Alameda Runners – Get After It!

In my continued effort to provide rockin’ reviews, I took one for the team today and drank about 10 ounces of GU Brew energy recovery mix before my run.

I was planning on taking a nice easy recovery run after the hard run yesterday, but that would not be fair to yesterday’s review so I went all out. I ran at a 150-153 HR pace for 32 minutes. My max HR is around 163 so that was a tough run.

I did not feel sick at all. That is a good sign for a drink that is used during exercise. The GU drink doesn’t taste like fine wine but it is drinkable. Read more… »

I mainly drink water and milk, but occasionally seek a drink that offers a bit of flavor without high fructose corn syrup and the other garbage many sodas and have.  Years back, another endurance runner had a similar thought about tasty drinks that aren’t unhealthy, which led to the creation of Honest Tea beverages.

Honest Tea can be found in Safeway, Nob Hill and other California supermarket chains, while also available at Whole Foods and other specialized food stores.  To learn more about how the company was founded, Alameda Runners chatted with Seth Goldman, Honest Tea co-founder, who spoke about the company’s history, best selling products, and expansion to new markets. Read more… »

Clif SHOT recovery drink “Protein – Enhanced” French Vanilla

Ted’s thoughts on the CLIF shot. We have a lot of recovery and electrolyte stuff on hand. Most of the products were purchased but we received a fair amount of stuff to review. I grabbed a random handful of different samples to take to work for my workouts during lunch.  I am still in base training so my workouts vary as to how I feel at any given time. Today I did a mile run near race pace145-155 HR. When I finished my run I drank the recovery drink while my heart rate was still a high 115-120. My normal HR is something like 41-resting, 120-130 for long slow runs, 140-150 for tempo runs and 163 max at a sprint. Read more… »

During a recent 13-mile training run around Alameda, I sampled the relatively new GU Roctane Pineapple flavor a try.  Here are some brief thoughts.

The flavor of the Roctane Pineapple is a sharp pineapple taste that is actually quite tasty.  In my experience, many energy gels don’t taste like the flavor they’re marketed as – this is one of the first that does.

The after taste isn’t too bad, and an extremely high amount of water isn’t necessary to fully wash it down (which occasionally happens to me with other flavors).

My favorite flavor is Tri-Berry, but this pineapple flavor slots in at No. 2 on the list.

Each GU Roctane Pineapple has 100 calories, 25g carbs, 5g sugars, 125mg sodium, 55mg potassium, and a combination of histidine, leucine, valine and isoleucine.  This flavor is the first one in the Roctane brand to not have caffeine.  It’s a bit of a shame, as I love the flavor – but a caffeine boost would have been great.

Similar to other GU Roctane energy gels, they cost $2.50, which is more than the company’s regular flavors.

Ted’s note: We each tried a pineapple GU gel, one was purchased and one was a sample. Ted does not like caffeine boosts while Mike does. We both agree the pineapple gel is good.

As thousands of people prepare for the Oakland Marathon and Half Marathon later this month, I’ve heard several different conversations and inquires about course recon… by running, bike or car.

I’m running my first long-distance run and figured it’d be neat to see what I’m getting myself into.  It seems to be a thought shared among many runners – and anyone who is running the half marathon may be interested to view this virtual preview of the course (via Google Maps).

Courtesy of @JennB on Twitter, who originally tweeted the link.  Kudos to Race My Race for having a cool Web site.

Aside from offering a street view of the course, it’s just neat technology that continues to mature.

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!

Runners sometimes complain of knee pain after tough training sessions, and that often leads to many ice packs used on knees and ankles.  Alameda Runners recently caught up with Moji, a company specializing in ice recovery, to discuss healing, injury prevention, and Moji’s innovative products.

The first tidbit learned involved were a few basic reasons why icing is an effective method to recover.

“Research supports icing as the simplest, safest, and most-effective method for reducing pain, yet many people forgo this natural remedy due to its inconveniences,” a Moji PR person told Alameda Runners.  “Icing doesn’t just help heal injuries, it helps prevent them.”

If you want to get more educational about your injuries, here is a more scientific approach to it.

“Exercise can cause microtrauma (tiny tears in muscle fibers) to tissues and tendons and icing reduces the inflammatory response and begins to prepare the body for its next workout.”

The company has custom knee and back ice recovery designs to help recovery in several locations — and looked to “set out to solve existing design limitations of available icing products to make the experience more comfortable and convenient.”  The company’s products are able to “encourage individuals to ice more frequently to take advantage of this proven method for reducing inflammation and relieving pain.”

Moji’s Knee brace helps offer the positive effects of icing “by focusing on comfort, mobility” and the product offers a “superior alternative to conventional icing methods to make the process of icing more practical and efficient.

Specifically, the knee brace has a two-piece design that uses a Moji Compression Wrap and a Moji Cold Cell pack to help aim relief to a targeted location.  The cold cells have been designed to be soft and pliable, which is what allows it to heal a targeted spot.

Interested readers can purchase Moji on GoMoji.com, Amazon.com and several other retailers in the United States — list can be found here — with the company inviting any retailers to contact them if interested in selling Moji products.

The Moji Knee brace costs $89 MSRP and replacement cold cells cost $49.00.  The Moji Back recovery system is available for $129 MSRP while replacement cells also cost $49.00.

Consumers can expect additional products from Moji in the future, as it will release the Moji Back Pain Relief System that offers a Heat cell alongside the Cold cell.  The product will launch this spring and uses an advanced interchangeable cell delivery system that uses both moist heat and cold therapy to aid pain relief.

Alameda Runners will have a Moji Knee brace review published later this week.