super generic girl

January 21, 2013
by supergenericgirl 3 Comments

One down, twelve to go

I crossed a goal off the list and got a t-shirt to prove it. I also got a hat and wore it but hats don’t suit me so I went with the headless look for this photo instead, for your benefit. You’re welcome.

When the alarm started going off at 5:30AM and I moved in bed to reach for it and shut it up, the pain on my legs reminded me I had just run 32km the day before. Naturally, I questioned what the flying heck was I doing getting up at stupid o’clock again but then I remembered that, later in the day, I’d have an item ticked out of my list of goals for this year so that helped. This is why I disagree with people saying new year’s resolutions are useless. Call them resolutions, call them goals, call them Harry, call them whatever you want. If they motivate you to get out of bed (even though it’s early and you’re in pain), they’re a good thing.

I had the chance to volunteer as a marshall on the run course of the Ironman 70.3 in Auckland and, with that, I knocked down one of my goals for this year.

Standing around for that many hours wasn’t the ideal recovery strategy post-long run but seeing all those amazing people getting off the water and onto their bikes, cycling 90km and then running a half marathon like it was no big deal really did help put my pain into perspective. I recognised a few of the faces along the course and collected a bunch of cool little memories, like 76-year old Garth Barfoot looking strong and thanking me for telling him he did or the couple of guys that raised their hands for high fives and they went past me towards the finish line. And I’m not even ashamed to admit that the little kid shouting “daddy! Daddy! You’re an ironman!” as his dad ran past him brought tears to my eyes. It was amazing, those people are amazing. My lack of better adjectives is less than amazing.

You mean machines. You make me want to go out for a run right now but my legs are all “uh, nope”.

So I’ll stop here. The point is that I’m pretty stoked to cross this one off the list. Running about a dozen of events a year, it’s about time I start giving back to all those people that come along to help out with those. I’m looking for other events to volunteer for but it’s hard because, whenever I find one, I want to run it rather than help out (that didn’t make me sound very nice but there you have it). In any case, I’ve submitted my interest in volunteering for the Auckland marathon this year so I’m not putting this goal behind me completely. Either way, CHECK!

January 20, 2013
by supergenericgirl 5 Comments

Pro Compression giveaway winner

My 10 days of reading about the awesome stuff that happened in your days are over (unless you want to keep telling me what is brightening your day, which I’m totally ok with).

I combined the comments with the Facebook likes (in the order they happened) and then used a random number generator to pick a winner because, if I had to choose, I’d probably guilt-trip myself into going bankrupt by buying compression socks for everyone who commented and, also, I don’t really have the energy to go through all comments and pick a winner.

Congratulations Leon Klijmeij, one of your comments made you the winner of this giveaway. Please head over to the Pro Compression website and choose the pair of marathon socks you would like to have, then email supergenericgirl at gmail dot com with the socks you want, your size and your postal address so I can give the good guys at Pro Compression all the details.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered. In an ideal world, you’d all get socks (and not just the ones distant relatives give you for Christmas) but I’m not Oprah so there’s nothing under your chairs. I know, it disappoints me too.

January 19, 2013
by supergenericgirl 18 Comments

10 things about my 20 miles

I took about ten photos along the run but they were all as grainy as useless as this one. I need a better phone for photos along my runs. And a hundred photography courses. Also, it was a road run, don’t let the photo fool you. There were only a few hundred meters like this.

Six hours of sleep, two pieces of toast and a chocolate croissant (don’t take nutrition advice from me) and we were on the road, bright and early this morning. We had water in our hydration bladders, some trail mix in our packs and a vague idea of the route we were going to take.

Thirty-two entire kilometers later (20 miles for you non-metric system adopters), we were at the dairy back near the start, getting a cold coke and celebrating our longest road run to date. Neither of us had run more than 21km since that epic day last May and neither of us had ever done more than 21km on the road.

It wasn’t the easiest of starts. I didn’t feel like getting out of bed when the phone started going off at 6AM. I wanted to close my eyes and ignore all sounds (actually, I wanted to throw the phone against the wall but I showed enormous self-control and just got up instead). I didn’t want to do it. At all. I wanted to get up at 10AM and slowly make breakfast and watch the Come Dine with Me omnibus. Instead, I have no idea who won Come Dine with Me this week (!!!) but I ran 32km before lunch instead. As hard as it is to get out of bed, I don’t think that was a bad trade off. Also, I learned a few things this morning and I bet you’re dying to know what they were (just nod in agreement, it’s fine).

