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"

Thoughts on a 100 Day Runstreak

I've heard it time and time again:  rest days are important.  You can't run every day because your body needs to recover.  Running every day is a recipe for injury.  Respect the rest day.

But then I read about the runstreakers - the men and women who run every single day, rain or shine, sometimes for years.  Sometimes for decades.  I read a few articles with mild interest but didn't think much more about it.  While there are plenty of article extolling the virtues of the rest day, I reasoned that running just a mile each day probably isn't going to be harmful to someone who isn't injury prone and who is used to running distances.  But it wasn't something I had considered for myself.  I like my rest days.

Then on June 1, 2015, my Crossfit box posted a message with its workout of the day challenging us all to run one mile each day for a full week.  Since running is my thing, I considered doing a run streak of my own: something more than a week, but less than forever.  So I challenged myself to run every day in the month of June.  The rules:  one mile.  It can be slow.  It can be outside or on a treadmill.  But it has to be at least a mile.  I declared my intention on Strava, thereby making it officially official so I couldn't back out.

It wasn't easy.  My first half marathon of the year was in mid-June and I was worried about not taking a few days off of running beforehand.  That fear was unfounded, and I PRd my race.  Then I got a bad cough and chest cold and wondered how anyone could run through feeling sick.  I lamented about it on Facebook and some runstreak friends told me to get out there and do my mile.  I did, and strangely enough, I felt better.  Before I knew it, June was done and I had ran all 30 days.

Then July ticked by and then August.  I ran at least a mile each day, usually more.  And I became a stronger runner.  Sure, there were days when my calves just felt tired.  Never painful, never injured, but tired.  Those would have been cause for a rest day in my pre-streak times, but the runstreak version of myself just ran an easy mile on those days.  There were days that weather and scheduling made a run difficult, but with some finagling I always managed to find ten minutes to eke out a mile, even if it was a treadmill mile.  Most days, I felt good.  I put up decent mileage each week, and even in the heat of summer my "easy" pace got quicker.  Whereas last year I struggled to put up a single ten minute mile, this year 9:30 became a comfortable pace for a reasonable number of miles.

Robot Capris from InkNBurn.  I seriously love them.

I never intended to have my run streak last 100 days.  It lasted through races, through speedwork, through tough Crossfit days where two-a-day workouts were the only way for me to get my run in.  It lasted through illness and bad weather.   And now, on Day 100 - a milestone far greater than I ever intended to see - I don't see a reason to stop.

Ah yes, a self-indulgent photo montage.  I'm celebrating, okay?  

I find that I have less excuses not to run.  Before my run streak, a little ache or a bit of laziness led me to declare a rest day when rest probably wasn't needed.  Now I just go do it because it is what I do.  No excuses, no laziness, no looking for a reason not to run:  I just go do it.

I can't imagine I'll be a lifetime runstreaker - bronchitis or something awful in my respiratory system usually gets the best of me at some point and I'm not sure I'll be able to run through that.  But until then I'll keep on going, grateful for each day.  Maybe on to 200.