Heads up! Here’s your massive list of sports tech deals! This includes the Garmin Forerunner 965 for just $499, Garmin Epix for $429, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium for $735, the GoPro Hero 12 Black for $299, (or Hero 13 bundle for $339!) and plenty more! Go check out the full list here!
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
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Check out my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
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5 Easy Steps To The Site
1
In Depth Product Reviews
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
2
Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
3
Have some fun in the travel section.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
4
My Photography Gear: The Cameras/Drones/Action Cams I Use Daily
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
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The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
searching for hours to find an egg, that was literally 6 inches above my sightline – so I was looking (almost) right at it for the whole time. Great amusement was had by others….
yep…I would like to have one of those…..thanx
8 miler for Saturday, 16 miler for Sunday then pig (turkey) out time
Nobody in my family actually eats Peeps, but my mom still buys them. So we started a tradition: Peep Wars. Two combatants are armed with toothpicks and placed in the microwave facing each other with the timer set for one minute. First one to pierce the other wins!
This Friday the family (hubby and kids and I) are going hiking in a remote area in Southern Utah in search of Indian petroglyphs. It should be nice 6 mile round trip. Saturday will be an easy 8 mile run, and my son will do a 25 mile bike for his Cycling merit badge. Going to be a busy weekend!
Thanks for doing the giveaway!
Forerunner wouldn’t be a bad upgrade from the Edge I use on runs now. Thanks for the opp.
No funny stories, with three kids there are many eggs though. Joel Neely
Many eggs many stories
Easter for me is a 9 mile run (prepping for late May 10 mile race, half marathon in August) followed by church and good eating with my kids, wife, and parents. Should be great. Thanks Ray, have a happy Easter!
Tomorrow i’ll have some rest, i’m going to Milan, Italy. Then for Monday, a 30k ride followed by a 10k run.
Greetings from France !
Hi Ray- I’m the one who said hi at Rumpus and told you my husband loves you- he’d love ME even more if I could win this for him.
Plan for this weekend:Recovery run Sat, easy bike Sun.
Thanks! Becca
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I will be spending Easter weekend packing to go to St. Croix 70.3 triathlon. I wear a Garmin every day and would love to have the new one.
Count me again. One day it will be my day. Happy Easter!
for easter i’m planning on takign it easy and only doing 1 MTB ride and maybe squeeze in 2 xfit sessions. would love a 610 to track it on though :)
My workout this weekend is a 30 min tempo run (6:50 pace) followed by a 60 min long run (8:45 pace)on Sunday. Happy Easter!
I want this one. Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee
I gave up all sweets for lent and just finished a 70.3 on Sunday. I intend to eat a grotesque amount of dessert, have a cocktail and go play golf badly (does it count as a workout if I walk?).
Can’t think of a funny Easter story…but on top of my weekend workouts I get to install a 100′ french drain in the yard!
Hi DC! Jewish so no Easter story but had a fairytale of a weekend: Fri 4/15 was my 39th birthday, and at noon I was notified that I am one of 200 people in the world to be chosen to compete in the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, HI on 10.8.11! I am still on cloud 9; have always considered myself fortunate but never a “lucky” person-but this makes up for an entire lifetime of luck!
Submitting this not only because fairy-tale story, but because you can imagine the financial burden I just got hot with to bring my family to HI. A device like this, one that I would use everyday in training and racing, would be infinitely appreciated and utilized!
Regardless of outcome, happy holidays to you and yours, and to everybody reading this.
Jon L.
I’m the fourth of five kids, so I naturally tend to feel like I get shafted. So, during the Easter Egg hunt one year, I was the first one to find my allotment of eggs (yay!). I sat there, confident I had finally gotten the eggs with the most money.
I got nothing but change. My little sister got every single bill worth more than $5.
One year, instead of chocolate, my dad made me a beer bunny. Tall beer can — feet and ears from white and pink felt, nicely and discretely attached with duct tape. There were googly eyes on the front and then one of those animal masks/noses wrapped around. Perfect Easter gift!
No real workout planned since I’m on call for work, but hoping to squeeze in a ride and run.
Thanks Ray! No funny easter stories but my workouts are all being done to counter all of the Reeses peanut butter eggs I’ve been eating. They’re just too good to resist.