1. I can (prolly maybe) run a marathon. If it goes anything like today, it’ll be really enjoyable for about 20km, fairly enjoyable for another 5km. Then my feet are going to start burning and it’s going to suck really bad, getting progressively worse as my legs decide to join the feet’s pity party. I don’t know how the remaining 10km will go, since we stopped at 32, but I’m fairly sure it’ll be shit. But hey, it’ll be done! (BRB, going to look for some wood to knock on!)

2. The trails are a lot nicer on the soles of our feet (and I suspect the body in general) than the road. I know we’re supposed to do road work for a road marathon but I really started missing the trails towards the end, with every painful step on the solid road.

3. Baz Luhmann says everybody’s free to wear sunscreen. I wish I remembered this more often. Sunscreen and vaseline are a runner’s best friends in summer. It doesn’t matter how well adjusted the backpack straps are, those little bitches always ends up rubbing on my neck and making it hurt on a long run.

4. Breaking the distance down in my head remains the best strategy for any long run. I may have run 32km but, in my head, I actually ran a half marathon and then, after that, a 10km run. It might all add up to the same but, in terms of my attitude, it makes all the difference.

5. 1L of water is most definitely not enough water for a run this long.

6. Maybe my legs wouldn’t have felt so heavy if I had remembered that I had a Gu in my backpack. I didn’t. The final couple of kilometers were a bit of a metaphor of Dante’s Inferno.

7. I’m perfectly happy not having any music out on the trails but I definitely can’t run very far without music on road. I’m not even sure this is weird. I guess the sound of traffic doesn’t have the same soothing zen-like effect that the sound of nature does.

8. Just because you can run for 25km without pain, don’t make the mistake of assuming that maybe, just maybe, that’s how the entire run will go. Pretty soon after that smug thought, everything will start hurting. Everything.

9. Despite being our longest road run to date, there wasn’t much fuss about it beforehand. We decided to do it just earlier in the week and there was no massive preparation or stress around it. We just went and did it. It’s not the first time I am led to believe that the whole “just do it” stuff from Nike is more than just marketing. Those smart cookies might have a point.

10. Sweat between your toes making them rub against each other and burn. This happened. It wasn’t pleasant. I just wanted to leave you with that mental image.

Despite the pain, it was an awesome run. I got home feeling all badass and stuff but was called back to reality when I couldn’t open the bottle of olive oil on my own. Apparently, I’m still a little bit of a loser. But this loser ran a really long way today. So there’s that.

January 17, 2013
by supergenericgirl 30 Comments

“I don’t have time” and other bullshit we tell ourselves

(know that meme)

A couple of years ago, when I was all “yay, I have a Kindle! I want to download all the eBooks on the internet!”, a friend recommended a book called How to Live on 24 hours a Day. The title sounded a little silly but I downloaded it anyway for three main reasons: 1) it was free (and I’m a sucker for a bargain), 2) it was short, 3) it got me one book closer to that “all the eBooks on the internet” goal mentioned above. I started reading it with the often misguided low expectations I have of some free stuff but it turned out to be one of the most enlightening books I’ve read in a while.

How to Live on 24 hours a Day sounds a little like “How to Inhale and Exhale Repeatedly to Avoid Death”. I thought to myself “I’m living. My days have 24 hours. So yeah, I think I’ve got it covered”. Some people (me) need the really obvious stuff spelled out to them. Some people (me) need a book from the early 1900s to tell them to get off Facebook and start making better use of their free time. To live rather than exist, as I think the author puts it at some point.

So, basically, I had a dude from last century schooling me on how to deal with my busy working life as a young adult in the 21st century.

Awesome.

Turns out this book, which is now 113 years old (!) is one of the earliest self-help books ever written. I read a self-help book. But it’s ok. I actually learned stuff. Plus, it’s philosophical in a way that I’m not sure other self-help books are. I haven’t read any others. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

But anyway, where was I? 24 hour days. Right. We’ve got lots of those. They come around every day. For the longest time, I got used to dismissing the entire five days of the work week as time when I couldn’t fit anything else in because I was working all day long.

The word you’re looking for is “bullshit”.

