Today we’re going to be talking about running apparel. First of all, there’s a couple of dos and don’ts.
Never wear cotton during the summer. It retains water and can also cause some chafing. The material you want to get is called a moisture-wicking material. Most of the stores carry that and the t-shirts that you get after the race, you just want to wear those around.
You never, ever want to run in those things, unless you want to have some issues after the fact. Let’s start off with the head first. Normally I go ahead and wear a white hat. Of course, this has the moisture-wicking material, and it blocks the sun out quite well. The next thing I have, which I don’t have here, are sunglasses. A good pair of sunglasses does help with the glare and also protects your eyes from the sun’s harmful rays. The next thing I have, of course, is a bandana. If you sweat a whole lot, this is a lifesaver because it does keep the sweat from your eyes most of the time. And then we go to the shirt. A moisture-wicking material shirt. They have many colors out there.
Of course, you can buy these at your local running store.
Running Shorts
Again, there’s different designs that you want to get into. Make sure they’re loose-fitting and you can move around without too much of an issue. And then, of course, we have our socks. Socks are, again, hi-tech. They have the moisture-wicking material, and they’re really, really good with blisters and things like that, trying to prevent them. So you want to stick with this and stay away from the cotton socks also. Now, a couple of things I want to add to the mix here, of course sun block during the summer. This is something that you want to put on consistently, especially if you’re out there for an hour and a half or two hours for that nice, twenty mile long run. And they have the waterproof kind, which you definitely want to get, and this one is sweat proof. It won’t run into your eyes and sting you. And I’ve worn other products and it does sting if you’re not careful with that. And the other thing I want to talk about briefly is something called Blister Shield. It’s a roll-on and it stops blisters, chafing, skin irritation, and you can pick this up again at your local running store. This has been a lifesaver, not only in the summer time, but also during the winter.
