Sweet, Sweet SUGOi Swag

Call me a sellout. I don’t care. But when a company contacts me and says they’ll send me some free gear if I just write about it (just honest writing, not necessarily positive), I say “yes.” In fact, I say “F*ck yes!”

Devon with Outside PR first contacted me back in May. She wanted to send me a Sugoi Velocity tri suit. “F yes!” was my response. You’ve seen me race in that suit at a duathlon, 3 triathlons, and 2 “splash and dash” events since May. (All of those race reports and/or photos can be found in my sidebar under “2009 event schedule.”) Remember that suit?.... Here it is during the Chisago Lakes Triathlon:

(I wrote an official review [pointing out “pros and cons”] on the tri suit about 2 months ago. Click here to see the review.)

Then, about 6 weeks ago, she sent some more goodies. This time, it was a Sugoi Velocity tri top and tri shorts! I wore them for the first time on back-to-back days. Here I am racing the “Get Ready to Rock 10K” in the tri top:

And then the next day, Pharmie and I were out at Ironman Wisconsin to volunteer. Knowing I’d get wet helping out as a “wetsuit stripper,” I wore the tri shorts for the first time. Here’s Pharmie and I BOTH rockin’ our Sugoi tri shorts as we strip this fella of his wetsuit:

See the Sugoi logo on both of our legs?...

And just last week, one more great package came from Devon. It contained some “Gu Electrolyte Brew” which I’m excited to try...

...and some Gingerbread Gu (which Pharmie’s excited to try) and some Roctane gels (which I’ve started to use before/during races this year):

Roctane is more expensive than regular Gu, but it’s because it has more “good” things in it. And I totally buy it. It seems to hold back muscle fatigue a little. Really. Here’s more on Roctane if you’re interested. It’s like liquid crack.

She also sent a Sugoi bike jersey that she knew would be a little too big for me. Here it is:

I like the 3 pockets in the back that each have a bottle of beer coming out of them:

It’s just a little big on me, so I think I’ll re-gift it to my brother-in-law. Matt, I hope I draw your name for Christmas! You’ll know what to be expecting!! (Matt likes to drink, so I think he’ll like it!)

She sent these final 3 things from Sugoi: a “Tuke” hat, carbon long sleeve zip, and compression tights:

She didn’t send the cat -
we just happened to have a black one to match.

For the record, Kermit didn’t care much for the Tuke:

Pharmie wanted me to step outside to show the snow that was still lingering around. And she told me to breathe out when she made the photo, so yes, that “haze” around my head is my breath...

...and yes, those are my nipples.

I haven’t had a chance to wear the “carbon long sleeve zip” top for a run yet. It’s REALLY soft and “cozy” (as Pharmie would say). I like the nearly-hidden zipper that’s less likely to catch on skin or chest hair:

I HAVE had a chance to do a 6 mile tempo run in the compression tights (they are called “Piston 200 Tight” BTW).

A few thoughts on compression technology: The idea is that you can use compression garments for recovery or for racing. They help promote blood flow after a hard workout or race, so wearing them afterwards will “flush” out your legs and make them feel fresher sooner. Or you can wear them during a workout/race because they claim to hold everything in place a little more. That way, those TINY little muscles that usually need to strain to hold muscles in place while running don’t need to work as hard, and instead more energy can be put into larger muscles to make you go faster. Or so goes my understanding of the theory...

So on my 6 miler, I learned something. I do NOT have large calves. Mine are quite small in fact. (Thanks Mom for those genes.) But when I wore these Sugoi compression tights, I realized that my calves usually bounce around A LOT during a run! I felt them being held in place, and it was a new sensation! Overall, the tights worked really well, and I hope to wear them for the Monster Dash 10 Mile in 2.5 weeks! Maybe I’ll be able to wear that whole outfit above.

One last thing: Pharmie and I noticed something about the packaging for the compression tights:

I noticed that man has FREAKISHLY large quads!! Pharmie noticed that man has FREAKISHLY large man-bits!! So then we tried to re-create the large “man bump” with a rolled up t-shirt. This was the best we came up with:

Pretty close. Pretty darn close. ;)