Alameda Runners – Get After It!

The use of a recovery drink isn’t mandatory after workouts, but many of us use various protein- and whey-based drinks to help aid muscle recovery.  To help everyone learn about a wider variety of products, here’s another interview with a company some of you live by – and others possibly never heard of.

I recently interviewed a company many of you likely heard of, though you may not have tried

“We believe it’s critical to provide real food in order to refuel, rebuild and recover and generally feel good,” Athletes Honey recently told Alameda Runners.  “It’s especially important after working out to put the proper foods into your body.

A serving size of 11 ounces provides 240 calories (30 calories from fat), 3.5g total fat, 2g saturated fat, 14mg cholesterol, 120mg sodium, 26g total carbohydrate, 26g sugar, and 26g protein.

Athletes HoneyMilk is one of numerous recovery products available to athletes, but the company thinks they have an advantage over the competition:

“Two of the main reasons:  ingredients and taste.  Look at the ingredients in Athletes HoneyMilk and contrast it with the ingredients in any other recovery drink,” the company recently told Alameda Runners. “Not only do we have way fewer but our primary ingredients are real milk and real honey. We pride ourselves on being a natural, great-tasting recovery drink – Athletes HoneyMilk is REAL food.”

The rest of the article is available after the jump! Read more… »

The endurance sports community strongly embraces eco-friendly initiatives to help support the environment, with several clothing companies specializing in green clothing.  Alameda Runners recently chatted with Greenlayer, an eco-friendly company that provided tech shirts for the  Oakland Running Festival late last month.

Greenlayer today wanted to chat about some of its eco-friendly products and why the company’s clothing remains competitive with better known brands.  I first heard about the company earlier in 2010, but never saw or owned any Greenlayer clothing — until the Oakland Running Festival.

The 2010 Oakland Half Marathon long-sleeve shirts were made by Green Layer, and seem like they’re extremely high quality. Read more… »

As athletes, we are familiar with the benefits of stretching as part of their exercise routine, but varying types of stretches and proper technique are just a couple of different issues we must deal with.  Many of us have heard more about dynamic stretching instead of passive stretching and static stretching – but the exact definition of these stretches remain foggy for most of us. Read more… »

The San Francisco Bay Area has running and other endurance events year round, and something I want to do is help introduce readers to events and organizations you may not be familiar with.  To help do this, Alameda Runners will today chat with Brazen Racing, a Bay Area company specializing in trail events normally held in the East Bay.

Started by Sam and Jasmin, Brazen Racing is a racing management company that specializes in trail running events in the San Francisco East Bay (Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda, etc.).

The East Bay has many trails that are popular but aren’t well known.

“Some people are interested in exploring new trails and the East Bay Regional Parks District has so many parks, that it is rare that someone has heard of or ran them all before.  A lot of runners will tell us “Oh, finally someone is putting on a race at this park, it’s my favorite park for running!” and others will say, ‘I can’t believe this park exists here, it’s 10 minutes from my house and I never even knew it existed!'” 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… »

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.)

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.

Alameda Runners recently caught up with GU,  a well-known company in the endurance community.   We chatted with GU officials about the company, discussing their most popular products, including whey isolates and other nerdy recovery product information.

Even though you see a lot of other athletes using GU products, the company still has a niche consumer market it caters to.

“We definitely continue to focus on endurance athletes (or team sports athletes building endurance as a base for game time),” GU PR people told Alameda Runners.  “Virtually all of our products are for use during activity.  They provide energy, concentration and recovery benefits.  There is plenty of competition, but we’re pretty confident that taste and efficacy have folks returning to us more often than not.”

I asked GU about its best selling flavors and products, and they were more than happy to oblige.  The vanilla and chocolate GU gel flavors are the best selling flavors, according to the company, though I’ve always enjoyed the Tri-Berry best.

“Competitors can’t touch us on taste here.  Well, you try and you decide.”  Blueberry Pomegranate is the most popular Roctane flavor, while strawberry Chomps are the top electrolyte block flavor.  The Strawberry Watermelon Recovery Brew is the most popular recovery drink offered by GU, while the Blueberry Pomegranate Electrolyte Brew serves as GU’s most popular drink.

Full article/interview available after the jump.  GU gets a bit more technical, and discusses whey protein and 2:1:1 recovery drinks. Read more… »

Many endurance athletes need water, electrolytes and carbs during a long event, and they can be difficult to consume on an unsupported solo run.  The use of a hydration belt may be necessary, and Fuel Belt currently leads the industry for runners, cyclists and triathletes.

Vinu Malik, Fuel Belt President & Founder of Fuel Belt and multiple-time Ironman, recently chatted with Alameda Runners about Fuel Belt.  Their products and the difficulty of ensuring each product can withstand being on the road for hours.

“Fuel Belt was the result of having a few hydrating moments during my first dozen Ironman races, Malik said during the chat.  “Back then (1990s) there were no comfortable hydration designs for runners.  Applying a little common sense to the development process went a long way.  The first Fuel Belts were not super stylish, but they functioned incredibly well.”

Working on the winning combination of a high-quality endurance product that is usable (read comfortable) has proven difficult, with Malik briefly discussing the methods he came up with.

“These things take time to get right because you need production partners who have the ability to listen, understand the function of the products and who understand the demands of our customers.  It really helped that I was a strong beta tester as I continued to train and race for Ironmans.”

The company now has its H2O collection of products, which Malik discussed.  “Our new H2O collection is a fully adjustable one-size fits all hydration belt.  It’s the first of its kind for our popular Helium collection.  Of course, we still have our award winning custom fit designs.  Each of these is like buying a pair of jeans: if you know your waist size, we have five sizes to choose from.”

Even with its H20 line, other Fuel Belt products have also sold well:  “All of our hydration belts are off the chart.  We pioneered the category, we continue to innovate and we are serious athletes.  Everything we make is tested countless times before it hits the market.  With multiple Hawaii Ironman wins and hundreds of other wins, the brand just continues to grow.”

Some companies have shown interest in creating disposable fuel hydration, but that’s a strategy unlikely to reach Fuel Belt.

I asked about the possibility of prepackaged containers for the belt that are disposable.  Something like a GU bottle.  His response- “We explored this route but the sheer cost of production at a sensible scale is very expensive.  More importantly, there’s no need to waste money on additional packaging.  The best thing I can say about a Fuel Belt is that it’s arguably the most reusable product a runner or triathlete will ever have.  That has a much higher value to us than preloaded flasks and bottles.  The world just doesn’t need that.”

In addition to selling products to athletes, Fuel Belt remains committed to the endurance community.

“Fuel Belt sponsors more than 900 events annually.  Many of those are tied to charities and fundraisers.  We are also the official hydration belt of Team in Training.  We give back 10% of all profits to TNT.  The number of good will sponsorships we support is beyond a number I can keep up with.”

Alameda Runners would like to thank Vinu for taking the time to answer our questions.  Keep up the great work at Fuel Belt!

Many athletes have to travel to events across the country, and Southwest likely is a leading choice if you’re thinking about flying.  The airline company has focused exclusively on travel within the United States, with great success as it’s one of the more reliable airline companies.

I recently caught up with Southwest to ask the company several questions regarding its business and flight information.  I normally fly Southwest out of the Oakland International Airport – just a couple of minutes away from Alameda – which is the company’s Bay Area hub. Read more… »