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!
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.
Family time on saturday and a slow 20k run on sunday morning. To relax, a long and fast intercontinental flight a few hours after the run… Slept like a baby!
Gym session, and an afternoon ride 2,5h with some big gear work on hills.
3x XC freestyle skiing and a little ill :(
Fartleting (skiing) – I kid you not.
Last week i logged 137km, living i Norway most of the workouts was on the trainer.. Ride on!
23km long run on Sunday, then 30 minute cycle for cool down, then double load of laundry
a long and easy ride around
Swimming on Saturday morning, running my standard “Fremersbergrunde” on Sunday afternoon, inbetween an overnight visit of friends.
Saturday Cardiotennis for 1.5hr, tennis for 1hr on Sunday
A world of Zwift as I try to get ready for an April visit to Ventoux, amid west of Ireland storms!
Swim training and 70K bike on Saturday, swimming race and some core training on Sunday.
Plan – 12 km long run
Reality – Moved to a new house, so unboxing… :)
No training this weekend. San Valentin love celebration with my wife
Laaazy weekend this time – I did 30 min walk only – just to take some fresh air. I needed some rest after week – 1h swimming on Monday/Wednesday/Friday + 1h strength workout Thursday /Thursday.
Last weekend, R&R week came to an end. I started with a long base swim in the local swimming pool, followed by 3*20 minutes in Sweet Spot using a TrainerRoad workout. On Sunday, I ran a local 15K race. It was raining and windy, but we still had a lot of fun :-)
So on saturday morning i did a 80k ride with some short intervals thrown in the mix, in the afternoon went to the gym did some upperbody work. On sunday i did about 60min xc ride n the mud it was super fun sliding around than i had lots of food :)
Treadmill running – it’s cold here in Russia :)
I had two races for 5km on Saturday and easy 20km day after
A long run of 100′ what’s ended up in a distance of a half marathon and an indoor bike training a low heart rate and a cadence of 100-110.
Just some swimming last weekend on the rooster :)
One of the kids fell sick over the weekend.
All cardio training cancelled and replaced with kid-carrying strength training.
I did a 400 km AUDAX ride with a nice stop in a winery in WA, Australia.
I did a 26km rund with hills and trails and another 10km slow the day after.
work and chocolate
Over two hour turbo trainer session last sunday.
Ran almost 10k under wet snow in a really good company.
Hey,
Preparing for Rome marathon:
Easy 1hr run monday
Tempo/cruise session on wednesday
Long run on saturday
(this was a low mileage week)
My training log for last weekend? Well lets see, how do I put this…. zero, none, non-existent *gulp* look it was pouring with rain and cold, I mean the puddles were turning to ice.
A 30 minutes easy run on Saturday and a 9 km race on Sunday.
Saterday, 26.5k run start easy, ast 45 min harder (1:45 total). Sunday, 2:30 mtb ride in rain/snow.
Let me see, mmm, last weekend I did,….I didn’t do any sport at all!! I am getting lazy last weeks, I need some of these giveaway gifts to cheer up!
Double 10k easy runs, nice and slow!
A boring base training run…
Not much exercise in the end. Cycling around town, dreaming about my skiing trip starting next week, and thinking I should get in a run or two to be better prepared for the moguls ;) .
One ride up Mt Dandenong (60k round trip) & 2 rides along the Yarra to Melbourne CBD (37km each) & one short and slow pool swim.
A light week in marathon prep for Rotterdam. 60 km running, 66 km cycling from commuting to/from work. 2 weight workouts
Busy week-end as I’m preparing for the Paris marathon, so Saturday : 15×300 and Sunday : 1h45′ long run, tiring ;-)
Just a nice training run along the beach at Hythe in kent UK
Saturday: Open water swim, roughly 1.6mi followed by sunday’s flight back home from training camp
Well.
5 km run and twice 10km bike ride.
On the road this week… 6km run + 2km swim…
Easy 10k run on Saturday followed up with beers and burgers. Sunday evening was dedicaded for deadlift and squats at the gym. It was terrible. ;)
XC bike race on Sunday, 28km of deep wet snow and mud = lots of fun
Saturday 30 min warm up + 2x4km, Sunday 26km
Skiing on Saturday and a 28km long run on Sunday.
Did a easy ride on sat to prime myself.
On Sunday, tried to hold Powerman ride effort before hitting a brick run at Race pace.
The next 3 days were spent recovering :)
No running, since my tendons are sore… I did a swim test on fridaynight (10′ warm up, 400m flatout, 10′ recovery swim, 50m flatout, 10′ cool down), some walking on saturday and a 45′ swim training on sunday.
It’s winter, so Saturday I was skiing, and on Sunday I took it easy as a rest day, just some easy spinning on the bike.
Sweet spot training on a turbotrainer on Saturday. No training and a party on Sunday :-)
Nice morning run on saturday and sunday combined with indoor bike sessions.
Only 9km jog on weekend. Still recovering from a month long break over Xmas.
Just doing some sprints and sweetspot work on Zwift
Sat 1 hr swim training session, technique drills w a coach. Sunday 1 hr cycling.
I had a flu and didn’t train at all… Hope I can start training soon again since my first Ironman is comming in just few months!
Saturday 2×20 mins80%ftp, Sunday 4hr ride.
Monday swim class, Tuesday swim speed 2800m , Wednesday trainer intervals, Thursday 12km recovery run, Saturday 21 km endurance run, Sunday 2h bike endurance on trainer
I did ParkRun (free timed 5k) run and got a PB/came 2nd – was buzzing all weekend. Followed that up on Sunday with a 10mile TT where I was pretty slow – I blame the 5K the day before ;-)
Pursuit spin class, long run and chocolate covered strawberries as a reward!
