2Toms Stink Free Sports Detergent Review

You know when you first get married and everything is all wedded bliss and like, we do everything together and this is so romantic and your husband even washes and dries the laundry for you and then he washes and dries your bag of dry cleaning?  After that, Jeff and I started doing our own laundry. 

It felt weird at first. Cause you know, we're a couple and we do coupley things. Together. Like eating popcorn at the movies. I’m a secret fan of the Butter-Like-Substance on Movie Theatre Popcorn. Jeff is not. But rather than each getting our own popcorn, we always share. Because we’re a couple and we do coupley things. Together.

But we do not do each other’s laundry any more. No, no, no, because work clothing that is supposed to be dry-cleaned doesn’t do well in the washing machine nor does it survive the dryer. 

Here’s how Jeff does laundry:

1. Grab all clothing and stick it into washer, wash it all together with towels.

2. Put everything into the dryer, but on cool setting so everything comes out wrinkly.

3. Fold at some point or maybe not.

Here’s how I do laundry:

1. Make piles of darks, lights, delicates, running clothes, towels.

2. Wash each pile separately with hot or cold water depending on the type of items.

3. Hang dry 90% of items.

4. Smooth and fold items when dry.

5. Dry towels, jeans and socks in the dryer on hot setting.

6. Fold while warm.

I won't argue that my method is superior, because honestly Jeff looks a lot better than I do most days. Clearly his clothes are not suffering by being washed together and dried in the dryer on cool air and maybe not having been folded and put back into the correct drawer. But I like my method. It’s a meditation of sorts.

The other issue is that Jeff likes to wash his clothing with unscented detergent. I’m more of a Clean Breeze scent kind of girl. I even have one of those “fresh laundry” candles. Fresh laundry should smell clean! Like a candle! So we each do our own laundry.

Recently my friends at 2Toms sent me some Stink Free Sports Detergent to try, which I was pretty excited about, so I grabbed my pile of running and cycling clothes and got to work. My first thought was one of minor concern. The Stink Free Sports Detergent, which by the way, promised to remove all odors and stains thankyouverymuch, didn’t really have a scent. Hmmm. Clean laundry is supposed to smell clean! Like a candle! But I figured I would give it a try anyway, mostly because, well, it was sent to me to do so, and I happen to love all of the other 2Toms products I have used before. 

So, you’re dying to hear what happened right? Is this the best laundry story you’ve read today or what?! Let me tell you first, my running clothes are DISGUSTING. I am a totally gross sweaty girl. I may shower up alright, but after a run or a bike ride I am like, ugh, gross. So I was thinking, this Stink Free Sports Detergent had better have some kind of miracle ingredient in it. 

You guys? It totally DOES! 

The first thing I noticed after the wash cycle was, even though the detergent itself didn’t really have a scent to it, my running clothes smelled REALLY LOVELY. Like, really fresh and clean. Like they had been ionized or something. I’m not sure what ionization really even is but my clothes smelled super amazingly clean. And I immediately thought, this fresh and clean but not really scented thing is so much better for running clothes because when I wear them again and start to sweat, I won’t smell like a sweaty fake clean breeze, I’ll just be sweaty me! And that’s a lot better really when you think about it.

I hung everything to dry except my running socks which I popped into the dryer, and waited for the final results. Which were fabulous. Everything dried perfectly. Clean, folded running laundry is such a nice thing! It really beats dirty running laundry in a big huge way.

Another cool thing about 2Toms Stink Free Sports Detergent is that you don’t need a washing machine to get your running clothes clean. 2Toms made it so the detergent works just great without an agitator, and you can buy it in packets so you can wash your running clothes when you’re traveling, right in the sink of your hotel room or at camp or wherever you’re staying. This was a game changer for me on a recent 17-day trip where I normally would have brought several changes of running clothes and…gross girl alert (!!!) I would have worn them over and over all supergross and grossly gross. 

I packed 2 sets of running clothes for 17 days. 2Toms Stink Free Sports Detergent saved me from having to over pack, and saved the world (or at least most of California) from being exposed to me running in dirty running clothes. For this, 2Toms Stink Free Sports Detergent deserves the Nobel Prize or at least a Pulitzer or a commendation from President Obama or the Dalai Lama. 

Amazingly clean and fresh smelling running clothes thanks to 2Toms. 

So my advice to you is, share the popcorn, even if you have to give up the Butter-Like-Substance, but do your own laundry.

