Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When I took these out of the box, I was truly in awe. The green was greener than the greenest green I had ever seen. By way of background, I am a historically slow runner. 11:00 miles are routine which is why I typically run in the wee hours of the morning. The darkness contains my slothness like nothing else can. However, the one drawback to my choice of running hours is that no cars can see me and my glacial pace makes me an easy target for the random drunk guy driving home to his unhappy wife (but that’s another story). When I first ran using these lights, I turned them on whilst looking right at them. BIG MISTAKE. Remember when that eclipse happened last year and everyone between the 28th and 32nd parallels went coocoo for cocoa puffs and your local weather person had to constantly remind their viewers not to look directly at the sun for fear of burning their corneas? Well that’s precisely what I felt like. As I blinked and saw fireworks dancing in the back of my eyeballs, I became worried that I’d never see again. Thankfully, after what seemed like an eternity but in all actuality was was 3-4 seconds, the miracle of sight was restored. After such an auspicious start, I set out on my morning run. I set the light to the slow blink mode and was off. You wouldn’t think that a little light would have such an effect on your workout, but oh my word, I felt like the second coming of Roger Bannister as I nearly broke the world record for the mile run. A few days later, rehydrated, rested, and ready to go again, I decided to step it up a notch. Again, I set the light to slowly blink and away I flew. This run was even better than the prior one and after besting Alberto Salazar over 26 miles, I knew something had changed. I thought to myself: self, could it be me socks? Maybe it’s my shoes. Both have been with me for multiple prior runs so I doubted it was either. Then it dawned on me. The only thing I’d changed was the introduction of this light. Somehow, someway, the speed at which visible light was escaping the diodes was entering my body and impacting the cadence at which my legs were moving. I had read about this occurring only two other times in history and neither more recent than when Hannibal parted the Red Sea on the backs of the Huns. As I prepared to contact the NSA, KGB, NRA, USPS, and UNICEF I knew they’d be skeptical of my claims. I had to document this new reality if I was going to start making he morning talk show rounds. The last thing I would want was Phil Donahue running down the aisle calling me a liar. So I decided to test the light one final time by attempting to break the Self Transendence 3100 mile race record by completing it without stopping. The day arrived and I set my light to slowly blink, believing the blinking coincided with pores on my skin opening and closing allowing the gamma rays to penetrate my muscles at precisely the right interval. 100 meters into the 3100 miler, I was certain the record would be mine. 150 meters into it, I thought I may never stop running. And that’s when it happened. At the 162 and a half meter mark. I’ll never forget, as long as I’m living, where I was at that moment. As clear as I remember watching Neil Armstrong in that CBS studio pretending like he was bouncing on the moon as I was completing my backward handstand ascent of K2, this moment will join with other momentous moments in the pantheon of history. The light stopped blinking. I slowed, believing that my pace had now outpaced the pace of the visible spectrum of light being emitted from the light. Unfortunately, as I slowed, nothing changed. The light was now a solid green and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t change it. I attempted to depress the “button” with no success. I then tried to press down on the “button” which produced the same result. Finally, I thought, what would Macguyver do in similar circumstances? So I came up with a plan. I would now push the “button” one final time in order to fix the light. It didn’t work. I had failed. My dreams of having Oprah ask me to say those magic words of “you get a light and you get a light and everybody gets a light” would never be realized. Even after replacing the batteries and reassembling the device, I can’t get it to turn off or cycle through the modes. This product is being returned and I can only hope the replacement will have a similar effect on my running.