{"id":177853,"date":"2022-05-24T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=177853"},"modified":"2024-03-06T15:25:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T23:25:12","slug":"my-amphipod-xinglet-running-vest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/run\/my-amphipod-xinglet-running-vest","title":{"rendered":"Gear I Hold Dear: My Amphipod Xinglet Running Vest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The sun starts to warm the pavement as I finish my last lap through the neighborhood. I\u2019ve been running for nearly an hour and, though my legs are tired, I could keep going for a little longer. Instead, I go inside and pull off my glowing vest<\/a>\u2014the closest thing I have to a running buddy on early mornings like this. I don’t notice the vest when I’m running, but I’m aware of its effect\u2014the way it helps me stand out to cars and signals my presence to other runners who are also out there, moving through the ink-black darkness before sunrise. I untie my shoes and pop out my ear buds. Blurry data points float up at me from my GPS watch, but I barely register them. I don\u2019t need to. It\u2019s been a good run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of my runs don\u2019t go like this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my late 20s and early 30s, I was the kind of runner who set my alarm early, shoving an energy bar in my mouth and lacing my shoes long before the sun came up. I flew along the sidewalks in my Seattle neighborhood with a headlamp strapped to my forehead, training for this 10K or that trail race. I wasn\u2019t particularly competitive or obsessive, but I was a runner.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything changed in 2020. I was nine months pregnant when the U.S. confirmed its first Covid-19 death<\/a>. In April, as hospitalizations ticked upward<\/a>, my husband and I disappeared into our local childbirth center. When we emerged with our daughter Nora three days later, the cherry trees around the hospital campus burst into blossoms the color of cotton candy. We wept. We\u2019d been prepared to welcome a new human. We hadn\u2019t expected to also be new humans, completely transformed and at a loss about the world around us.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six weeks after Nora\u2019s arrival and with the OK from my doctor, I embarked on my first run back. I found an opening one afternoon between nap times and wakings and bottle feedings, slid into my running shoes and went. In my eagerness to get back out there, it didn’t cross my mind to warm up or ease into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big, fat raindrops and neon-green lawns blurred by as I raced around the 2.8-mile paved loop across the highway from our house. I exchanged tentative, knowing glances with fellow runners trudging through the Seattle summer rain. For a blissful 30 minutes, running consumed me. It felt great. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I stumbled back home\u2014a tangle of mud, sweat and endorphins\u2014I realized I was sore, and not in the good \u201cI exercised!\u201d way. I spent the next hour trying to keep weight off my feet. Although I slowly began to up my mileage in the months that followed, my progress was anything but linear. One day, I ended a tempo run convinced I\u2019d pulled a hamstring. The underlying culprit was diastasis recti, a condition<\/a> that affects many pregnant women, in which your ab muscles separate to make space for the growing baby. Cue weeks of postpartum physical therapy and targeted ab exercises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The author running in her Amphipod Xinglet vest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Motherhood is full of clich\u00e9s. \u201cNothing prepares you for what it\u2019s like to have a baby,\u201d people say. \u201cYour heart grows ten sizes.\u201d I used to roll my eyes at those platitudes. Now, I get it. \u201cIt\u2019s profound,\u201d I manage, when someone asks about what it\u2019s like to become a mom. \u201cIt\u2019s the single-greatest thing \u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still haven\u2019t figured out how to fully describe the transition to parenthood. What I know is that my edges are softer. I\u2019m a little more patient, a little less incisive. My body is softer, too. I rarely had the energy to go for a run or strength train when Nora was a newborn. I\u2019d pick up a set of 5-pound weights and my legs would turn to jelly (likely caused by relaxin<\/a>, a ligament-loosening hormone that prepares the body for childbirth and remains in the system while breastfeeding). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my previous life, I\u2019d spend weekend mornings getting lost in our local urban parks. But after Nora was born, I\u2019d catch myself veering toward home at the thought of her infectious giggles. My relationship to running, like everything else, changed. That doesn\u2019t mean I love it any less. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

