Rain Gear

With every week this fall there seems to be at least a few days of rain that I have to suffer through. This got me thinking about rain gear. This fall I picked up a Brooks Silver Bullet Jacket which is supposedly rain and wind resistant. These jackets run about $150 dollars each.

I have used it for several of my runs and "yes" up to a point it works. On windy days the jacket definitely keeps the wind out. Rainy days the jacket does up to a point. On one particular day, I was out for about 2 and ½ hours and between the rain and my body heating up, I was soaked on the inside of the jacket.

Thus, I am pleased with the Brooks Jacket and its ability to repel rain for shorter runs, but I wondered if there were other rain repellant jackets on the market.

A little browsing occurred and I came across four other jackets. Well, actually, there were five jackets. Most everyone knows of the Gore-Tex jackets. Gore-Tex is a membrane that has nine billion microscopic pores per square inch. Each pore is 20,000 times smaller than a molecule of water. But the pores are 700 times larger than the water vapor dissipating from our bodies.

Gort-Tex is pretty good and pretty pricey. That is until I looked at other comparable products.

Columbia "Flyin' Dry" has its own technology for keeping runners dry and comes with a price tag of $250 dollars. There is the Rab "Streatch Neo Shell" which will probably keep you dry in a rain storm. The price is "wait for it" - $365 dollars. Next up is the Mountain Hardwear "Dry Q Elite Quasar Pullover". This is jacket is one of the lightest that I could find on the market. This could have something do with the fact that a runner's wallet has some $375 dollars removed from it. Honestly, who knew that staying dry and comfortable comes with such a hefty price tag. My last example is the the Mammut "Flesturm Half Zip" jacket which uses some of the Gore-Text technology. This jacket can be yours for an eye popping $390 dollars.

To think, initially my Brooks Jacket at $150 dollars was thought to be expensive. When I actually looked around, I realized resistance to water is very expensive. Maybe I will just limit my rainy days runs to an hour and keep the other 250 in my pocket.

 

Sharing one thought at a time,

 

The Cool Down Runner