Let’s do some math (there’s something you won’t catch me saying very often): I work 8 hours a day. Add an hour for the commute. That’s nine hours. The day has 24. Nine and 24 aren’t even close together, there’s a whole bunch of other numbers in between. Sure, I sleep about 6 or 7 hours every night (on a good night), but that’s only a total of 15 or 16 hours dedicated to working and sleeping (I’m really kicking ass at these calculations, I wish my 7th grade Math teacher was reading this). Anyway, 15 or 16 hours a day for work + sleep. This leaves a whole other third of the day for other stuff. Stuff I didn’t feel like I had time to do. I know it sounds incredibly obvious now but I wanted to smack myself in the face when I read that book. What a load of bullshit I had been telling myself with that “I work all day” crap. I work a third of the day. It might be the best third – when the sun is out – but, mathematically speaking, it’s still only a third. The rest of the time is mine. And I had been wasting it on nothing.

What I’m trying to say is that, more than Runner’s World, online training plans or books by famous marathoners and ultrarunners, it was a time management book over 100 years old that helped me with all the running I’ve been doing.

So, just in case you suffer from the same problem as me, I thought I’d tell you that, like me, you’re just full of crap. You’ve got plenty of time. Safely remove that USB, it’s ok. You’re not in that big a rush. And the stuff you wish you could do during the week when you’re not working? Look at all that time you’ve got to actually do it! If the time you spent at work today felt like it was very long, it’s because it was. The good news is that you have another good few hours ahead of you to get stuff done. So wait for that You Tube video to fully load. Watch Jodie Foster’s Golden Globe speech in its entirety. Go nuts and read those terms and conditions (just kidding, ain’t nobody got time for that).

Every time I hear someone tell me they would love to get into running too but they just don’t have the time, I have to wait a few seconds to let my brain go from the instinctive “are you trying to say you’re busier than me? Because I’ll have you know I’m pretty god damn busy!” to something a little more grownup (but also patronising as hell) like “as a matter of fact, you do have time for that, if you really want to do it. You might just not be managing your time right.”

I still have a massive time management problem but I’m much more aware of it now. There are a bunch of things I wish I “had time” to do. I wish I was a morning person (or, alternatively, I wish I could show up for work at 11ish) so I could sit down for breakfast or properly dry my hair instead of the 30 second blow dry that leaves it just slightly-less-wet-but-definitely-nowhere-near-dry. I wish I had time every evening to prepare my lunch for the next day instead of resorting to the atrocious service and stupidly high prices of the cafe at work. But I guess what it boils down to is that I don’t really care enough about these things. Otherwise I’d find the time. If I don’t really want to do something, I’ll find an excuse not to do it. If I really want to do something, I’ll find the time.

Whoa. Enlightenment.

So, the bottom line is, I don’t have time for running because I’m any less busy than anyone else. I’ve got time for running because I really freaking love doing it and, so, I make time for it.

Bennett wrote in this book (that, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m highly recommending here): “We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.”

So, if you want to run, get off your ass and run.

January 16, 2013
by supergenericgirl 1 Comment

Amazing people doing amazing things – the Mike Allsop edition

I just wanted to give you a heads up that when it gets to Monday, February 18, and you tell everyone at work you’ve got Mondayitis and Monday sucks and the day is dragging on, your day won’t be more exhausting than Mike Allsop’s day.

And when it gets to Wednesday, February 20, and you’re all like “hump day, yay!” and “roll on Friday!” and stuff like that, your week still won’t have been as exhausting as Mike Allsop’s.

And when you get to Friday, February 22, and you’re all “I’ve earned this beer!” at Friday drinks with your workmates, you will not have earned that beer more than Mike Allsop’s.

So, 32 days from now, when you wake up and your eyes feel heavy and your bed feels too comfortable to leave, think about Mike Allsop and life won’t feel so exhausting anymore. He’ll be out of bed, running a marathon on the Falkland Islands. One of the seven marathons he will complete in seven different continents in just seven days.

Seven marathons. Seven continents. Seven days.

It’s as insane as it is inspiring (and if you’re a runner, a marathon in each continent is pretty much the ultimate item on your bucket list). On top of that, he’s doing it for a good cause, to raise money for KidsCan. Mike is aiming to raise $10,000 for the charity so, if you have a dollar or ten weighing in your pocket, drop it here.