Thanks for the giveaway! And dang it, I forgot about Easter. That’s going to really mess up my workout plans. (See how I’ve got my priorities straight?)
Plan to do a 3mi “long run” after coming from an injury with my phone as tracking device. Since I couldn’t run for 7 weeks, my dog was mad and ate my old Forerunner. So I am in need for a new one!
Regular weekend workout – mtn bike ride Sat and some indoor climbing Sun
My exercise plan is to do a extended run on Good Friday morning and hopefully not wear myself out too much as I have a family golf outing in the afternoon.
– Erik
Planning a 10K run on Saturday with some friends. Swimming lesson cancelled due to Easter. Also have to buy Easter candy for daughters and hide it – nearly forgot!
Planned workout: chasing after kids while they hunt for eggs!
I plan on enjoying the time off and going for a bike ride. My fingers are crossed for good weather and for the giveaway.
This is not so much funny but cute. When my daughter was 3 I hid little chocolate eggs on every other stair coming down the stairs in our townhouse. She was so excited finding them at the time -and seeing the pattern of every other step…it was so cute. I forgot about that for 15 years until she was talking to me last night and reminded me of it. (Which is also cute in it’s own way.) – Susan in Shoreview MN
On Saturday I’m gonna bunny hop myself to a 5K run. Sunday, heading to the trails for some mountain biking and some grilling with the family.
No funny Easter stories come to mind but I have my first one hour run coming up this weekend after coming back from an injury for the last six weeks.
Easter will be a little different for us this year. First one as empty nesters. Sunday will be a recovery day after Saturday’s long run so I’ll be taking it easy relaxing with my wife.
When I was maybe 2, my parents wanted to go skiing, so they put me in the skis that attach to snowboots and left me at the bottom. Well there is this kid (me) kind of cute (back then) wandering around, so they brought me over to the easter egg hunt. These were the foil wrapped chocolate kind.
They yelled go – and well no other kids (mostly much bigger) had these stupid skis in the way so I could not get to any of the eggs before the rest of them. I didn’t much care, I was just doing what I was told (I actually listened well to my elders back then).
The adults in charge felt awful that here I was, empty handed but for my big giant feet. So they bought me a candy bar – I scored – that was much better chocolate than the eggs had :)
I will be racing Quabbin on saturday so Sunday will be some sort of recovery workout….tbd.
-Cat London
Hmm, can’t think of any funny easter stories.
This weekend I’ll be mending my knee in hopes of getting to the start AND finish of my marathon 10 days away! There will be lots of time spent in the pool for sure.
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No funny stories but plan on doing 60 miles on bike Friday, followed by a 10 mile run on Saturday. Sunday will allow me to indulge in chocolate!!
Great blog. Have a fantastic Easter
detall. Being Jewish we don’t celebrate Easter so I have no story to share. I do have some good Passover stories though. Anyway my older foreruner 305 last week failed to hold a charge and Garmin will repair for $80. since the new 610 is a few weeks away, I entered the giveaway
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Heading to Northern Michigan where there isn’t much else to do but hang out with the family and get in a run or two.
Loving your site. The “how to not decapitate your bike” article was great, and resolved the debate (between my wife and I) about whether to go with a root or trailer hitch mounted bike carrier.
Hope to see you at a race this summer, I’m in DC as well and train with TPR.
Looking forward to checking out how that touchscreen can handle -20F winters and the onslaught of sweat that I tend to emit in the summer.
Weekend workout… Run 10-13 miles and bike 20-30 Saturday. Hopefully get a good 50+ mile ride in Sunday.
Big neighborhood egg hunt and one of the neighbors dressed up in a bunny suite and I just remember being absolutely terrified. Now it makes me think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “Run away, run away”. It is just a little rabbit . . .
Also, for the weekend, 1hr/20min brick on Saturday and a swim and run on Sunday.
Plan this weekend is to get high on chocolate and do yard work, hopefully the chocolate buzz will help with the enthusiasm to get out and do the yard work.
I want to know why when we were kids we used love egg rolling – run down a pretty steep hill chasing the eggs and then run back up again. Now of course we call this hill reps and we dread the thought…
Maybe I should break out the painted eggs again..?
On Sunday 13 mile hill run planned to prep for my upcoming trail marathon. Rest on Saturday
Love the looks of this watch. Hope I win!
