How to get the stank out of your running gear

Guest post by The Mrs. Gianni

Sometimes I wash my husband's running gear. Sometimes he washes it. We're both sick of the stink that running gear has, especially technical fabrics.

How bad does it smell? Like this:



You know it's bad when the sweaty stink smell is coming out of the dryer vent from what should be clean clothes.

Or when you are folding those "clean" clothes and the smell just knocks you down.

Or when you give your sweetie a kiss before he heads out for a run, and he already smells bad. Ugh.

It's one think to throw away a cheap running shirt - quite a different matter for those CWX tights.  I'm trying to lengthen the life of that expensive gear as best I can.

This is how we wash running gear now. I basically googled "get the stink out of workout clothes" and came up with several answers. I combined EVERYTHING and let me tell you, it works. No more stink.

Let's do this thing.

I wrote the process
on a big piece of chalkboard vinyl
that I stuck to the wall next to the washer.

• TEMPERATURE: Use the Warm/Cold setting on your machine. You can check your machine's manual, but the vast majority of washers do not let the "Warm" setting get hot enough to kill your elastic.

This is a crappy photo of all the stuff you'll need.

• SPOT TREAT if needed with your favorite spot stuff. Looks like I bought Zout this week.

• PREWASH. Your machine may call this "soak." Mine has both soak and prewash options, so I use the prewash. I think the difference is that the pre-wash agitates and the soak doesn't? I don't really know.

For the pre-wash, put in a big scoop (1/3 cup-ish) of salt and a small squirt of regular blue original Dawn dishwashing liquid. The salt is antibacterial, the Dawn helps break down body oils.

• WASH: Start the wash cycle and add a half scoop to full scoop of oxygen powder, a big tablespoon or two of the homemade powder detergent (if you like), and a 1/4 cup of Atsko Sport Wash.

- Oxy powder kills bacteria and such, and helps break down stain-causing things.

Atsko Sport-Wash and my little scoop.

- Atsko Sport Wash - available via Amazon and at some major sports &/or hunting chains. Hunters use it to remove the human smell from their clothes so deer won't smell them. There are similar products out there, but this one is a very good value and made specifically for technical fabrics.I have gotten fairly good results with the process leaving out the Atsko, so if you cannot find it, that's ok. I do think it improve the overall result, though.

I wrote the recipe on the jar
because it's so simple,
I can't remember it.

-Homemade Detergent: 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda, 1 bar soap (grated).
These kill bacteria and break surface tension, which gets the clothes cleaner.

I use Fels Naptha or sometimes Ivory or Kirk's Castile bar soap. Anything works, though--pick your poison. I grate it with a cheese grater (take less than 2 minutes, seriously) and then throw it in the food processor with a bit of baking soda to prevent it from balling up. Makes a nice fine soap powder, and it's easy to clean up the processor because IT'S SOAP. I haven't had much luck with using the food processor for grating with anything other than Ivory; most soaps are too hard.

NB: My Walmart Supercenter had some soap flakes, which are hard to find. They were a Mexican brand I didn't recognize, and the name escapes me at the moment. Would save you some grating. 

Mix the grated soap together with other ingredients and you are good. I use 1-2 TB per load for all our laundry.

You can also add to your homemade detergent: Lem-Shine (citric acid--again, helps kill bacteria and freshen) or baking soda (for more freshness). Totally optional.

RINSE: Before washing, fill the rinse cup with vinegar and add a little capful of rubbing alcohol or cheap vodka. I had already used my cheap vodka to make vanilla extract with, so I have rubbing alcohol here.

Some people use Febreeze, and that's fine, but Febreeze is basically straight-up alcohol with loads of fragrance.

I keep my stuff in this little tub.

If the clothes can be dried, I recommend NOT using dryer sheets. Dryer sheets coat the clothes and make them less absorbent and wicking, which is exactly the opposite of what you want from running gear. I use dryer balls (you can get them at any discount or dollar store, or just use a couple of clean tennis balls) and I really like them.

You can put a drop of fragrance oil on the dryer balls if you need some fragrance in your running gear, but be careful--You know how when you start to sweat, your perfume gets really strong all of a sudden? Yeah. That. If I'm adding fragrance, I put it in the vinegar rinse.

Amazon links:

Atsko Sport Wash 1L Bottle
Chalkboard Contact Paper, 18" x 6'
Pentel Arts Wet Erase Chalk Marker, Chisel Tip, White Ink, 1 Pack (SMW26BPW)

How do the clothes smell now?