He is no stranger to big adventures but the 777project will be his biggest challenge to date (and I’m not entirely sure how he’s going to top this one). In an estimated 7 days and 20 hours, he will fly all over the world and run marathons in: Antarctica (Falkland Islands), Chile (South America), Los Angeles (North America), London (Europe), Casablanca (Africa), Hong Kong (Asia), and finally Auckland (Australasia). I got tired just from typing this paragraph.

Mike has his itinerary online with the start times of each marathon so, if you are in any of these areas, maybe go hand him a drink and tell him he’s awesome.

***

Photo shamelessly stolen from the 777project Facebook page.

Previous instances of amazing people doing amazing things included Kim Allan’s 500k run/walk without sleep attempt and Michael Stewart’s 500th marathon.

January 15, 2013
by supergenericgirl 21 Comments

Marathon training like the underpants gnomes

The February issue of Runner’s World arrived in my letterbox last week with a painful reminder that the marathon is really close. Wonder if it’s too late to change my entry to that 2.2k option.

I know this is probably the weirdest blog post title I’ve ever posted on here but, as usual, I ask you to bear with me.

I’ve got a marathon to run in about a month and a half. Just under 7 weeks to be sort of precise. I can’t be any more precise because that involves counting the days until March 3 and I am really scared of doing that. If you know how many to go, don’t tell me.

I’ve been doing my little runs and every time S. and I run together we tell each other we “really need to get onto that Google Docs spreadsheet and come up with a plan”. Then a few days go by, we meet up for another run and we remind ourselves that, gee, “we really have to get onto that Google Docs spreadsheet and come up with a plan”. I mean, considering we’ve never run 42.2k in our entire lives and we’ve just come out of an indulgent holiday season, we should probably have a plan. Yeah, we really need to get onto that Google Docs spreadsheet and come up with a plan.

Tomorrow, maybe.

An article on Nerd Fitness* today talks about “crucial mistakes newbies make trying to get healthy”. After gasping at the realisation that I’ve been doing this shit for quite some time now but still make most of those mistakes, I realised that one of them, in particular, is the perfect description of my current situation.

The article mentions a classic South Park episode with underpants gnomes who collect people’s underpants as phase 1 of a 3 phase plan. Phase 3 is profit but they have no idea what phase 2 is.

You’re smart people, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, so you get where I’m going with this. When it comes to marathon training, I’m a freaking underpants gnome.

Now that I think about it, I have a phase 3 (cross the finish line in New Plymouth on March 3), but I barely have a phase 1 and I definitely don’t have a phase 2. I’ve been running as much as ~~possible~~ I feel like but I haven’t exactly been training.

Some might say “well, all those runs count as training”. You’re not wrong, whoever you are. But those are only a very small part of the training. And that’s pretty much the only part I’ve been doing.

I effectively have 7 weeks to quit aimlessly bagging small runs like the gnomes bagged underpants and actually come up with a proper plan that will lead to ~~profit~~ finishing that marathon (preferably without collapsing, but I realise I may be asking too much at this stage).

I need to outline mileage and make changes to my routine (more sleep, less coffee, better food), just like I did the last time I trained for something properly. Most of all, I have 7 weeks to change my attitude and get back into the “I can totally do this” mindset that I got into before that 35k trail run last year. To this day, I’m pretty sure that it was my mental preparation that got me through that race, more than any physical training.

So, yeah. We really need to get onto that Google Docs spreadsheet and come up with a plan. A scarily short plan.

***

* Bookmark this site for the awesome star wars + lego images, visit regularly for the kickass content.

January 13, 2013
by supergenericgirl 4 Comments

Wharf 2 Wharf recap

The first time I ever entered a running event was two years ago, almost to the day. S. and I decided it was time to go from our little mid-week runs into more of a challenge and we signed up for the 12k version of the Wharf to Wharf version on Waiheke Island (and not just because we wanted an excuse to go to Waiheke Island). At the time, none of us had even run that far. It seemed like a big challenge, which really makes me think about how far we’ve come. We’ve entered dozens of events since then but Wharf to Wharf is the one that got me hooked onto crossing finish lines and so it has a special place in my heart (all together now: awwwww!).

Last year, a 24h flight delay in Las Vegas forced to to pull out of the event. I was at the airport in Vegas when S. texted me from the start line saying they were calling my name because I had signed up but failed to pick up my race pack and, even though I was in Vegas, my heart sank a little bit. I wanted to go back and run each one of those twelve kilometers again. And so today I did.

