ZZYXXZ Reflective Athletic Apparel – Product Review
Since Badwater is a team effort, a lot of “teams” (crew/pacers and runner) get matching kits to wear during the race.
Since we probably couldn’t have pulled off what Shannon’s crew was wearing:
We went with team shirts:
Because of the sun and heat, most teams go with white shirts. As you can see, we definitely did not go with white. Our crew captain, Brian Recore, got our shirts from a relatively new athletic apparel company called ZZYXXZ.
ZZYXXZ’s niche is reflective printing on technical shirts, shorts and hats. All of their clothing is intended to be super visible during the night. Not all of their clothing is as visible during the day as our shirts were!
They printed the logo for the charity Ray supports (Be Change) on the front of the shirts and the phrase “If you’re gonna run, run for a reason” on the back, both in big letters. The shirts looked great during the day and really stood out among the sea of mostly white-shirted runners and crew.
Whenever we pulled ahead to crew him, we could easily pick out Ray from way down the road.
And the shirts were awesome during the night. The shirts lit right up whenever light was on them. At Badwater, the runner and all crew members have to wear reflective vests between the hours of 7pm and 6am. Our reflective ZZYXXZ shirts were approved as replacements for reflective vests. It sure was nice not to have to worry about remembering one more thing during the night.
One of our rare moments of rest during the race; laying on the ground at Panamint Springs (mile 72.3) waiting for Ray:
Jason and Ray making the final charge up the Whitney Portal Road to the finish line:
And here’s our official team finisher photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adventurecorps/9309570570/in/set-72157634683272774
But we wouldn’t have worn the shirts if they weren’t high quality technical shirts or if the reflective printing was thick, stiff or heavy. Thankfully, the shirts ZZYXXZ used (from a4.com) are comfortable and cut pretty well for runners. My mediums were a little bigger than my favorite, best-fitting shirts (a bit wider around the shoulders and longer at the bottom), but they’re pretty close and I have chosen to wear the shirt a few times since the race. It’s tough to tell in super-dry, super-hot Death Valley, but they seem to wick sweat well and dry quickly. And the reflective printing doesn’t affect the way the shirt feels.
These shirts are a great item for anyone who runs at night or just wants extra visibility. Iso says that coyotes are scared to death of the shirts. I haven’t tested that yet, maybe they’re just scared of him?
It’s also nice to support a small company trying to break into the market dominated by huge ones. And, even better, ZZYXXZ is located right here in Southern California.
I do have to say that ZZYXXZ needs to do some work on their pretty weak website and focus a little more on social media (their Facebook page has 50 likes and hasn’t been updated since October 2012…), but hopefully as more people realize that they make a great product, they’ll work on fixing those things!