If you have ever registered for a race early in the season, or late in the season for that matter, you will undoubtedly have started your morning off with a bit of a chill in the air. You know you will heat up once you start running, but before is a different story. Outside of wearing layers of clothes and ditching them somewhere on the course, or freezing your butt off, there has really been no clear solution, until now. Enter the Sheddable Shell WeatherShield Jacket and Pants.

After last week's unfortunate tweaking of the Achilles on my left side, I have been a bit cautious about my activities. Next week will be my first Hurrican Heat in Boston and I want to be sure that I don't create a problem by over doing it. Although I am not terribly concerned about the HH with respect to the Achilles, it is the cumulative effect of the activities that may put a hamper on my Ultra Beast training. With only a week of rest, I have not been optimistic about getting back on the horse.

I have given this a lot of thought, a daily update just isn't for me. This is week 17. I suffered a setback this week, injuring my Achilles. I am not exactly sure what I did, but I can tell you that it hurts. STFU! does not mean be stupid. Training for NJ Ultra Beast, I hurt my knee and was unable to run for a couple of weeks. That did a number on my endurance. The elliptical didn't cut it and I should have hit the stair master instead. This time around, I am going to take advantage of my experience and lean on my brain instead of my brawn.

Call me crazy, but for some reason, I get excited about shoes and hydration packs. I don't really know what it is about them. They don't come with a manual transmission, girls don't go gaga over them, and they don't come stuffed with wads of cash. When I got my first taste of Nathan, it was while shopping for the perfect pack for my Ultra Beast. Nathan VaporCloud seems to have all the features many of us are looking for on paper, but how does it fare in the real world.

Today isn't one of my best days so far. Having given this journal too much thought, I found myself unable to sleep. I had grand plans of waking early to get some sprints in this morning. Instead, I crawled into bed around midnight and woke 10 minutes before work. Today will be an average day for me.

We all know that there are a ton of people that travel for OCR, myself being one of them. The issue I typically have when traveling for a race is race day nutrition. Many of the early heats runs have me starting early in the morning and hungry. There aren't a lot of reliable options for food on the morning of race day if you are traveling, unless you pack your own. The last thing you want to have is stomach issues in the starting coral. CLIF thinks they have a solution for the weekend warrior that will get you battle ready and ensure that your morning will be a predictable one.

With only 123 days left until the Killington Ultra Beast, I decided to create a series of post detailing my preparedness plan, thoughts, and feelings. Although it may seem like 123 days is plenty of time to prepare, I feel like there is a lot of work to do in little time.

A few weeks ago, a bunch of us decided to run one of the hardest races that many of us have ever attempted, The Tri-State New Jersey Ultra Beast. That race truly did a number on some of us, especially me, my knees, and my feet. I decided to take the week after light and signed up for the Ohio Beast and Sprint races. I had done the Beast in 2014 (my third Spartan Race ever) and remember the course being... well... flat. I figured this would be a nice break from the grueling course we faced in NJ and would serve as a nice recovery run.

Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd., today announced the Forerunner 735XT, a GPS running watch with multisport features and wrist-based heart rate1. The most lightweight multisport-capable running watch from Garmin, the Forerunner 735XT features 24/7 heart rate monitoring and built-in activities including running, cycling, swimming, multisport, hiking, XC skiing, strength training, paddle sports2 and cardio. Its sleek design features soft, comfortable silicone bands with a large display so users can view stats at a glance during their workouts. Connect IQ compatible, the Forerunner 735XT is the first device to come with the Strava Live Suffer Score app pre-installed so users can track how hard they have been working based on heart rate data. Users can download additional free custom apps, watch faces, data fields and widgets from the Connect IQ™ store to further customize the Forerunner 735XT.

Spartan has been holding their races in the Tri-State area since I first learned of their series. Through these years, the Super had been the primary focus with a Beast thrown in the mix later. This year, things would be different. This year, New Jersey would host its first Ultra …