I feel as though I should apologise for the lack of reviews on this site. Ethical Athlete is intended as a resource to help people make good decisions about what they buy to take part in their chosen sport, yet the site very rarely includes product reviews. The reasons for this are simple. The vast majority of the content here is written by me, I don’t get sent things to review, and I don’t buy a lot either.
Yet this leads to the best advice I can give:
Buy less.
When you do buy, buy better. But buy less to begin with.
After all, a product you don’t buy has no carbon footprint; is not made from non-renewable sources; doesn’t rely on polluting manufacturing processes; hasn’t been made with child, or sweatshop labour; and will not end up in a landfill site when you’re finished with it.
Clearly it is important that you buy some things, but we could all do a lot of good by buying a little less.
So please consider my mini-manifesto:
- Only buy what you need. This is easier to do if you…
- Ignore the hype. Disengage from all the marketing and advertising and you’ll stop wanting what you don’t need. You’ll probably feel more content and happier too.
- Wear things until they fall apart. If your foot-specific running socks develop holes at the big toe (happens to me all the time), then wear them on the wrong foot. It won’t kill you. Odd socks are OK too, so don’t throw away a whole pair just because one is knackered.
- It doesn’t matter if your sports clothes begin to permanently smell. If you go training instead of shopping then no-one will be able to smell you anyway as you’ll be going too fast.
- When you think something has died, repurpose it. If the elastic goes in the liner of your running shorts, then cut the liner out. You’ll then have a perfectly good outer shell that can be worn over underwear when running.
- Don’t buy technical t-shirts. Enter races that give you one.
- Keep using your shoes until they fall apart. I struggle to believe how the 500 mile rule can be anything other than a myth.
There you have it. My unapologetic apology for not having more reviews around here. Of course, if you, dear reader, would care to add one, then I would be more than happy to include it.
Cheers!
I’m into the whole barefoot/minimal thing, so I agree that the 500 mile rule is a myth. There is no evidence that you’ll get injured as your shoe mid-sole loses its bounce (the brands probably prefer a more alarming term like ‘collapses’).
I buy some of my shoes second hand off eBay. There are often shoes on there that people have bought and run in a few times, but have turned out to be the wrong size or whatever. So I get a pair of nearly new shoes for £15-30 instead of £50-85. If they don’t work for me, I sell them on for more-or-less what I paid for them. Better for my pocket and the environment.
From an environmental point of view, brands who don’t change their colourways every year and then dump the ‘old’ models into outlet stores must be better, as this only encourages over-consumption and waste. Having said that, at least the ‘dumped’models can be bought at a more affordable price.
Oh, and I’ve got more technical T-shirts than I could possibly use from doing races, and I don’t race as often as some. I’m fed up with race T-shirts of all kinds. The whole ‘goody bag’ thing is immensely wasteful.
Race organisers should offer T-shirts as a low cost option for pre-entrants. Some of the best races I do are cheap (£5-8), with no goodies, but provide a buffet for competitors afterwards. I know there’s a kind of reverse economy of scale that tends to make small races cheaper, and laying on a buffet for races with more than 100 entrants is probably impractical, but the organisers of bigger races could take some lessons from this. Perhaps the entry fee should include a voucher to spend at the race finish, either on non-perishable, high quality snack foods or other goodies as the competitor desires, buying from stalls set up by local businesses, selling from their stock. That way, the race is not buying a load of stuff, some of which will just get thrown away.
Yep, I much prefer the races where you don’t get anything. Intra-club series are great, such as Hampshire’s RR10 and CC6 races. Volunteer run, free to enter, friendly atmosphere, no “stuff”.
Reblogged this on Jonathan Bean.