Richard's Running Kit...

Shoes / Trainers

There's currently a number of pairs or running shoes sat on my shoe rack. Gait analysis has repeatedly shown I overpronate and my trainers have always been bought to this effect. Everyday training is varied between a pair of Mizuno Wave Inspire 5, and a pair of Asics GT2130. I rotate the trainers with each run in the hope of resting trainers as much as possible.

Speedwork on the track is done in my old racing trainers, a pair of Asics DS Racer VII's, and I have a pair of Saucony Fastwitch 3 trainers which are equally lightweight but offer a slightly more plush ride. I used these for marathon pace training and for racing the marathon, I know use them on some of my faster paced road runs or club races.

Racers currently in use are Asics DS Racer VII's. Lightweight and basic, but fit my feet well.

Running Tops

I have a number of tops that I'll use for running, and really it just depends on the weather.

Winter Tops
Thin long sleeve moisture wicking tops, a thicker helly hansen base layer top, a windproof long sleeve ronhill top, and a ronhill windproof zip-up gilet. If it's raining the windproof tops worn over a long sleeve base layer keep me sufficiently warm and are showerproof to an extent. As long as I'm warm enough, rain isn't a problem. On the coldest days I may add an extra short sleeve technical top over the top of a long sleeve base layer and under a windproof layer. I find gloves are essential in the coldest of weather, and in extremes something to keep the ears covered is also useful.

Shirts
Anything cheap and cheerful - As long as it's a moisture wicking technical top and doesn't cost too much, I'm happy.

Vests
Vests are my kit of choice where weather allows, both for training and racing. I'll train in vests all summer but keep covered up when it gets colder. I'll predominantly race in my vest all year round - only one race to date have a worn another layer underneath my vest (cross country event in freezing temperatures). My club vest is the Green, White and Black vest of Kenilworth Runners which comes out for races (inc club races) and can be seen in many of my race report photos.

Running Bottoms

Race shorts are very short and minimalist, these are the ones I'll happily spend a little more money on. For the rest of my running I look for shorts that have an in-built liner and a small pocket to store a key. Ronhill tracksters (or cheap equivalents) have started to make their way into my kitbag, helping to protect the muscles on cold training runs.

I have a pair on Skins compression tights, and also their 'recovery and travel' tights. I use the recovery tights quite regularly under normal clothing after races and/or hard training.

Running Socks

One step up from the white cotton socks one would normally cosider to be sports socks, I have a number of pairs of cheap running socks for shorter runs, and a number of pairs of more specific anatomical fit running socks for longer runs and races etc - In my opinion they fit a lot better and are well worth the money.

Training Gadgets

I started running with no gadgets at all. I'd set off out the front door, and peer through the lounge window to see what the time was before setting off on my 1.9mile run/jog/plod/walk and I'd check the time when I got back. Going on from there I got a fantastic 'el cheapo' stopwatch free with a magazine subscription, which served me perfectly well as I progressed further. I then bought my first Heart Rate monitor (HRM) from Lloyds Pharmacy for the bargain price of £10. It was absolutely fantastic, a stopwatch and heart rate monitor for next to nothing!

As I became more serious about my running I wanted something a bit more than a standard stopwatch, but loved the HRM feature so I certainly wanted to keep that. After a huge amount of research I finally settled on a Nike Triax C8 – A HRM with all sorts of features, stopwatch, lap counter, two countdown timers amongst other things. It also allowed me to save the details of my runs such as average heart rates etc.

Eventually I started to look into the possibility of a GPS Device. My prayers were answered at Christmas 2007 when Santa (or possibly my partner Emma) bought me a Garmin Forerunner 305 which is an absolutely fantastic bit of kit. Simply put it on at the start of a run, press start/stop/lap as needed, come home and plug it into the computer. The fantastic world of technology then displays any aspect of my run. An accurately plotted map of my run appears, along with graphs showing heart rate, pace or speed, elevation, and more that I can’t even remember! It really is fantastic for logging and analysing as much of my training as I care to.

I've also tried the Nike+ system, which was originally developed to work with the iPod nano, but has since had a sportband released that it works with. Personally I'm not a fan of the unit – it's a glorified pedometer… it knows roughly how far each one of your strides is, and it counts your strides, thus having the ability to calculate roughly how far and fast you've ran.  This is fine if you run everywhere at the same pace, with the same length of stride all the time, but I found that as my pace varied depending on the session I did, the accuracy of the nike+ system plummeted.