My memory of the course was, hmm, kind of a little bit distorted. I remembered that there were “a couple of hills”. My brain failed to remind that the whole course is in fact up and down a bunch of hills, with almost no flat areas. But it is beautiful. As in jaw-dropping breathtakingly go-tell-your-mother-she-needs-to-come-see-this kind of beautiful. So beautiful you don’t even care about the hills (much). It starts on the beach (like every run should start) and it ends on another beach (like every run should end). In the middle, just a whole lot of prettiness to distract you from the hills and the pain and the fact that you got up at 5:30AM on a Sunday and not many people would agree with you that that was a good idea.

I ended up bumping into people I knew and running it with more running buddies than I was expecting and even had the visit at the start line from a couple of friends who were staying on the island for the weekend. The social side of this event really is one of its strongest points (it’s a fairly small low-key event as far as races go but it brings together a really nice bunch of people, including adorable looking volunteers handing you water while wearing costumes).

But anyway. Holy ball of fire in the sky, it was hot. And muggy. Really stinking muggy. I supposed that’s as far as I’ll go talking about the weather. I’d complain about it if it had been too cold so I think I’ll just shut up now. It could actually have been much worse. The sun really only decided to come out to play once we crossed the finish line so hats off to whoever controls that stuff up there. Top work.

The other good news is that, unlike two years ago, I managed not to smash my iPod onto the ground right at the start line in Onetangi wharf (an iPod that was only 17 days old at the time and that lasted another year and a lot of running events but never got a new screen). The bad news is that the exercise-induced asthma symptoms I experienced earlier this year made a comeback. Assholes (yes, I’m attributing an adjective that somehow personifies a health symptom. It’s poetic. Just go with it). It awarded me some strange looks and “are you ok?” questions from passing runners and forced me to walk for a few hundred meters to start breathing normally again and convincing myself that no, I was absolutely not dying halfway up that hill. It also led me to make a mental note to add an inhaler to the list of things I’ll be carrying with me during the marathon.

Once I was over that little hiccup, the rest of the run was amazing. We crossed the finish line and headed straight to the water. Being able to do this is, in itself, a major reason to enter this event. More than that, I now consider the ability to go for a dip in the sea the new standard measurement by which all finish lines should be rated.

See you next year, Waiheke. Stay pretty.

January 12, 2013
by supergenericgirl 23 Comments

Putting together a marathon playlist

I have a problem. Well, a few. But one, in particular, for today. I’ll bother you about the others another time. I like to think I’ve got a broad musical taste but the music I tend to listen to on a day-to-day basis is not even remotely close to being good running music.

To be honest, now that I’ve typed that, I’m not actually sure I know what defines “good running music”. Sure, stuff like BPM (beats per minute) is important but, then again, everyone’s pace is different so it’s still very hard to find music that suits a particular style of running.

Sometimes I notice what I’m listening to at home or at work and I wonder whether the appropriate sport for these songs is kind of restricted to “bawling your eyes out” (that’s a sport, right?). But that’s okay. Like I said, I’ve got a broad enough range of stuff I listen to that I can put together a playlist for my workouts. So I did that about, hmm, a year ago. And I’ve stuck with it since then.

Last week, during one of my runs, I caught myself skipping pretty much every second song, which completely distracted me from the run. This, buddies of mine, is a clear sign that Lady Gaga and I need to spend some time apart.

There are a few songs that, for some reason, I haven’t gotten tired of (yet). In case you’re looking for some good songs to keep you going, here’s the list of stuff I’m currently happy to run to:

Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over (actually, pretty much all of her songs)
Chemical Brothers – Galvanize
Eminem – Lose Yourself
La Roux – Bulletproof
Bloc Party – Banquet
OK Go – Get Over It (or, you know, any of their other songs)
Iron Maiden – Run to the Hills (pretty self-explanatory)
MGMT – Kids
Kids of 88 – My House
Arcade Fire – No Cars Go
Franz Ferdinand – This Fire (or any other of their songs, basically)
Vampire Weekend – Run
The Killers – Mr Brightside
The Postal Service – Such Great Heights

That’s it. Fourteen songs that probably won’t make me hit the “next” button while running. You know who can run a marathon within the time that it takes for these fourteen songs to play? No one, that’s who.