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Give Me a Hand

One fine day at the beginning of summer, I broke fingers on both of my hands. 

And I know I look happy in the pictures, but that’s the tequila. The tequila was used as a painkiller after the accident, I swear. I became Edward Scissorhands Junior while completely sober. Flying off of the back of a jet ski. But that’s another story.  

After the tequila wore off I remembered I had a race in three days. Lawyers Have Heart 10k in my home city, Washington DC. Plus I had a friend coming to town to race as well.

I went to the Doctor. “You’ll need to see a hand specialist,” he said. “Surgery will likely be the best option.”

Surgery for broken fingers? I laughed and ignored him. How bad could they be? Don't they say you can’t really do anything besides wrap up broken toes and fingers? (Turns out they really just say that about toes but I was hopped up on a lot of painkillers and recalled the saying incorrectly).  Plus, I had a race. “I would advise against racing,” he said.

What? Who needs fingers to run? (Turns out you really do need to be able to curl your fingers to run comfortably, but I was hopped up on a lot of painkillers and really wasn’t thinking too well). 

Luckily lawyers really do have heart, because everyone at the race took good care of me and didn’t make fun of me in front of my face when I attempted to run, in pain and on drugs. And I did finish! I wouldn’t call it a race for me. It was more like a walk in the park, a sort-of-run-and-walk 6.2 miles with throbbing fingers while on massive drugs. But I think I needed to do it. I was a lot more worried about my fingers than I wanted to believe (“Surgery will likely be the best option.”) and I wanted to just not think about my hands. To try to be normal for a couple more days. As if I seemed normal with big braces on my fingers hopped up on massive drugs. But mentally, I needed it. I think I knew I wasn't going to be running much over the summer. That surgery probably really was the best option. I needed one last race. My finishing time was awful (Or a PR for First 10k on Vicodin depending on how you look at it) but I was glad to be with my friends, and to finish the race so I could then get to the business of figuring out how to fix my hands.  

The surgery was scheduled for two days after my birthday. During the prep, the nurse said to me, “Luckily the worst one is your left hand,” and then she looked at me for confirmation and when she didn’t receive it, she said, “Uh, unless you're left handed.” I am.

The week after the surgery, when I mentioned to my surgeon that I was going to Cambodia in a month, he was not super psyched. “I can get the plaster cast off of you by then, but keeping your hands clean is going to be really important. You'll still have pins in your fingers. You’ll have to keep your hands completely clean. You do not want to get sick in Cambodia.”

“Um. Is it ok to ride my bike? I’m going on a cycling trip in Cambodia.”   

“I would advise against that.”

"But I ran a race when they were still broken!"

"Clythie, I really don't want you riding a bike around Cambodia while you're injured."

Who needs ring fingers to ride a bike?

As the trip got closer I convinced (begged) my surgeon to change his mind. In the end we made a plan together. He would take the cast off and give me a removable splint and I would promise to wash my hands 1,000X per day, changing the gauze and applying Neosporin every. single. time.  “Be careful. You do not want to get sick in Cambodia,” he reminded me. 

The summer flew by in a haze of healing and as the end approached, I flew to Cambodia. When you arrive in Cambodia you receive a pamphlet that says, “When you become ill in Cambodia, only go to the following health clinics…” I tucked the paper into my bag and hopped a cab to a beautiful hotel in Phnom Penh and forgot all about it.

Cambodia is clean and dirty and smells wonderful and terrible, and it’s filled with lovely people who have lived through unimaginable atrocities who welcome Americans with kindness and love. It’s a place that overloads all of your senses with sights that you cannot believe exist outside of pictures. There are foods that make your tongue melt with joy and ones that make you scream with horror. But that's another story. 

Cambodia is all the things, and all the feelings and all the noises and all the sights and sounds and emotions all of the time.  It’s beautiful and ugly and happy and rip your heart out sad and there is laughter and kindness everywhere.

I felt so fortunate to find myself in this dream land, on a bicycle, headed out into city streets in traffic that can only be described as psychotic slow motion chaos, making my way with the bike from the city into the country onto and off of countless ferries and riding trails through farms and onto islands, stopping for amazing meals and to visit beautiful temples. 

