'tis the Season!

Well it’s that time of year and in an attempt to at least appear to be organized, trust me I will fail miserably and given that all of my family is overseas this is always an expensive mistake! and look at some Christmas shopping! Now unfortunately, other than my wife; who is erring over to the darkside of triathlons there are no more runners in my immediate family so the Christmas shopping can fall between socks and sweaters, I like to think of it as an incentive for them to take up a sport!

Unfortunately the economic times we find ourselves mandate that we try to get the biggest bang for a buck (pound/euro/yen delete where applicable) so here are a couple of suggestions that might want to add your list or get for the runner in your family or hell you could just go out and get it today and blow off waiting the 43 shopping days left!

Costco is now stocking Garmin Forerunner 305s for $199, now I thought this was a good price until I checked Amazon where you can get one for $190 (free shipping) and you can bundle in a Cadence Monitor and Bike/Wrist QR strap for an extra $50.

Hammer Nutrition is having an end of year blowout on everything. Up to 50% off. I snagged a new cycling jersey, bib shorts and two pair of socks all in for $60. The clothing is made by Voler here in SoCal and it’s top quality stuff, they also carry Tri suits and have a ladies specific range. I also grabbed a Patagonia Capilene shirt ($18) and Headsweat Visor ($10) and a couple of extra water bottles ($2.50 each), you can never have enough water bottles, right!

On the nutrition front I threw in my basket a replen of Perpetuem, and Raspberry Gel; 26 serving jug. Perpetuem is my drink of choice for the long run (2hours plus) it has a mild taste and is easy on stomach, here’s the blurb from the Hammer website:

...Perpetuem - This product, introduced in early 2003, takes the concept of long-distance fueling to the max. Though many athletes use Perpetuem for shorter distance events (which is perfectly acceptable), we designed it primarily for extreme endurance events lasting several hours to many days. Perpetuem contains 75% carbohydrates (from long-chain maltodextrins - no added simple sugars), 13% fatty acids from a specially made long-chain lyso-lecithin, and nearly 10% soy protein. A small portion of fat seems to cue your body to more liberally release its fatty acids stores, which account for up to two-thirds of one's energy requirements in long bouts of exercise. A little fat in the fuel also slightly slows the rate of digestion and thus promotes caloric satisfaction, another attractive plus during primarily aerobic ultra distance events...

Suffice to say, it works!

The gels are water soluble (read; wash out of clothes easily) Raspberry and Vanilla are my favorite and you can mix them together to get RaspNilla or VanBerry?!? Espresso has a high caffeine punch for when you're at mile 28 so you could have a RaspPresso or EspreNilla or go wild and have a RaspVanSo! You’ll need a bottle to mix them in but, hey, they’re on sale too!

There’s a bunch of other Hammer products I take; Endorolytes, Premium Insurance Caps, Mito Caps, Race Day Boost, Race Caps Supreme which I have been using for the past year and will be reviewed at the end of the year.

So charge up you Credit Card and go wild!