I moved running to the margins of the day when I went back to work in October 2020. I ran early. I ran late. I always left feeling a bit frantic and came back feeling better. At least some things hadn\u2019t changed. Until one night that fall when I slipped through the front door to find my husband scowling up at me from the floor with our then-6-month-old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s your light?\u201d He asked. I glanced down at my headlamp, which I\u2019d wrapped around my wrist when it died halfway through my run. \u201cYou\u2019re out there in all black without a light?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d chided me before for running without enough reflective gear. But now things were different. For the last six months, we\u2019d sidestepped every identifiable risk. We\u2019d washed hands, worn masks, swapped hugs for waves. I\u2019d bleached sheets, sterilized bottles and woke, palms sweaty, to every cough from our daughter\u2019s crib. We\u2019d read the news. Scrolled through Twitter. Stared at each other in disbelief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all that, things had started to get better. A vaccine was coming<\/a>, and would be widely available by spring 2021. Our parents had visited, traveling cross-country with face shields and vats of hand sanitizer so that they could safely hold our tiny babe. We\u2019d breathed a half-sigh of relief. But things were still tenuous. My husband\u2019s look said, We\u2019re not in the clear enough to be careless about anything.<\/em> He was right. Hospitalization, for any injury or ailment, was now a different ordeal under COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The author with her daughter, Nora.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, I found a bright yellow Amphipod Xinglet<\/a> reflective running vest draped across my running shoes near the front door. I didn\u2019t ask my husband about it, I just wept. Some people say the best gift is the one you\u2019d never buy for yourself. Others say it\u2019s the one that\u2019s spot on\u2014made for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Xinglet, both were true. I\u2019d had the Xinglet in my REI shopping cart for months, but I\u2019d been dragging my feet. My husband knew that. And he knew running was my thing, had always been my thing, even if it felt different now\u2014a little less like dancing across pavement and a little more like escaping, for a few brief moments, the privilege and weight of having a baby amid a pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I reach for my Xinglet most days. I fold it optimistically across my running shoes on nights when I manage to get Nora to bed before 9pm, willing my future self out of bed and out the door into the early Seattle mist the next morning. More often than not, I slide into the Xinglet in the frantic moments when my husband and I finish up work for the evening. I usually barely make it out the door. When I do, the hour I spend shuffling along the pavement is the best part of my day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the vest, with its fluorescent hue and reflective stripes, helps make me more visible to cars, I don\u2019t run longer, faster or more boldly in the Xinglet. In fact, my pace is slower than at any point in my adult life. I\u2019m less consistent, my gait a little less graceful. I\u2019m still doing postpartum physical therapy. But I\u2019m out there. The cars are finding their way home and the light is dying and, for a few blissful moments, it’s all OK.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sun starts to warm the pavement as I finish my last lap through the neighborhood. I\u2019ve been running for nearly an hour and, though my legs are tired, I could keep going for a little longer. Instead, I go inside and pull off my glowing vest\u2014the closest thing I have to a running buddy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30729,"featured_media":178289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2166,2005,727,1915,2163,1916,359,1376,2165,804,2164],"internal-tag":[],"class_list":["post-177853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-run","tag-early-morning-run","tag-gear-i-hold-dear","tag-latest-posts","tag-motherhood","tag-night-running","tag-pregnancy","tag-run","tag-running","tag-running-vest","tag-safety","tag-visibility"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/run\/my-amphipod-xinglet-running-vest","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Gear I Hold Dear: My Amphipod Xinglet Running Vest","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/run\/my-amphipod-xinglet-running-vest","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/run\/my-amphipod-xinglet-running-vest"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/05\/06-Xinglet-Gear-Hold-Dear.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/05\/06-Xinglet-Gear-Hold-Dear.jpg?fit=4000%2C2542"},"articleSection":"Run","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cassie da Costa"}],"creator":["Cassie da Costa"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["early morning run","gear i hold dear","latest posts","motherhood","night running","pregnancy","run","running","running vest","safety","visibility"],"dateCreated":"2022-05-24T21:30:00Z","datePublished":"2022-05-24T21:30:00Z","dateModified":"2024-03-06T23:25:12Z"},"rendered":"