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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!
5
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.
Best of luck in the Marathon!
Greet my Florence for me!
Have a nice race!
Firenze is wonderful!
Bocca lupo!
Maybe I’ll see you at the start line Ray! Looking forward to a great race this Sunday
Love the “Keep Calm And Return The Chip” sign.
Best of luck – enjoy the race.
Enjoy the race Ray! .. I won’t make it for this season! Hallo from a snowy (northern) Italy
Good luck with the run.
Was looking to get my 620 from Clevertraining but delivery has sliped to ‘early December’ which makes my window increasingly tight. Is this a genuine surge of interest in the unit or Garmin being stingy with its original order?
Out of interest what was the discount price you saw on the 620?
Cheers
There’s interest. I’ve heard well-placed rumors that Garmin had sold more units in the first week than they predicted for the entire quarter.
As for the FR620, they were
€359 w/o HRM-Run (from €449)
€399 w/HRM-Run (from €399)
The expo sounds similar to the Flying Pig in Cincinnati in that you had to wind your way past all the vendors to pick up your race swag. In all honesty, I think it was one of the best Expos I’ve been to in the US, great vendors and all completely relevant to running. Sometimes I’m confused as to why certain vendors are at an Expo – the work of overzealous salespeople I suppose.
At any rate, have a great race! Looking forward to your report (and don’t eat the Gelato until Sunday afternoon).
Good luck!
Food will still be cheap after the race ;)
Best of luck with the marathon Ray, i’m sure you’ll smash it!
Thanks for the review, we’ve just got to Florence and will be heading to the expo tomorrow. My first race with garmin 620 really looking forward to it. See you on the start line!!!
Genoa here, good luck and enjoy your marathon!
Welcome in Italy Ray!
I suggest you don’t return to Paris, without eating a “Fiorentina” with a good glass of red wine, it’s a huge steak, so maybe AFTER the marathon. It’s quite mandatory!
Good Luck!
good luck
and enjoy tuscany!
I use to live there for a while and now I envy you…..
and eat a fiorentina for me too on sunday lunch/dinner
Any booth where they’re giving out prosciutto and cheese is alright with me…
Have a great race, and enjoy beautiful Firenze!
Have a good Run… hope to make this run for myself in the future..
Good luck Ray and have fun!!
Oh, my — that looks spectacular!
Good luck… And enjoy the carbo loading!
best o fluck
Ah, enjoy Florence… me and the other half were there on our honeymoon a couple of years ago, and loved it! Looking forwards to the write-up :)
Good luck! Run strong!
See you on the start line Ray!
Good luck (to all)!!!
Entertaining read. Will be at the Florence start line looking forward to the run. As ever, wish I had done a couple of extra long distance training runs prior to tomorrow!
Why does your information paper say “FRA,” but everywhere else, you’re referred to as “USA?”
Go Ray, Go!
I’m following you by live tracking ;)
I loved the t-shirt printing ! hope this catches on elsewhere.
BTW, I noticed that your race packet (envelope) has your name and FRA on it, but the chip reader identifies you as from the US…
Best of luck!
Congrats Ray, great race! 3:16:46 looks very good to me!!
Just curious about those four drops in your graphics, waiting for your race report :)
Hope you had a superb race, enjoy Firenze!
Looks like you had a rough one today Ray, better luck next time mate! Still, it was a beautiful course, wasn’t it? Hope those lovely Italian cobbles didn’t wreck your legs too much to enjoy a nice meal out in Florence tonight!
I think you’re not so much happy about your race: what has it happened?
Anyway, I hope you have appreciated the city ;)
according to race times, something went wrong after 21km :/
(still far better than me :D my legs went on strike at 18km, 3:54 at the end but with a lot of pain)
I suspect, Ray having a VO2 Max of 60ish would have him anticipating a sub 3 hour run for a flat course.
Hopefully the following does not come across as me trying to analyze the run; I’m just speaking of my own recent post run /sighs.
I seem to have one or two very bad training runs every month and it is a real downer for me. I have not figured out the reason it happens to me yet but discovering reason(s) is of great interest to me.
I am leaning towards my stomach not being happy, telling my brain to quit. I read an article on an old Scientific America recently regarding the relationship between stomach and brain ( link to scientificamerican.com ) that has me being much more conscious of what food I put in to my stomach (and when I eat).
Ray, you might consider an excursion from writing about gadgets and do a piece on analyzing the bad run or bad ride?
Congratulations on the marathon finish. Hopefully you got to eat some bad tasty grub after without feeling too guilty.
Hey, on the other races flyers, I see the one I ran this year : Mauritius Marathon.
Great event : 42 kms by the sea.
Should come :-)
Congrats! Saw you just before 33km – the very loud South African ! Look forward to reading your race report – that start was something special !
Hi Ray,
I’ve been checking back every day since the marathon to see if there was a race report, but perhaps you’re not planning to write one this time or are you? Thanks and have a lovely weekend, Alice
At some point I plan to, but haven’t quite decided when.
Just like Alice, I’m checking everyday this race report, hoping you’ll write it.
Have a nice weekend, Ray! ;)
Same here. My wife thought I was crazy for looking at the live tracking website, but in a way it was exciting so we will not let you get away without a race report! :-)
Ray, I noted in the livetrack from Florence that the four sections that appeared as walking all dropped exactly to 12:30/mile (on the plots below the livetrack map) and flatlined at that pace. Is that just a strange livetracking bug/feature? Have you noticed this type of thing during other livetracks (when walking or otherwise)? Thanks.