At one point I was coming off of a ferry, climbing up the hill from the river, trying to make the bike work for me and I realized that I needed my fingers to get myself and the bike up the hill. I had to get off the bike and walk it over the crest of the hill.  I realized it was the first time that I had even thought of my fingers while on the bike.  I knew that it was ok, that I was going to be fine, that my hands were going to continue to heal. That sometimes having to walk when you're running is ok. Sometimes having to hop off the bike is ok. That the life experiences that surround these moments are what's really important. 

When I came home, I spent a few more weeks in the little finger brace, remembering the accident, and the fog of Lawyers Have Heart, the life changing experience of all that is Cambodia, and I knew my fingers weren't really ever going to be the same, but that was ok because I wasn't ever going to be the same either. 

Crash Course in Pacing

My head hit the pavement so hard I thought I had knocked all my teeth out. I popped up off the ground, adrenaline rushing through my veins, and kept shouting, “Are my teeth ok? Are my teeth ok?” Matthew came running back to see if I was alright, and the look on his face told me that he was surprised I was conscious.

We were 26 miles into a 30 mile run that I was bike pacing, and I had taken a fall off the bike, landing full force on the right side of my head.  So much for rolling into a fall. My hands never left the handlebars.  I guess that saved my wrist from breaking, and the helmet saved my brain quite well too. But the impact was astounding.

After Matthew assured me that my teeth were all still in place, my thoughts turned to the matter at hand. I may have royally screwed up the last four miles of this run, I thought. Pacers are supposed to help the runner, not vice versa, and it was looking like I was the man down.

Ultra runner and coach, Tim Long writes a great blog about running, and in his entry about pacing he calls it “one of the most selfless acts a human can perform.” That certainly wasn’t going to be the case if the guy I was pacing had to carry my bike and me for the last four miles of his long run.

Let me back up. Pacers usually run with an ultra racer, typically for the last half or quarter of a 100 mile run. The pacer is there to help, not hinder, the racer. 

Bike pacing a runner works the same way pacing a runner on foot works.   The pacer leads, goes alongside or follows the runner (runner's choice), offering a predetermined amount of moral support, and company. There are rules about what a pacer can and cannot do, such as mule water or food for the racer, and there are rules about how soon a racer can pick up a pacer, but on this particular day, since it was a training run, we set out together from mile one. It was to be a total of 30 miles, and since I can’t keep up running with Matthew until he is about 70 miles in, I was riding my bike.

All had been going well: there had been no complaints from Matthew, the pace was strong, his body was feeling good and we were cruising to the end. And then I crashed.

As soon as I mentally counted my teeth, I formulated a plan. I would go with the pacers motto of always telling the racer how great he seems/looks, and apply it to myself for the last four miles. That combined with the old adage “if you fall off the bike, get right back on and start peddling again,” helped me to squeak “I’m totally fine, I can ride, no big deal, it’s ok, let’s go!” 

I hurt. My hip hurt, my shoulder hurt, my head now knew the phrase “got my bell rung,” but there was no way I was going to let Matthew know this. For a rather lazy girl, I can be pretty hard core when it comes to pacing.

Not in the dark though. No. Have you ever tried to ride your bike up and down rolling gravel hills on a moonless night without a head lamp? One night, Matthew and I were out on another bike/run, and it became dark before we were able to make it back. And we were in the woods. With a lack of moonlight, and any ambient light being blocked by tree cover, I was flying blind. He was alright. His feet could help him feel each step. I was terrified that I would topple over the handlebars at any moment. Finally, as he disappeared into the darkness ahead of me, I began to walk the bike.  Lesson learned: throw a headlamp into your bag or around your neck if you think you’ll be out anywhere near dusk.     

But the day of The Crash, I was determined. It was the last training run before the Boulder 100 and it needed to have a strong finish. This is why I’m a runner, I thought. You don’t bash your head while running.

Until you do. Another day, I was riding alongside Matthew during a long run with 2 miles to go, when suddenly he hit the dirt with a slam! I jumped off the bike, and looked at him – now lying in the dirt catching his breath. Holy hell! Are you ok, I asked. He said fine, I caught a toe, and he continued to rest there for a few minutes. Turns out, runners can get smashed up too – and they don’t even have helmets on for protection.

The day of The Crash ended well. We finished the 30 miles and ended at a great restaurant where Jeff was waiting for us with food and beverages that we were all happy to enjoy. We might have been a little sore, but there were no complaints because we were looking good, totally fine, and we did it. But it was time to buy a new helmet.