New longest distance run!!

This past Saturday saw me run my longest distance to date.  19 miles and I was still able to walk and be a relatively nice person for the rest of the day.  I celebrated by buying some five fingers 

( http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/Five-Fingers-BikilaLS-Mens.htm ).  Ok, I wasn't celebrating by buying them.  I realized that if I am going to last another 32.5 miles in July I will need to strengthen my feet a lot more than I am.

Good run overall with a huge shout out to my friend DB who showed up for my second lap of White Rock Lake in Dallas.  I wouldn't have made it without him.  I kept up a good pace that I would like to keep for the ultra marathon and developed a new love for dry socks and Body Glide ( http://www.bodyglide.com/#/products/anti-chafe ).

That's all for now.  Up at 5:00 for more running fun and adventure.

14 tomorrow

Well, given that the first week of March is behind us and the ultra is staring me in the face on July 1, I need to ramp up my distance training and endurance. I will be running the Katy Trail 2x in the morning for a total of 14 miles. This will be my longest run ever as my previous longest run has been a half marathon. Looking forward to this challenge.

T minus 4 months

The ultra-marathon is on July 1 which means that I have 4 months to train. YIKES!!! I was going to log about 250 miles in January and only logged about 50 due to weather and healing from oral surgery. February was a grand combination of bad weather and lame excuses. It kind of disgusts me when I think about it too much. Water under the bridge at this point I guess. I start fresh tomorrow, March 1.

Has anyone seen my Zen?

As I prepare for my first ultra-marathon I am working on ways to reduce the fear when I think of running a 51.5 mile race. So far the best thing I've come across is something called Zen running. The way I understand it, you more or less check out mentally while you run so the strides just blend together and you float out of time and space, or some crap like that.

Frankly, I'm not sure there's anything to Zen running and I welcome anyone to knows more about it to educate me. I will admit that I did feel pretty good last week when I imagined myself being comprised of 100% air when I was running up a hill and that seemed to make me a bit lighter on my feet.

Admittedly, I'll be the first to bore a non-runner about the high I feel after I get back from even a short 3 mile run, but I have felt every hard fought step of that run. I didn't find some cosmic peace as I made sure to land on my mid-foot rather than my heels and I'm ok with that.

In fact I'm happy about it. I run to feel something dammit. I'm not going to lace up my awesome shoes, wear my road id (http://www.roadid.com), and dodge cars to come home and feel all light and airy about it. I run because it is hard for me to do. I run because I like the challenge of dodging cars, building my endurance, and striving to not look like a fool when I've saturated my wicking shirt. I love the pain of running. As Dean Karnazes says in his new book when asked if running hurts, "Yeah, it hurts if you're doing it right." I want to hurt after I've run because I'm reminded that I just found a new limit to push next time.

So bring it on 51.5 miles. I'm not afraid of what you can do to me because I can take the pain. Running is just putting one foot in front of the other repeatedly. I can handle that.

So I've found some motivation

Well, I have been a pretty lame runner for a while now ever since my half marathon almost a year ago. I have only run on and off and not very well at all. I chalk that up to a lack of preparation for my last two races that quite frankly, wiped me out. That said, for the nth time, I am back on the horse, and I have to tell a lot of people about it so I can save face. I have found a race that will be a definite challenge to prepare for.

I will be competing in an ultra-marathon on July 1, 2011. I have started training and am crossing the days remaining off the calendar. I will be in Tulsa over the 4th of July weekend next year and I will run in the Tatur Midnight Madness 50 miler (51.5 miles to be exact). Here is their website: http://www.tatur.org/Midnight50/index.html. More updates to come, but I needed to get that out there so I can have as many people as possible holding me accountable for my training.

Back to school

Well dear reader. It is back to school time for yours truly. I have not run for the past week, not on purpose mind you, but I have started back to school to get that GPA up a bit so I can think about bigger and better things for my career. That said, I am having a hard time getting my sorry butt out of bed in the morning.

There was a time that I would drag myself out of bed at 4:30 every day to go and lift. That man seems to be in a coma right now. It is time to man up!!

I don't have too much more to say right now other than it is time to man up to whatever you are putting off and saying you don't have the time to do. You have the same number of hours in a day as everyone else. Let's get some sleep so we can get up and run 3 miles tomorrow morning! Good night all!

Keep on running!