Happy Tuesday! So because I enjoy putting myself through difficult times I decided to run the NYC Marathon this year. This is the year that I turn 30 and, wouldn’t you know it, the marathon happens to fall on my birthday. If that isn’t a sign I don’t know what is. Unfortunately, I did not have guaranteed entry and I didn’t feel like trying to raise a few thousand dollars to run for a charity, so instead I’m going to be running the Virtual TCS New York City Marathon on Strava.

It’s just as prestigious except I don’t run with everyone else, I have to track my run virtually with Strava, and it costs literally 10x less to sign up. On the brightside, doing this means that I get guaranteed entry into the NYC Marathon next year, so there’s always that to look forward to. Obviously I dove deep into running gear so that’s the theme for today’s letter.

In this issue

💧 A hydration pack.

⌚ A smart-ish watch.

👟 Sneakers.

Salomon Active Skin 8 Set Hydration Vest

I was never the type to wear a hydration vest or any kind of extra packs while running. It never made sense to me why I would want something that would make me even more uncomfortable and add weight. Then I started running longer distances in hot weather and I understood. It is genuinely helpful to have a quick snack, some spare socks, and most importantly water when you’re miles away from home.

There are plenty of running packs to choose from but I went with this one from Salomon. It has a small main pocket for stashing my wallet and keys as well as an elastic pocket on the strap for easy access to my phone. It also comes with two water bottles that are super small and light. Today is supposed to get up to 95F, running without water in this heat is just not a smart idea. If you’re thinking of running this summer I highly recommend finding an easy way to carry water with you.

Garmin Instinct

When I started my training for this marathon a few weeks ago I would just start Strava on my phone and stuff it in my bag. It was fine for tracking pace and time, but I was getting no information on my heart rate, how well I was sleeping, or running cadence. All of which are useful to know how good of a training session I had. So I went ahead and scooped up the Garmin Instinct on a Prime Day sale and I regret nothing. I’ve reviewed Garmin watches in the past, but they’re so expensive I never considered getting one unless they were on a huge sale. Finally, they went on sale.

The Instinct does everything I need and gives me access to the robust Garmin app which gives me very helpful insights into how my body is holding up and whether or not I can push myself a little harder. The watch itself gets basic notifications from my phone but I can’t really reply to them in any useful way, so I basically just use it for tracking. It also lacks a touch-screen and it’s entirely black and white so you won’t get any cool colorful graphs on the watch like you would if you picked up a Forerunner 745 or something. Luckily, I don’t care about that. This watch is doing exactly what I need.

Nike ZoomX Invincible Run Flyknit Exeter Edition

So one thing I’ve learned over the last few weeks of consistent running is that you start to get hurt. I now have the beginnings of a weird tweak in my left ankle and right knee, which are not the places that I want to injure. While researching how to avoid injury, one thing that I kept reading was that it might be worthwhile to change my shoes, especially if you’ve been using the same running sneakers for a while. Even though I do enjoy my current running sneakers, I’ve been using them for close to three years now. It might be time to switch it up.

I haven’t decided on my next sneaker yet (so if you have any suggestions please tweet me) but I was eyeing these ZoomX Flyknit from Nike. I used to have a pair of Flyknit Nike running sneakers that were great because they were comfortable enough for running but casual enough to wear with regular clothes on weekends. I’m not big into buying expensive things that I can’t use in multiple scenarios.