Alameda Runners – Get After It!

An important goal behind Alameda Runners is to provide athletes with reviews and commentary related to endurance sports from the perspective of a couple regular people.  Neither one of us will set any world records when we tie our running shoes and clip into our clip-less pedals.

Both of us run, ride and manage to cause some muscle pain along the way.  Many of you either have purchased some type of custom recovery product, or may have thought about it at one point.  Ted has purchased a lot of recovery items as he swims and damages his upper body as well as his legs. I won’t mention his age but that has something to do with his recovery purchases.

ActiveWrap has products aimed at the foot & ankle, back, knee, wrist, shoulder and elbow, but we’re going to focus more on the company’s products for the feet and ankles.  Consumers have the choice of configuring the wrap to handle pain in specific areas of the lower body, including Achilles tendon, ankle, and plantar fascia injuries.

“ActiveWrap continues to stay on top of the game with every new release,” an ActiveWrap employee told Alameda Runners.  “Company owner Shawn Hickling stems from a long physical theraphy background so it is extremely important for our product to hold credibility amongst professionals first.  This is achieved through feedback and testing in the therapy environment first before bringing to market.”

The company also has a proud past that it was more than happy to discuss with us during our conversation:

“We were the original company to bring injury specific heat & ice to the market and we continue to lead with unique cooling materials and eco-friendly support materials. Furthermore, it is our goal to keep the price reasonable for everyone to afford. There should be no reason someone needs to pay $100 for an ice pack or pump system.”

Each company that deals with ice or heat recovery products often have to customize products because of the sheer number of competitors – and ActiveWrap thinks it has the winning formula.

“Our patented foot and ankle wrap is our flagship product. The wrap comes with 2 modular heat & ice packs that can be configured in any area within the wrap for a fully customized fit.  Products that use frozen cells cannot mold and conform comfortably around irregular bony structures like the foot.  If it’s your arch that is sore you can heat and ice your arch without having to unnecessarily ice around your ankle.”

The ability to target a specific area such as the arch while unnecessarily icing other locations is important for the company.  Even with additional competitors in the market, ActiveWrap and more established companies still have plenty of opportunity to release quality products to consumers.

“ActiveWrap has been providing the very best quality since 1998. We are the highest quality most comfortable heat and ice wrap at the best price. We invite you to compare our comfort, price and overall effectiveness with any heat & ice pack on the market. We offer a full one year warranty which is an industry best and our customer service is second to none. ”

(The ActiveWrap Web site has an injury care and prevention section of the site, which I recommend you visit at least once.  ActiveWrap can also be found on Twitter.)

GU, CLIF, Accelerade, and other companies we’re all familiar with have a simple goal: give athletes the nutrients they need during endurance sports.  GU now has its Roctane line of products, which has been specifically designed for the more serious athletes out there.

“Athletes told us there was a need.  We had a triple top secret-in house formulation known to insider elite athletes as ‘hard rock,'” GU recently told Alameda Runners.  “It was around for 5-6 years prior to the launch of Roctane.   What is in this stuff!?   Holy X#*?! This stuff works.    Seriously competitive athletes are looking for an edge in every aspect of their training and racing…. Sell through #s at retail indicate they are finding that Roctane delivers at its promise.”

To learn a bit more about GU’s Roctane products, GU was kind of enough to send along a couple of review products for us to enjoy.  I’m a strong CLIF supporter while Ted enjoys GU products, though we both routinely eat and drink products from other companies.  In the weeks to come, we’ll see how GU Roctane stacks up against the competition when we go out on adventures in San Francisco, Sausalito and the East Bay

Instead of just writing a single long post about each product, we’re going to post mini-reviews of each flavor whenever we give it a try.  We don’t eat these energy gels and electrolyte products every time we go run, so the reviews will be spread out across numerous upcoming blog posts in the future.

We’re also expecting to receive several other goodies to review, so check back and see what we come up with!