I sometimes have a bit exzema in winter if I am stressed and sweat in a rough fabric. Do you get itchy only on spots with a different fabric, like wool? It could be that the skin is dryer in winter due to heating. Or wool allergies. I know some people are allergic to cold as well. Good luck figuring it out.
For me for the Aftershokz, I put in the foam earplugs for the indoor track or treadmill or the airplane, and they work well that way for blocking out ambient noise.I think I might have just found my perfect pair of running earphones!
Decided to try out the AirPods Pro. I was hesitating a lot because of the price, especially since I had the AirPods 2, but Apple started doing their holiday return policy which meant I have until January 8 to return them if I didn't like them so decided to try them out.
For reference, over the last few years I have tried out these bluetooth earphones for running:
BeatsX - horrible to run in due to the long cord connecting the two sides, sound quality OK and decent noise insulation. Used these mainly for commuting rather than running.
Plantronics BackBeat Fit - these were my go to running earphones for over 3 years, until they stopped being able to hold a decent charge and I noticed some rusting on a part where the coating had come off. Loved the secure fit, they were fairly comfortable to run in, and let in quite a bit of outdoor noise so was safe to run outdoors with. Downside was that they were terrible to run with in the gym as they didn't block out any ambient noise at all, so I could barely hear my music/videos if someone else in the gym was blasting music through the sound system.
AirPods 2 - got these earlier this year after both my BeatsX and BackBeat Fit died. Connectivity is great for me as I run with my iPhone. However these do not stay in my ears while running, so I had to get ear hooks to keep a secure fit while running - these actually work fairly well since I managed to run a half marathon in them last month without them falling out. They let in a lot of ambient noise, so like the BackBeat Fit, were safe to run with outdoors but terrible to run with in the gym.
Got the AirPods Pro a week or so ago and finally over this weekend managed to do a couple of longer runs with them (10k outdoors yesterday, and 8k on the treadmill in the gym today). They stayed put in my ears throughout the whole run, and never felt like they were slipping out.
I did my outdoors run yesterday mostly with transparency mode on (which lets in all ambient noise as if I wasn't wearing any earphones at all), but could turn on noise cancellation at "safe" parts of my route (this is well inside a park, only a few other walkers/joggers around on very wide footpaths, so nothing much to look out for while running) and actually listen to my music. Then switch back to transparency mode easily once I was in an area that required me to be more aware of my surroundings.
Today I did 8k on the treadmill in the gym, with noise cancellation on. This almost completely took away the droning noise of the treadmill. And took away most of the background gym noise too. It was amazing, I could actually properly listen to my stuff without having to turn it way up so I could hear it over the background gym noise!
So far for me they basically have all the pros of my previous earphones without any of the cons and I'm loving running with these now. Not to mention that they work really well for my commute too.
Will add though that I've never tried out the Aftershokz earphones (they were also on my to try list)... though I suspect given the lack of noise isolation that Aftershokz might be better for outdoor than indoor running?
Oddly, I’m frustrated with the hamstring, obviously, but not all that disappointed with my performance in the marathon. I have to run the marathon the conditions allow and not get caught up in the ideal marathon that I wanted to run. With the hamstring, heat and humidity, I feel like I did as well as I could without worsening the injury, so I’m ok with that.
Race Report - Marathon Space Coast
I write this race report with mixed emotions. The plan was for this to be my redemption marathon after a disappointing Chicago Marathon last year. My training was on point and it looked like I was on track for an easy PR and a sub-4:00 shot until I started having recurring issues with my hamstring about 3 weeks ago. I’ve documented those struggles so I won’t rehash them again here. Suffice to say I thought I was past them going into the race.
I’ll start the race specific details by saying this is an incredibly well run and consistently well themed race. The Expo was relatively small, but well organized and streamlined. There was a lot of high quality race specific merchandise in addition to the vendors’ more generic offerings. The buses from the host hotels to the race start were prompt and got the job done. It was nice not to have to worry about early morning parking in a strange place.
Race day came with the first hint of issues with a 65deg and humid start temp with temps projected to rise into the 80s. A variable breeze helped, though. We started and it was immediately obvious that 3 weeks of fighting the hamstring had taken some of the stuffing out of my legs. Sub-4:00 wasn’t in the cards. No matter, everything else felt good and I was running in the mid-9:00s/mile. Until mile 3(!) when the hamstring grabbed again. I was able to keep it down to a dull roar by dropping my pace into the mid-10:00s. I considered dropping, but unless it got significantly worse, I’m way too stubborn to quit, even for my own good.
Around mile 6-7, the discomfort eased off a bit though (I didn’t say it went away) and I felt confident enough to push my pacing back down into the 9:45-10:00 range and set about cruising along there. The sun came up and it started getting less and less comfortable during this period, which lasted until about mile 16 when the hamstring reasserted its displeasure. Back into the mid-10:00s I went until about mile 21.
That was decision time. It was obvious that a PR was off the table with the second grab and the heat and humidity were taking a toll. With no realistic chance of putting up a top 2 marathon time for myself and no real worry about dropping all the way to my 4th best time, I elected to shut it down and run/walk it in so that I could hopefully live to fight another day at Dopey in 6 weeks. I cruised to a 4:37:08 finish.
Oddly, I’m frustrated with the hamstring, obviously, but not all that disappointed with my performance in the marathon. I have to run the marathon the conditions allow and not get caught up in the ideal marathon that I wanted to run. With the hamstring, heat and humidity, I feel like I did as well as I could without worsening the injury, so I’m ok with that.
Thanks for reading another long race report!
Afterthoughts
DD21 ran the race with me again as redemption for her ankle injury-limited 1st marathon at WDW this year. Unfortunately, she waits tables and her holiday hour blitz left her with an iffy back. When we passed in the 1st half, I could tell she was slowing. When we passed in the 2nd half she told me she’d been in a medical tent for 30 minutes trying to loosen her back up. She ended up having to walk the last 6 miles in the heat. It was a tough 6:10 finish for her, but she finished! I guess stubborn runs in the family.
I missed seeing @avondale at the start. I hope her race went better than ours!
Kennedy Space Center was awesome. Definitely recommend it for anyone who hasn’t been yet.
The race bling was huge! It came with its own stand!
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Good for you for pulling through! It was miserable out there today, especially the back half of the southeast section which in the Florida sun has neither enough shade or enough water stops. At least you were feeling better than the poor fellow who was howling his head off just before mile 20! (I came in behind you at 4:44.)
I am literally on a 6.5 mile run right now but I had to ask... does anyone else get really itchy when they run in the cold? It’s in the 30s today but sunny. I remember being itchy during cold runs even in high school over 10 years ago.