2Toms - A Product Rave and a Cautionary Tale

Disclaimer: I received some samples of 2Toms Sport Shield to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com

The dreaded chafe.

I don't chafe easily, but when I do, I do it in spectacular fashion.  After spending my first relatively high-mileage summer a few years back training in blissfully low humidity, I woke up on the morning of my first marathon to record heat and humidity.  It was the kind of humidity that fogs your glasses and makes you gasp for air.  It was ugly, but I thought I was ready for it:  I had purchased Body Glide earlier in the year - everyone loves Body Glide, right?  I decided it was time to give it a try.  I applied it to all of the necessary areas, I ran 26.2 miles, and I chafed badly.  I'll spare you the details, but let's just say I didn't even know that women could chafe there.

Yeah.  Please don't think about that too long.  In fact, let's never speak of that again.

Needless to say, ever since then I've been very interested in finding an alternative to Body Glide.

I first heard about 2Toms from the guys on the fabulous Ten Junk Miles podcast.  They absolutely rave about the 2Toms line.  Their commentary piqued my interest, but I was never able to find it in stores and I wasn't quite ready to pull the trigger on buying it online.  But when BibRave gave me an opportunity to review it, I jumped at the chance to try it.

I totally should have bought 2Toms Sport Shield ages ago.

I received the women's 2Toms Sport Shield in two forms:  a roll-on bottle, and a few individually wrapped wipes.

I couldn't wait to try it.  I've spent a fair amount of time this winter putting in miles on the indoor track at the Pettit Ice Center.  While I love having the Pettit as an option, its extremely dry climate combined with the relentlessness of long track miles (oh look, a left turn...another left turn...hey, I think I'll turn left up here...) wreaked havoc on my feet.  I started getting blisters for the first time ever.  Blisters are not an option for a streak runner.

Fortunately, my 2Toms arrived just in time.  I started using the roll-on Sport Shield on my toes, and the blistering issues went away.  I've logged six runs longer than thirteen miles at the Pettit in the past few months, and the blistering issue that I was struggling with is totally gone.  I'll spare you a picture of my feet as proof (I'm rocking two black toenails right now, so my career as a foot model is on hold for the time being) but the piggies have never felt happier.

My Pettit bag:  headphones, water bottle, cash, GUs, and 2Toms.

And 2Toms doesn't seem to sweat off, either.  I'll own up to the fact that my feet get pretty sweaty, but the 2Toms didn't seem affected.  I've only ever needed a single application for a run.

The 2Toms Sport Shield single use wipes are great too - without getting too PG-13 in my descriptions, the wipes are great for getting at all of the nooks and crannies that can chafe and blister.  I was a little worried the first time I opened the wipes - they felt a little dry.  I think because they are packaged like wet-naps, I expected them to be as moist as wet-naps, but they aren't.  They aren't supposed to be.  But they work wonderfully, and are a must-have in my race bag.

And now, my cautionary tale.  2Toms is slippery - good news for your body, but potentially bad news for other things.  For instance, if you lube up your feet and then walk across your hardwood floor before putting on socks, the 2Toms may leave a slick residue on your floor.  It won't be visible, but it will be there waiting for you.  And this residue may be so slippery that, days later, when you are in a haste to get ready for work you may find yourself skidding comically across your floor in a fashion usually reserved for cartoon characters stepping on banana peels.  And in doing so you may fall on your ass in such a spectacularly noisy fashion that you wake everyone in the house.  I'm not saying that happened to me, but...well, just be careful.  This stuff is slick.

Want to try 2Toms for yourself?  Here's the deets:

Find them at 2Toms.com

Check MediDyne's Facebook page.

Follow 2Toms on Twitter.

And best of all:  get 20% off of your order through the end of April, 2016 by using the code "2Toms20"

Tough Mudder Wisconsin - September 12, 2015

I did the Wisconsin Tough Mudder on Saturday.  If you haven't done the race before, you may know it as the long mud run (12-ish miles) with the electric shock obstacle (as opposed to Spartan Race, Warrior Dash, or the zillion other mud runs that have popped up).  I've done plenty of other mud runs and lots of other regular running races, but this was my first Tough Mudder.

Tough Mudder is not timed; rather, it is about teamwork.  Some of the obstacles are literally impossible to do without a team.  At first, that was really off-putting to me.  I'm a solo runner and I like to race the clock.  That said, the teamwork stuff was actually pretty cool.  Most of my team consisted of friends-of-friends who I hadn't met prior to the day of, and over the course of run I felt like I really got to know these people and could happily hang with them over some beers anytime.   I guess helping people in and out of mud will do that.

The Course

The course varies from state to state of course, but they really hit a home run in Wisconsin by having this at Road America.  They used the miles of rocky, rooty, rollercoaster hills on their offroading trails and it was fantastic.  My trail runner heart had a blast bombing down the hills and chugging up the steep inclines.  I want to go back and run the trails again and again.  There were plenty of long segments of running in between the obstacles, so unlike some of the shorter obstacles courses, there was plenty of time to stretch the legs.  I loved it.

The Obstacles

Honestly?  Pretty fun.  There were tall walls to scale, barbed wire to snake under, mud to forge,  heavy logs to carry, etc.  Some of the more memorable obstacles included the "Arctic Enema" which was a waterslide that lands in chest-deep ice water, "Everest" which is a slick half-pipe that you run up (and if you are part of the 95% who can't scale it without help, you hope for some strong arms to grab you and haul you over the crest - plenty of people are willing to lend a hand to help a fellow Mudder, so no problem there).  I loved watching King of the Swingers which involved jumping off of a 15 foot platform to grab a swinging bar and landing in deep water.  Incredibly fun to watch, but as a non-swimmer I had to opt out of this one.  "Electroshock Therapy" involves shocking electrical wires that you basically have to put your head down and power through.  I took a good shock to the hip that rocked me, but other than that it was okay.

I made some pretty big assumptions that Tough Mudder would have the same AROO!BEASTMODECROSSFIT4LYFE attitude that the Spartan Races have, but it doesn't.  Tough Mudder is about working with your team to make it through any way you want.  If you want to run Tough Mudder, that's cool - no one will look down on you for making a run of the course.  If you want to walk it with your friends, that's cool too.  Make it an 11 mile party?  Sweet.  You do your Tough Mudder your way.  I've been on both ends of the spectrum, from the balls-out Spartan Races to the "let's take 2 hours for this 5K and then go get a cosmo and donuts" Dirty Girl mud runs, and this was a nice in-between.

So, all that said, was this the smartest race to run 3 weeks before my 50K?  Maybe not.  The potential for injury in an obstacle course race is pretty big as there's lots of room to fall, turn an ankle, etc., but I think I got a huge benefit from the hillwork I did and the time on the trail.  I'd definitely do it again in a heartbeat, especially off-season.

Finally, here's the obligatory team before and after pics.

Photo Credits:  Jeff Hammes.  Aren't these amazing photos?  I am blown away by how great the pictures turned out.