Thank You, Google!

Ah, the wonders of the interwebs. Thanks to their magnificent randomness, I found the coolest thing today . . . and I just have to share. I was bored out of my mind, googling everything I could think of to google, and after reading Absolut(ly) Fit's post about how she's signed up to run the Running with the Devil Marathon (pretty bad ass, huh?!), I decided I wanted to read more RWTD race reports (I do this a lot--google race reports for random races. It's sad, I know). So out came the google, and wouldn't you know, one of the first reports I found was from The Story of A Redshirt blog.


Now, I like to think of myself as a relatively green and earth-friendly person, and I have frequently wondered about the bins of running clothes I own and pondered how environmentally friendly/harmful they are. Well, unlike me, Jeremy actually took the time to research and find this info out. It turns out, many of the "technical" running clothes many of us treasure are not only environmentally harmful, but they also contain carcinogens (um, you know--like the stuff that causes cancer?!). And also? When we're good and done with the clothing, it inevitably ends up in landfills (at least 85% of it does), where it can sit for thousands of years leaking EVEN MORE chemical badness into the Earth. Gross, right? As Jeremy put it, "Instead of running, why don’t I just sit on my couch, eat a Big Mac, smoke a pack of cigarettes, and throw some more toxic waste in the Potomac River?" Touche.


Thus, Atayne was born. "So what's so cool about their performance tops?" you may be wondering. Well, how about the fact that they are made from trash? Yup, you heard me! Taken from this page on their website:

"Traditional performance apparel is made from virgin, non-renewable materials, contain questionable chemical treatments, and usually find their ultimate home in a landfill. Our competitors call that a treasure. We call it trash.

At Atayne, we use recycled polyester (from plastic bottles) and Cocona (activated carbon from coconut shells) to create our performance apparel. Our competitors might call that trash. We call it a treasure.

Why do we do it?It’s better for people, better for the planet, and better for performance.Plus, it is fun to tell people your clothing is made from trash.That’s our point of view."

Cool, huh? Now I haven't tried any of their tops out yet . . . but I'm definitely going to. I mean, if they can withstand the harsh conditions of Running With the Devil, then they've got to be doing something right (yes, Jeremy's cohort, Mike, actually ran one of the RWTD events to test their stuff out and make sure it was the real deal)! So hey, if you are so inclined, check out their fabulous website (it has lots more info and cool stuff than I could possibly pack into one post) and The Story of a Redshirt blog. It's very interesting stuff.

Alright, I promise I will catch you all up soon on what I've been up to . . . just wanted to share this with you before I forgot!