There are two reasons why it felt appropriate to talk about my gear this week. The first is that I took my new shoes out on a run last week but I will get back to that later. The second is that I bought running socks for the first time. For the last few years I have been running in pretty standard white Nike socks. Lots of people talk about socks and how they can cause different issues such as blisters. Luckily I have rarely had any issues with them. But at this point, and with the extra kilometres I was running, I figured it might be time to invest in something a bit better. Also a lot of my socks were beginning to get holes. After some googling around I ended up buying the Runderwear Anti-Blister Running Socks. I wore them for my long run on Saturday morning and I now regret not having bought proper socks sooner. They were incredibly comfortable and weirdly my feet felt more secure wearing them. I wont be wearing them out on every run in order to make them last a bit longer but I will definitely be wearing them for important training runs and races.

One of the other important pieces of gear that I always run with, is my watch. I have used a Garmin Forerunner 35 for the last three years. I bought it back in March 2017 when I was starting to become a bit more serious about running. There wasn’t a need for a crazy fancy watch with some of the extra features. What I required was something that would track my distance, my pace, my heart etc… while I’m out on a run. The Forerunner 35 does exactly that and has served me well. I have never needed any of the newer or extra features that would make me want to upgrade. And the watch has been fantastically reliable as well. The odd time it might be slow to sync or not track my heart rate correctly but those instances are rare. I accidentally put it in the washing machine last year and it hasn’t had any lasting damage.

Now on to probably the most important piece of a runners kit, the shoes. I have been running in Nike Pegasus since my dad gave me his old pair back in 2016. After that I bought the 34, 35, 36 each year as they were working for me. I kept the older pairs in rotation and tried to keep the newer pair for longer runs and races. Luckily just before christmas I saw a new pair of Pegasus 36 on sale for half price and grabbed the last pair available in my size. Originally the plan was to keep these as a race shoe and use the older 36 as my primary training shoe. However that changed a few weeks later when I stumbled across the Nike Pegasus Turbo 2 on sale from €180 down to €100 and picked them up straight away. I’m not sure if other runners just don’t like purple but I think they look and feel great. These are now being saved as my race shoe and I have only worn them out twice so far. The first was a slow run the day I got them but it was not a great test. They felt good but I was worried it was partially just placebo. Last Wednesday however I took them out for a tempo run and it is definitely not placebo. Everything felt so easy as I was running along and I was running pretty quickly. After the run back at home it barely felt like I had been out running that evening. So I am definitely excited to take them out some more and hopefully get that performance in races.

Those are the important parts of my gear. In terms of shorts I always insist they have zip pockets so I can put things in there securely. And my top is usually a race finisher t-shirts of some sort. There is definitely no right way to pick gear for everyone. You just have to make sure your gear works for you and gets you through your runs in the best way possible.