So I need more music. I’ve been trying to find the right kind of stuff and have been pretty successful with some discoveries. Rock My Run, for example, is one of my new favourite websites and some of their mixes have kept me really happy during some lonely runs. The problem is that I’m far too OCD to risk running a marathon with a playlist someone else put together.

I’ve also tried audiobooks and I’m even considering giving them another go but I find that they require a level of concentration that I cannot give them while running (I kept getting distracted and then going back to listening and not knowing a thing about what was happening to the characters).

So this is where you come in. I need to block out the sound of my lungs trying to pop out of my mouth (lovely image, I know. Sorry, it’s out there now). So tell me: what song really gets you going? Have you mastered the perfect running playlist? What’s your power song for when you feel like maybe you should just turn around and walk back home? Is it really embarrassing to have the Eye of the Tiger on your playlist? Tell me everything!

***

After telling me about your favourite running songs, don’t forget to enter the Pro Compression giveaway that will be running (running, hahahahaha, get it? So clever) until January 20. You can enter as many times as you like since I love hearing about what’s brightening people’s days. And since we’re sharing, my day today was brightened by a lovely picnic with a bunch of fellow runners followed by a delicious gingernut latte. What about yours?

January 10, 2013
by supergenericgirl 88 Comments

Pro Compression socks giveaway

No, I’m not giving you my own compression socks. That’d be a little gross. But I’m giving you brand new socks, cooler than the socks your grandma gives you for Christmas!

Alright, you lot, listen up. Having Super Generic Girl in your browser history, as embarrassing and hard to explain as it might be sometimes, might finally pay off.

The good people over at Pro Compression decided you deserved to be rewarded for coming here and, among other things, reading me as I go on and on about how much I love compression socks and running and anything else that may or may not be even remotely related to running. Aren’t they cool? I agree.

Remember how I got my lime Pro Compression socks earlier this month and it gave me extra motivation to go out for a run? I’ve been practically living in those things (fashion tip: lime green goes with EVERYTHING) and getting compliments from a bunch of people (who obviously have great taste). Some people make a distinction between compression socks for recovery and performance compression socks, that you can wear while working out. My compression socks get worn during that really technical period of a training programme commonly known as “whenever I feel like it”. I find that they really help me if I wear them while running, as my legs don’t get tired or feel as heavy. They’re also great for post-running recovery (I sleep in compression socks more often than I’m prepared to admit).

Now it’s your turn to give them a try. Yours don’t have to be as bright as mine, even (but if you ask me, they should). Pro Compression is giving one lucky Super Generic Girl reader a pair of their marathon compression socks, whatever size or color suits you. If you want to go for the more neutral black or white, go for it. I won’t judge. Much.

These socks are unisex and can be worn before, during and after your workout. They are designed and manufactured in the USA using high quality materials. Plus – and this is where my technical expertise comes in – they look really good. So, yeah, you need to be rocking these out while you’re running, cycling, or whatever it is that you do to stay fit.

I’m going to keep it real simple. Since I love my bright Pro Compression socks, all I’m going to ask you to do, to enter the giveaway, is leave a comment on this post telling me what is brightening your day today. Are you having a day off work? Did you have a really spectacular coffee at a place you can’t wait to tell me about? Did you bump into an old friend? Just say it! For a bonus entry, head to Facebook and “like” Super Generic Girl on there, then leave me an additional comment telling me you’ve done so. You can enter as many times as you like by leaving comments over the next 10 days and the more you comment, the higher are your chances of winning.

On January 20, I’m going to announce the winner so, basically, you have 10 whole days to tell me what’s making you happy on that particular day. Sharing positive stuff and all that jazz. Couldn’t be easier, right? Right. In the mean time, get commenting and share the love among those you know. If you already have enough pairs of compression socks (if there is such a thing as “enough pairs of compression socks”), then you should enter on behalf of the special runner in your life and automatically qualify for part of their inheritance.

Not so small print because I’m not even changing the font size:
– This giveaway is sponsored by Pro Compression. The socks come from them, the opinions come from me.

– The giveaway is open to anyone anywhere in the world. This is the internet, after all. World Wide Web and stuff. The folk at Pro Compression get that. I live right down here at the bottom of the world in New Zealand so, if my pretty lime socks got to me, they can get to wherever you are.