites is an interesting and possibly detrimental feature, I wonder whether there should be an ability to buy from different sites and pay P&P once…? If the sites had been joined I may well have picked up some stuff from the Swimming site, but given that my code was just for the running kit I was unable to do that.

Will be watching the net and running mags to see whether this site takes off with the customer service I received it should do…

NB FYI for any of you that are users of Body Glide – when I checked this was cheaper than at Sweatshop, will definitely be picking up a tube of this when it comes back in stock!

Short and sweet as at girlfriends sisters wedding as an usher. Today as a token gesture I ran 2 miles downhill. End of story.

Till next time!

N

I was expecting this day to come, but to be perfectly honest it came sooner than I thought. Today I was officially cream crackered. My energy levels were low and I just struggled. I took myself to the gym just so I could say I did something. However, my attempt was pitiful – it was a joke to even be in there! XTrainer, Step machine and some Core work saw me through 40 mins before slumping out at my desk destroyed…

There is a reason for rest days!

Last night I had the privilege and pleasure to run with Noel Thatcher. He competed in six Paralympic games (1984-2004) winning 5 gold medals. Noel is visually impaired and registered blind and was the brain child behind RunforJapan.com which I was involved with back in March. We have been in touch since then, promising a run after the Marathon, and tonight it finally happened.

See the full post here

This evening I had the privilege and pleasure to run with Noel Thatcher.  He competed in six Paralympic games (1984-2004) winning 5 gold medals.  Noel is visually impaired and registered blind and was the brain child behind RunforJapan.com which I was involved with back in March.  We have been in touch since then, promising a run after the Marathon, and tonight it finally happened.

Meeting up at his place of work we set off on a route that I have run most of a number of times before.  Although Noel works in the area it became clear that because of his disability he tends to stick to familiar routes near to his home.  He addmitted to me that his wife was a little aprehensive as I am not a trained ‘guide’.  It turned out she had nothing to worry about, the pace was probably so slow for him that he had plenty of time to assess the environment around him.

I say it was slow for him.  For me it was certainly a brisk trot and even my choice of a hilly route (that i thought would help me out a little) didn’t seem to make things more even.  Noel’s fastest 10k is around 30 minutes – a whole 12 minutes faster than me (or 2 minutes a mile quicker!!)  I huffed and puffed my way around the 6 miles whilst he chatted away without breaking a sweat!  But I suppose that was always inevitable.  After all, even though he is now retired, he is in great shape.

Noel is one of those people who you really like to be around.  He has a passion for running and this is evident in all he does.  He is involved in various vision charities and works closely with grass roots athletics.  Genuinely a really nice guy!

Unfortunately once again problems with the Garmin (read me not charging it!) so no ‘proof’ of the run, you will have to take my word for it!  I am sure we will be heading out again, so next time i will make sure its all working ok.

‘Till tomorrow…

N

Hi my name is Neil and I’m addicted to running. Tonight after 2 whole days without running I met up with some of ‘Team Audiofuel’ for a run. I do like a run with company, it tends to go by so much quicker. Don’t get me wrong there is a time and place for solitary running, it’s good for mental reflection and also when hitting out the faster sessions but being able to have a natter whilst out is good fun.

Setting off from Seans rather swanky pad we darted left, right and all over the place (Sean does like to run across the road avoiding cars, although was very nearly taken out by a bike!). I assumed they knew where they were going, I was just following. We talked of going slow, a 9min/mi pace. This didn’t happen, I think we were closer to the 8:30s maybe even the 8:15′s. My blasted watch died mid run – I should know better by now and charge the blasted thing!

It was a nice little run though accompanied by Sean, Angela and Francis from Old St up to the Embankment and back. I estimate it at about 7-8 miles, probably nearer the 7 marker. All at a comfortable pace until Sean decided to impersonate a sprinter for the last 200m. Good to run with them again, the last time I did was before the Motivation Station at the Nottingham Half. Sean is certainly getting faster and faster but then it seems he is permanently training at the moment, fair play – good effort, muchos jealous Angela was fast to begin with and still is! There are going to be some fast slow runs coming up soon in the next few months!