Eating some Peeps.
I want to know why when we were kids we used to happily chase painted eggs down a steep hill and then run back up many times to do it over again.
Now we call it hill reps and dread the thought…
Maybe I should break out the eggs again…
Last training run before the OKC Memorial marathon!
Greatest giveaway ever!
Count me it.
Planning an 84KM mountain bike race this weekend.
My Easter Weekend Celebration starts tomorrow with a morning swim followed by a solo 100K ride.
Friday I’m taking things off-road, 30K mountain bike ride, 10K trail run, and an Atlantic dip before joining the girlfriend for a suntan on South Beach.
On saturday I’m gonna ride to a Spartan Race in North Miami Beach (60K)to watch my brother demolish the field.
On Sunday I’ll squeeze-in an early 100K on the bike before church with the girlfriend, then I’m off to my parents for the Easter Feast.
Have you noticed that there’s very little running involved all weekend? That’s cause I’ll saving myself for when I received the 610.
Enjoy your Easter Weekend!
Well, all I can say is that chocolate eggs found 6 months later under the sofa cushion are not edible, tried it for you ;)
Keep up the great work Ray!
Count me in for one! I can remember multiple Easter’s where the holiday fell on daylight savings time and we showed up to church an hour late.
Hopefully, my wife wont mess up with my eggs, so I will be able to workout this weekend. Happy Easter !
I plan to hike a little mountain near my house. I’ll be the first hike of the season.
please put me in. Puked up candy from eating to much when I was 5.
Thanks Ray! 2 1/2 hr brick scheduled for Saturday and 1 1/2 hr run on Sunday. Thankfully the weather has finally warmed up!
No fun Easter stories, but eating lost of Matzo during Passover always throws a wrench in my training nutrition…..
I am going to do a brick on saturday and I LOVE free stuff!!!
Planned workout…hill repeats.
11 mile easy run on easter!!!
Hi DC Rainmaker, thanks for the contest. If I win, I should be getting the FR610 just in time for my last long run before I start to taper for Ironman Texas! Whoop Whoop!!!
Regards, SMORENOG
No funny Easter stories here either, but I’ve got a 10km easy run on the weekend – I’m tapering for the Vancouver Marathon at the end of this month.
I was five years old riding my favorite big wheel cruising around the neighborhood with my brothers. After miles of riding, we headed home to dream about the upcoming Easter Holiday (it was two days away). We lived at the bottom of a big hill so we always pushed ourselves as fast as we could down the hill. As we chased each other, I was too late on my brakes and slammed into my Grandmother’s ’76 Buick LeSabre. Needless to say, my whole face was a wreck with a black eye, split lip, cuts and bruises. On Sunday, we had our Easter family picture taken in my best outfit with all my cuts and bruises. My Mom still kids me to this day that there was more “color” on my face than the Easter eggs we painted. Ride on…
croethler – The dog got into my son’s easter basket. While the jelly beans and Peeps weren’t to her liking, based on the ‘biological evidence’ in the backyard, she loved the Hershey Kisses and Cadbury eggs… Foil wrappers and plastic grass adorned the landscape over the course of the next week. Fortunately,the dog showed no ill effects from the ‘poison’ chocolate.
Easter workout plans include a run and a swim. Easter celebration plans include a family egg hunt with my 3 1/2 year old and 10 day old boys!
I plan to do a 3 hour ride, 90min run, and a bunch of time chasing the kiddies around :)
Funny Bunny Story: My kindergarten-aged Daughter wrote a letter to “EB” this week, “Deer Eester Buneey, plees giv me a big choklit buneey so I can share with frendz. Love, Cassie”
Weekend workout is a long-ish run on Saturday and long bike/transition run on Sunday.
What a great giveaway! Thanks!!
Recovering from a bout of overtraining. Easter weekend workout, thus, consists of season 6 of Lost (appropriate Easter entertainment, right?) and eating sugar coated marshmallows in the shape of baby chickens. #delicioussugarcoma
PS: Really hoping for some luck, since I lost my Forerunner somewhere between the Finish Line and transition at Galveston 70.3!!!
We’re planning on riding 50 on saturday and a short one on sunday. We’re off to a late start this year :-(
I am the Easter bunny and I need that watch!
