Rocktape Revisited

I have been lax in following up on my post from a couple weeks ago, where I was taped up with Rocktape one week and regular kinesiotape the next week.  As a total newbie to being taped at all, it was interesting to make the comparison.  I got spoiled that first week with Rocktape and didn’t realize it until I tried the other product!

Here’s roughly the writeup I did for my doctor:

Rocktape: I wore this for 3.5 days, from August 19th to August 23rd, through 2 swims and 1 run (~12 miles).  I removed it by myself, but it could have lasted another day. 

* Durability: Quite good.  One of the small ankle pieces came loose the first day in the pool - now that I know how to dry and reattach it, I could have fixed it.  The rest was easy to restick with a blow dryer if the edges came up.  It only tended to loosen where tape met tape and not at all where tape contacted skin. 

* Support: It felt very supportive on the long run and no pain through all the miles.

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Kinesiotape: I wore this for 2.5 days, from August 26th to August 29th, through 2 swims and 1 run (~6 miles). 

*Durability: Less impressive.  There were many loose flapping parts during/after the first swim Thursday morning that did not restick after drying.  Edges were coming up off of skin after 1 day.  The tape fell off altogether at the 2nd swim.   

* Support: It did not feel it provided as much support on the run as the Rocktape, there were twinges in the shin while running. 

Dr B taped me up in Rocktape again this week.  Coach decided to have some fun with me, it seems, and split my long run across an evening (9 miles last night) and morning (4.5 more miles today).  The challenge for me is I don’t like to eat much before running – I had to be very careful all day to fuel myself without risking GI problems on the run.  85 degrees and humidity on the Los Gatos Creek Trail made it sooooooo fun to try to stay in my HR zones.  But at least my leg didn’t hurt!

And now, here’s some fun for all of you!  It turns out Rocktape is a local company and more people read my ramblings than I thought :)  If you’d like a sample of Rocktape to try, send an email with your mailing address to molly@rocktape.com and they will send you free samples.  They’ve even got great instructional videos on their website to show how to apply it to various body parts.  At the very least, you’ll get jealous looks from other runners on the local jogging path because they don’t look as hard-core as you do.