Gear unlimited.

The coolest part of Ultra-running is all the gear you get to play with. I just got my lights in the mail. When I started running, the only gear I had were my shoes. The first blisters and chafing brought on the dry-fit clothes and socks. Training alone brought on the fuel belt and then that was it for a very long time.

The ultra comes with its own set of additional gear. First off, you need to carry a lot of water. Not because you will need it in the run, its being prepared for getting lost and having to spend way more time in the trails than you planned to. Right now I have a hit rate of having gotten lost 3 out of 7 runs. That brought on the Camelback (in UT colors). The bag can hold 70oz of water, and has pockets to carry electrolyte/protein supplement drinks/tablets.

Then came the aspect of running in darkness. With the impending time change, and as winter sets in, our Wednesday runs are going to start in darkness, let alone end in it. Now I have a version of Sir Humphrey Davy's invention for the miners. A head lamp with 7 leds giving out green light! The whole thing weighs just 6oz. Plus a hand-held flashlight, just in case.

Then there are CLIP2s, and Succeeds, gaiters that Rajeev gave me... its gear galore. The good part is we are running a 50K race last weekend of this month, that is when all the gear and the fueling systems in race conditions will be experimented.