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Hey there Newsletter readers,

I’m back again in your inbox to keep you up to date on the latest and greatest (sports)tech talk. Ray was away last week, landing in both the USA and Canada. Which can only mean there are lots of new products and features headed your way. So stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you’re ready to roll this summer with your sport of choice and are looking to treat yourself to a product upgrade,  there is the annual Garmin Spring Sale happening now. I mentioned this in the last newsletter, but since Ray says “arguably this is one of the best Garmin sales we’ve seen to date”, including all of their top-tier products on sale, I felt the need to remind you of your options. There's also a sprinkling of non-Garmin products in there too - including Apple, Suunto, and GoPro.

As usual, the top half of this newsletter is a quick recap of what’s happening on the DC Rainmaker site, and then if you’re still awake, you can sneak down to the In-Depth Thoughts of the girl for a few life and training updates…hint hint, it’s RACE WEEK!

Frustratingly, this post went up before I could hit send on the newsletter, so I had to go back and edit it to add the Forerunner 970 In-Depth Review. Due to my annoyance in Ray’s capabilities to crank out work before me, I will abstain from reading it. Please laugh with me.

So, kicking off the “where was Ray last week?”, you can see for yourself here on the latest episode of the Fit File Podcast. It recently came to my attention that some of you didn’t know that Ray and Des from DesFit resurrected the Fit File last winter. So, you get a twofer here today, inside look at WWDC25 and The Fit File!

Next up, everyone got a fun surprise last Thursday when Garmin announced the new Garmin Venu X1. It’s an interesting new device, hard to compare to the Venu’s of the past. It’s more of a baby made up during a threesome from the Venu, Forerunner, and Fenix lineups.

Some of the new features announced at Apple’s developer conference WWDC25 was the new WatchOS 26 and Workout Buddy feature. Depending on what camp you fall into, that post has both a YouTube video explainer or just good old fashion text to read, you do you!   

Lastly, we have news from Polar! Yes they really do (still) exist. It’s been 5 years since their last upgrade of the Polar Grit X, and I was interested myself to see what Ray would make of the newest upgrades. You can see all of his in-depth thoughts here. Oh, and in the last hour, Polar also announced a Whoop competitor, more on that too here.

In-Depth Thoughts of The Girl

It’s RACE WEEK! Hurray!

Now, before I get too distracted like a squirrel chasing a bumble bee, I do need to take a minute and say a thank-you to... but also apologize to Cycle Limited. These guys are our newest Newsletter advertising partners, and in the last newsletter, I managed to spell their name wrong. The number of times I write the words, cycle, bicycle, cyclist, or cycling in a day is astonishing. So the fact that I managed to misspell Cycle wrong in their brand name, for their first banner, was a massive forehead slapper. They were super chill about it, but I have to say, I really feel the need to give them an extra shout-out today. So, if you’re thinking of purchasing a certified pre-owned bike, please check them out and see what they might have for you!

Okay, now that I’m done sharing with you some of my most embarrassing work fails, let’s get on with Race Week excitement.

So, as I’ve alluded in the past couple of newsletters, this race build hasn’t been perfect. I had to make sacrifices with some training days, and I definitely have not put in the time on the swim that is warranted. BUT I have worked my ass off on the bike, and made it through (most of) the run workouts. It’s amazing how much the summer heat here these past 8 weeks has really affected my run times and overall feeling of “pep in my step”. But I’ve done the damn-thang and am hoping come this Sunday, I can pull off a race that I can be proud of. I’ve let go of any race-specific goals or expectations as they are calling for over 90*F/32*C and about 60% humidity; I think racing smart and attuned to my body is better than having a "specific time goal" and end up blowing up before the finish. I’ll be going with a race plan that is more geared towards heart rates and core temps, rather than watts and paces. Whatever comes from that, I'll be very proud. I’ll also be remembering that even when life schedules got really hard this spring, I still did what I could to navigate the roadblocks, and I still made it to that start line! Grateful is an understatement! 

To give you an idea of the race, Ironman 70.3 Rockford is an inaugural race that sold out months and months before race day. This will be one of the biggest 70.3’s that I’ve ever participated in. Rockford has 2,700 registered athletes, and in comparison, Oman 70.3 from this past February had 1,100 athletes. In fact, when I raced Kona WCs in 2023, we "only" had 2,000 athletes toe the line that day, and that was the FULL Ironman distance.

Being an inaugural race, I also can’t see race results from years past- well duh. And while I know past race results don’t mean anything as you can’t control who shows up on a given race day, I do like seeing years prior results. I find it can give you little clues about the race that maybe you can’t pick up from the GPX files. Maybe wind or road surface conditions, swim conditions, how the heat affected the runners, or maybe the transition zones were super long. Who knows, is it just me or does anyone else like peeping the years' past results? Plus, Rockford is about an hour outside of Chicago, so I imagine there will be some fierce competition coming out of the local tri clubs in that area. The intimidation factor has been checked for Rockford!

Another thing about the race that I’m curious about is the transition areas. In my Instagram recon over the last few months, I noticed that a lot of the USA-based Ironman races are not “clean transition zones”. In case you’re not a triathlete person, a clean T1 & T2 simply means the transition area does not have stuff all over the ground. You are assigned “gear bags,” and they get hung up on large peg boards. Nothing is to be on the ground or hanging around your bike. You can have nutrition on your bike, but helmet, shoes, glasses, etc are all stored in your bag. Sometimes there are benches to sit on or otherwise you’re just in long hallways of gear bags changing between the different sports, and you re-hang your stuff up before leaving the transition zones.

So it’s been a LONG time since I’ve set up a transition area around my bike. I'm used to organizing my Gear Bags the day before and dropping them off with bike check. So, anyone reading, if you’re transition zone savvy and have a few hints for me on what’s still acceptable in a North American transition zones, let me know! I remember back in the day, people straight up had large Rubbermaid containers at their bike with an entire campground set up!

Okay, I’m trying to keep this short today! I hope to get a newsletter out to you by end of next week in case any of you are interested in a race report. So I won’t overstay my welcome in your inbox today!

Very last thing, if you’re interested, I will be doing a Race Week Giveaway this week with one of our advertising sponsors HJC Sports. So be sure to keep an eye on my Instagram account this week for the details!

As always, thanks for being a DC Rainmaker Newsletter Subscriber. Stay tuned, and please send good vibes for my swim performance this coming weekend!  :) 

Bobbie

We are excited to announce our partnership with Cycle Limited - A premium online bicycle retailer specializing in new and certified pre-owned bikes and gear. Cycle Limited delivers top-tier gear at unbeatable value, backed by exceptional service. Be sure to check out their website - when you shop with Cycle Limited, you're getting the best in both value and service.