As this blog is in its infancy and I am laying a foundation for the extended silences and benign neglect to come in the (probably near) future, I should continue my "stuff I think is important" theme. Last time I wrote about tools that are useful for assessing and tracking your training and performance. This time it's about more personal, practical, matters: gear.
The very word makes me happy. The clockwork of it. The well greasedness of it. Gear, like its homonymous analogue, makes things go 'round, mesh together, and transfer energy from point A to point B (where B is usually some form of gravity defiance). To torture this metaphor further: sporting gear can be made of hardened steel or pot metal; can mesh smoothly and silently or grind and throw sparks; and can make the same amount of effort produce results or whir away fruitlessly. Yes, Fair Reader, gear is a many splendor'd thing and yet also fraught with peril.
With so many things to chose from, it's easy to get spoiled by choice and make poor decisions. No amount of well meaning advice will change this. Take heart, it happens to us all. But COME ON just look at it all! Things that are shiny, clanky, light (or heavy), high- (or low-) tech. Things that make goofing off more than just a walk - or run or ride or paddle - in the woods (which isn't a bad thing all by itself). Things that, rightly or wrongly, raise your expectations of yourself. Things that are part of being au courant as an outdoors person. Things that are relentlessly hocked by advertisers and their puppets in the sporting press. In short: lovely lovely gear!
I have, on more than one occasion, been swept into flights of nostalgia upon opening my climbing pack or kit-crate and smelling the distinctive funk of sweat, rock dust, and aluminum 'biner residue. Boom! Right back to Zion. Snort! High up on Magical Chrome Plated Semi-Automatic Enema Syringe in Estes Park. Whiff! Somewhere along the Jamul time trial near San Diego. Oh yeah, I love me some gear.
Safety tip: do not intentionally smell my running, riding, or climbing shoes. *That* funk is a less joyful amalgam of flop sweat, micro fauna, sewage, unicorn tears, and leprechaun farts. It's been known to bring grown men to tears and cause children to flee.
When push comes to shove, for mere mortals, performance is still mostly in the muscles not in the gizmos, a fact that is brought home to many of us as we are humbled on the course, the route, the trail, or the track by some potbellied fred dressed like Forrest Gump in played out everything but still chugging along. It's also worth noting that new gear is almost always lighter, better integrated, and just plain newer (which for some textiles, such as rope or shoes, is justification in and of itself), but that's not necessarily a reason to trash something else that still works.
Am I gear whore? Of course not; a whore gets paid, contrariwise I pay (dearly). Therefore, I am a gear john.
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