Champion Running Clothes—Affordable, Comfortable & Effective!

Back in January, I featured a post on a great program sponsored by Champion—the Champion Innovation Lab. The Innovation Lab provides a group of real everyday runners some of their newest technical fabric running clothes to test out while training for the Walt Disney Marathon. Champion is genuinely interested in these runners' feedback and their likes and dislikes of the various clothing items. Champion values their input and actually uses the feedback in their product development. How awesome is that?!

Champion sent me some of the same items to test as well—shorts, track pants, and tops. All the clothing items are made from Champion's doubleDRY technical fabric. I'm happy to report that all the items meet the RunnerDude's test of approval. The long-sleeve shirt I tested was light-weight and perfect for layering. On one run, I wore the shirt as a base layer with a fleece outer layer on top. The shirt performed very well in wicking the sweat from by body through the shirt into the outer layer (too bad my fleece outer layer wasn't made of Champion doubleDRY). On another run (on a milder day) I used the top by itself and again, it did a great job of keeping me dry. The shorts and pants worked equally well. I liked that the shorts had a little length to them. I wasn't too sure about the pockets, but I ended up really liking them as well. I didn't really notice they were there, and they came in handy for my sports gel. The only thing that would have made the shorts even better would be if they came with a doubleDRY brief liner. I believe the track and vented versions of their running shorts come with liners, but the pair I tested did not.

Overall I was very pleased with the doubleDRY performance and the shorts, tops, and pants all get a 5 RunnerDudes rating! Add the affordability on top of the great performance and Champion running clothes are a great deal!

New Contest!!

I'm happy to announce that Champion is sponsoring the next RunnerDude Contest! The prize will be a clothing item from Champion's sports line! There will be two winners—one male and one female. To enter, all you have to do is email RunnerDude at runnerdudeblog@yahoo.com by midnight (EST) Saturday, March 13, 2010. The winner will be announced on the blog on Sunday, March 14, 2010. Be sure to put "Champion-[male or female]" in the subject line and your name in the body of the email. Please remember to include your sex (male/female) to make certain your email goes into the right category for the drawing.

Note: Champion provided the clothing items used in this review. I received no compensation for writing this review and I was not encouraged by Champion to do a positive review. This review is simply a recap of my experience with the product.

Champion Listens to Real Everyday Runners!

One of my favorite athletic clothing brands, Champion, is located right down the road from me in Winston-Salem, N.C. Actually as I sit here writing this post, I'm wearing a Champion hoodie. Their casual athletic clothes are great. I also enjoy their line of running tops and bottoms.

One of the great things about Champion is they appreciate feedback from you, their customers. One way they get this feedback is through a cool program in conjunction with the Walt Disney World Marathon. Champion is the official performance apparel of Disney’s Wide World of Sports® and tooday they announced the continuation of the Champion Innovation Lab at the Walt Disney World® Marathon Weekend presented by CIGNA.

The Champion Innovation Lab brings to life its "How You Play" mantra through the experiences of real, everyday athletes. This year, the 2010 Innovation Lab works with runners, race-walkers, and wheelchair athletes from all skill levels to test Champion Athleticwear. Part of the group consists of the "Perfect 17/" The Perfect 17 are a unique group of runners that havee participated in the Disney Marathon Weekend since its inception 17 years ago.

Champion believes that in order to develop a great line of performance apparel, they need to get real feedback from everyday athletes who participate in the Innovation Lab. Claire Powell, Director Champion Brand Marketing said, “We are excited to bring the program back to the Disney Marathon Weekend for a third year to see how the athletes have responded to our products.”

Participants were given a variety of Champion performance apparel and, starting in September 2009, asked to catalogue their experiences in a Training Log and share real-time insights with the Champion New York Design Team and Champion Athleticwear Consumer Research. The runners received apparel from the brand’s Double Dry® line featuring wicking technology, compression tanks and briefs and athleticwear from the Seamless product line. Questions in the log covered topics such as pace, weather, route (e.g., trail, street, treadmill), comfort, fit and washing machine care. Runners were also outfitted in Champion apparel for the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend events and will be announced as Champion Innovation Lab participants when crossing the finish line this weekend!

“Perfect 17” runner and Champion Innovation Lab participant Seth Elsheimer said, “It's refreshing to see a brand that has stayed focused on regular, everyday athletes who are competitive as well as those who just want to have a good time and be active.”

Be sure to see the Champion Innovation Lab athletes take on the Walt Disney World Half Marathon this Saturday (January 9th) and the full marathon on Sunday (January 10th) which will take runners through all four Walt Disney World® Theme Parks starting at Epcot®, continuing on to the Magic Kingdom® Park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park and Disney’s Hollywood Studios™ and then back to Epcot® for an exhilarating finish.

If you haven't tried Champion's athleticwear, be sure to check out their website or check out some of their lines at Target. While you're at the website, be sure to sign up for their catalog. My kids love it when the new Champion catalog arrives!