Brick workout followed by 6 hour car dive to my mother-in-laws house. Wow can you say party! Think I might take my bike and ride home.
We’re planning on doing a 50 mile ride on Saturday and a short one Sunday
The Irish government has put a warrant out for the arrest of the Easter Bunny due to tax “egg”vasion, stating chocolate eggs have dropped in value since the recession. The Easter Bunny is hold up in Switzerland where he’s awaiting an “egg”xtradition order… ;) {sorry, best I could do off the cuff).
So given this awful news of Easter being cancelled in Ireland, a Garmin FR610 (+ an easter egg :) would go along way to helping me cross the finish line in Ironman 70.3 in Galway in Sept…
Tks DC, keep up the good work, (just started following you on twitter)!
Pete
I’m just hoping it doesn’t snow again this weekend. Last week I came home from church, changed into cycling gear, walked out to the garage, and it started snowing.
Years ago my mother mailed me my Easter basket and given our deep southern location I had a ‘solid’ melted chocolate basket!
Yup. Jelly beans are a bit stale, but edible when found at Thanksgiving. Scary, huh? Put my name in the computer pot, please.
oli
I always remember the year we found peeps in the easter baskets…from last year…
Mom made a point of getting me a new “Sunday suit” each Easter. I grew up in the 70’s, so most of them were of the polyester leisure suit variety. Looking back, there’s not much funnier than the white leisure suit from Easter 1975 – a true classic!
The plan is to build one super-duper ultra-delux treehouse/clubhouse for my godson.
We actually just found an egg from last year, a month ago, jelly beans intact. We chose to not eat them…
Weekend workout plan is to hit the muddy trails with the dog.
Thanks for your generosity with these contests!
Bryan
I would LOVE to tell a funny Easter story, but I don’t really have any.
Moreover, I’d love to tell you what training I have planned. However, I’m laid up with an injury. :-( Winning the Garmin would surely help me get back on the road to recovery, though!
Hope my quads are recovered from downhill running last Sat. so I can ski fresh Montana powder all weekend!
I once left an easter egg in my front jacket pocket, only to find it again the next year coming out in pieces and smelling really bad as I was jumping around in the backyard.
And this weekend I’ll be nursing my ankle back to health. That and maybe doing a 2000m benchmark swim, because why not?
Thanks for the entertaining, informative site. Giveaways like the 610 are pretty cool too.
oli
Planned workout involves chasing after my daughter on the hunt for Easter Eggs. Call it a speed and agility workout.
My easter’s haven’t been funny, but I’m headed to the Easter Hill Country Cycling Tour for 3 days of cycling this weekend. :)
Thanks for all the great reviews! Much appreciated.
Years ago we went to my Grandmother’s for Easter, and as always brought our dog along. One of the days we were there the whole family decided to go out for lunch, leaving our dog at my Grandma’s house to hold down the fort.
When we returned from lunch we went back to relaxing and conversing with each other when someone questioned who had eaten all of the Easter candy that had been set out on one of the tables. No one stepped forward to admit they were the one who over-indulged in the candy. Later that day it became very obvious who had enjoyed all of the candy when we let our dog outside to do his business and his poop was quite festive with aluminum foil wrapping of all different colors. It was an interesting sight.
Luckily, ingesting that much candy and chocolate didn’t harm him at all. Just a ridiculous story that our family recalls on occassions.
4 hour ride on Saturday followed by a 2-3 hour ride on Sunday
A few miles in the early each day with quick stride rate and then 9.5 miles walk/run in the afternoon. I’ll probably throw a bike or swim in each day. White chocolate bunnies rule!
Planned workout: Make my exercise adverse Mother in law walk around the neighborhood while she is visiting. And get a 70 mile bike ride in if possible.
Pick me!
No funny Easter stories either. BUT, on tap for this weekend….bike test! Yikes! Thanks for the giveaway!
I plan to eat my body weight in Easter eggs this weekend. It’ll be like an endurance for my digestive system!
Can’t think of a funny Easter story though there has to be one in my past. This weekend is all cycling with 60mi on Saturday and 45mi on Sunday. All tempo pace for endurance.
If no rain in Chi town 30 miler bike on Saturday and a short run with the kids Easter morning – eating chocolate eggs all the way!