Till next time

N

Today I had planned to run but my legs were still a little achey from Sundays run so I changed tactic and headed to the gym.

I first headed onto the x-trainer, a weird experience, as I haven’t used one of these for AGES. They are odd, cause the stride doesn’t feel long enough for me. 10minutes later I changed machine to the rower, nothing extreme 1km on the machine. After this I headed over to the weight machine and did some core work on the bosu ball.

After about 35 minutes in the gym I headed into the steam room and hence the title of this blog. Holy C the fitness first shepherds bush gym has one of the hottest steam rooms ever! HOT HOT HOT

Tomorrow I run

N

So I woke up this morning feeling pretty damn rough but I had my bag packed and was adamant I would go to the lunchtime spin class. Heading over to FF at 1220 I kitted up for the 45minute session.

It was pretty quiet in there today, and oddly as it was so empty the male/female ratio was pretty skewed. For some reason unbeknown to me, spinning at my fitness first is not liked by men, typically there are normally only 2 men in the class with 10/15 women. If you are a guy, go spin, there is nothing feminine about it, its not like yoga or Pilates – it is TOUGH and great fun (when you are well)

I pushed my body as hard as I could but don’t think i was spinning around too much, a tough session and on looking at the mirror on the way back my eyes were bloodshot and pretty red. Not a good look!

I’m hoping this isn’t the start of a cold/illness which may end juneathon in a week! Guess will know tomorrow morning following an early night tonight. First day of non-running since last Tuesday though!

Yesterday I completed the Bluewater 10km for the third consecutive year. I always find the race well organised, it offer a good technical tshirt, the medal is good, its an interesting and challenging course and a reasonable goodybag always follows and this year was no different…

At the break of dawn on Sunday morning I headed to Bluewater chauffeured by spectator extraordinaire Laura arriving quite early we popped over to see Chris D of the Sports Clinic my leg magician! He was chatting about his session with Iwan Thomas the night before which I was aware about because of twitter and also setting up for a busy mornings of rubs.

We then wandered around the start area and bumped into Iwan ourselves, he was there on behalf of Gatorade, one of his sponsors and also the race sponsor. We have met a few times in the past, most recently at the London Marathon. Laura also knew him through her Tv job with ItPaysToWatch. He’s a good chuckle and is always very welcoming to everyone – good to see. He had done the Blenheim Tri the day before and was going to go easy, concerned his legs wouldn’t work for him. I knew however that Chris would have sorted them out the night before…!

At 8:30 the race started, it’s an early one to allow all the roads to be re-opened in time for the shopping centre to open for 11. The weather was pretty good for running, especially considering the heat over the previous few days. With full cloud coverage and the fact it was early all was good on that front! As I said, I have run this before a couple of times, the route hasn’t changed so fortunately (or not) I know exactly what is going to happen, this should be a help for me but it doesn’t seem to be…!

Undulating is the best description of the race profile. There doesn’t seem to be much flat at all from start to finish. The start is on a down which leads you into a false security and for people with no concept of pace, read me, it can go tits up from the start…

My splits were all over the place, I suspect I went out too quick only to suffer during the middle hilly section. I hung on for dear life in sections of the run close to throwing in the towel on some of the ups but fortunately shorty after what seemed like an eternal up section was a down to recover on

I’d be interested to see, based on that run how I’d do on a flat course now. In Manchester I was always going to be slow. I’d barely run for weeks prior and before that I had obviously done more endurance work but following a couple of weeks of faster sessions I picked the pace up. However, perhaps the hills work for me, boosting my speed enough during the downs to really make a difference…who knows and as I don’t have another 10k lined up for a while I won’t find out any time soon!

Following the run I took the opportunity to have a £10 for 15 minutes sports massage organised by Chris. Nice way to finish the morning off!

Till next time

N

In true spirit of Juneathon I am putting my post up now but its an abridged version. It’s late, I started out at 6am and right now im SHATTERED. This morning I ran the Bluewater 10km, I took 2 seconds off of my previous PB (same course last year) in a time of 43:43. Short and sweet. Tomorrow I will delve into the run, meeting Iwan Thomas, comparing Nike+GPS watch and Garmin GPS amongst other things

Till then

N