I was trail running under the rain for about 21km on Saturday and an easy recovery road ride on Sunday for about 80km. Now I’m planning to do my first Sprint Triathlon this Summer.
This week building up training hours. First build fase almost completed. 4 times running, 2 times bike and 2 times swimming.
On saturday, it was meant to be an interval training but the stormy weather made it impossible to work it out passed the 3rd step.
On sunday, it was a recovery run before a swimming pool session with my 4 years old daughter.
Logged multiple MTB rides.
Thanks for the new giveaway.
I did my first 10K without a break in 48 minutes on Saturday and 5K rowing on Sunday :)
Weekends is 50-100K of cycling
I had the first ride with my team for l’Étape du Tour, we did just under 120k
Trail run in the beautiful Austrian Alps.
Last weekend I hung my pull up bar in my garage and did a gym workout followed by a 5 mile run. I had a rest day on Sunday, I cooked a slow roasted pork joint and watched 3 games of football, a game of cricket and a rugby match……it was a good day!!
Preparing for a half marathon: this time it was just 6.5KM at marathon pace on saturday + some strength training
Saturday – Interval run
Sunday – a ski trip with family
Some track intervals: 5x(4x200m, 40″rest)
I did some tricky sweetspot and threshold intervals on the Wattbike.
Recovery!
swimming sessions of 1k each day of the w/e, with different practice focuses.
Saturday I did a 4.000m swim (hard effort) followed by a 22k run in my aerobic heartrate zone.
On Sunday I had an 100k aerobic ride on the bike with a 2k easy run afterwards.
Going in to that weekend I wasn’t feeling that well, and during the long run my heartrate confirmed that my body wasn’t 100% fit for fight.
The week before I did a 21k run, same effort and pace, but with an avg heartrate that was 5 bpm higher. The relatively low heartrate is a clear sign, that the body is fighting some ilness – When my heartrate doesn’t want to increase, I better take a timeout instead of pushing through and finishing the workout.
Now I’m in bed for the third day in a row, sick with the flu.. ?
So the most important thing I learned from my training last weekend was that I got to listen to my body and act to what it is telling me.
It’s far better to train easy for a couple of days than not to train at all because your in bed with the flu ??
Regards,
Patrick from Denmark
Due to the bad weather (rain mixed with snow) the Sunday uphill run on a near by hill was cancelled. Instead I did go with my family to a swimming pool where watching out for my two little vivacious daughters was quite a workout ;-)
Saturday was sort of a rest day I did plan a short easy run, but due to the reasons above I only had a long evening walk with my wife.
Oh, almost forgot Friday, Saturday and Sunday watching on TV ski jumps in Vikersund Norway where we (Slovenians) were unbeatable.
On friday I went swimming after work, for like 1 hour a half, arround 3.300 m. On saturday I trained at home with my TRX (30 min.) and then went for a very long shopping walk with my wife (does this count?) On sunday I ran for about 5 km at slow pace. Congrats on your incoming baby mate! Cheers from Spain.
I did a nice workout on Zwift in the weekend, called ‘Tractor Pulls’. And yesterday I did a 85km endurance ride outside.
Some running and some cycling, but as we had to go to my wife’s family it turned out running only and then it started snowing…
6 miles easy on Saturday and a 13.5 mile run on Sunday, my longest run since June 2014.
the plan was to go running but the bad weather (and an oncoming cold) prevented this. So just stuck to dancing the night away.
I did a hike/backcountry ski-trip to a nearby mountain top. About 1000m height difference, cold and beautiful up there.
In my preparations towards Boston Marathon I ran 28K , consisting of 10K warmup, 11K race pace @ 4: 18min / km and 7K cooldown.
12K running, not bad for all cyclist. Or?
Swim on Friday, around 2k.
Because of some volunteer work for a race, wasn’t able to run. Bummer.
Running only!
Saturday was a 12 mile run: 2 mile warm up then 10 at marathon pace.
It went well, and I saw 3 hyenas. Normal training run for Ethiopia.
Finally, after month lasting sickness, I was able to do all 3 sports workouts outside in the last week.
Pretty bad weekend: nasty weather, 1200 km drive and just a couple of bkool multiplayer rides squeezed in between.
Easy, it was Recovery Week, the hardest to manage ;)
Three swim with the club (2intensity and 1 endurance), Three bike sessions(HT), and two light runs (one with my dog).
Hopefully, back into business this week ;). Recovery week are good for the body, but hard for the mind.
6K run on Saturday in the rain (slow), then 30K ride on a Sunday morning followed by another 6k run (even slower), followed by another short ride home. Then I crawled to the shower and from there to the couch for 2 hours to recover!
Had a tough interval workout…
Unfortunatly I wasn’t able to do any kind of training last week due to a flu.
The reason I got sick was because I had bad 8 nights with almost no sleep. And that was because my 7 month old son had a ear infection.
So good luck next year with your baby!! It’s awesome!!
Last weekend I did a double training, SST recovery training on Zwift with the bike and a 10 km recovery run.
8km along the Geelong waterfront. The conditions were perfect but I struggled. Don’t know why and have no excuses.
doing housekeeping and laundry :) with a todler and a baby
walking dogs out.
Ran 16 km along the perimeter of Madrid largest park, including spells of rain, wind, sleet and even sunshine
Not training enough. My excuse is that I’ve been swamped with work. Hoping to win some goodies, which will motivate me to start training in earnest soon…!
I did 10K on treadmill.
I ended up with a 90k bike ride on Saturday and a 25k long run at marathon pace on Sunday… And of course also a nice Valentine’s day brunch on Sunday for recovery purposes!
I did a fit all workout on Saturday (lame I know but I am pregnant) and on Sunday I ate lots of food to help me through all the sport my husband made me watch
I had a little crosstraining and a medium long run, cut short by patella issues :(