Photo from Mount Royal, Frisco, Colorado.

"That is happiness; to be disolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." - Willa Cather

Wednesday 27 February 2013

The history of the glof

Did you ever wonder where the glove came from? No? Me either. Or me neither? Moi non plus.
I mean, come on, even Bill Murray circa 1510 found a way to keep his hands warm.

But, I have been given a pair of great gloves crafted by the Danish company of three brothers, GripGrab. And it got me thinking about well, gloves.

First of all, glove comes from the old Norse glofi and Middle English glof ,of course. Which fails to explain why they are called handsker in Danish.
Pretty much all purpose glofi, again from 1510 (a cold year)
British infant glof from the 1500's bearing a bit too much resemblance to my infant's glofi.
A pretty old glof from around 1200 reminds me of...


The most expensive glof, made famous in 1984
 But running gloves. Let's be honest. I have been known to wear some bad ones.



But having nice running gloves in the winter makes running a much more enjoyable experience. Just ask Alicia whether or not having warm hands in these personally made glofi made a difference at Tuscobia.
Kind of reminiscent of Bill Murray's glofi in the above photo?

So I was really excited when new gloves arrived in the mail (along with an energy bar!) from Jens at Run Forest.

So here is my review. They are warmer than they look and very comfortable. They are perfect for running fast on winter days. Biking didn't go so well. My hands froze.

But here is the cool thing about these GripGrab UltraLight. There are tiny holes on the palmar side of the thumb and index finger. When I saw these holes I thought they would irritate me, but they did not make my fingers colder and it was easy to slip my fingers out to tie my shoes and zip my jacket. It is amazing how often I lose gloves when I take them off. It is so nice to have gloves you don't actually have to take off to do anything.



Plus they are fashionable and go really nicely with my Afton T-shirt and SR's GripGrab hat. 



As for running in them, here were my 1.5km interval times yesterday (this time only 2 minute breaks... last time, Piccola Pinecone will be interested to know, I took 5 minute breaks...):

5:44, 5:43, 5:53, 5:51

They might have been more impressive had I worn these.
knights gloves


Running song of the day: Wildest Moments by Jessie Ware

4 comments:

cherelli said...

Nice to know someone is looking out for your running fashion bloopers (certainly wouldn't be me as I would be a glove fashion offender too) - love the look of those gloves though, thanks for the review...

Kirsten said...

I guess that the evolution theory of the word Glof went something like this: Cool Glofs are Gloffi - Gloffies come in handy - Gloffies are Handies - Handies are of course Handsker when they needed an translation back in the days of Gorm den Gamle.
No?
Well sorry,I was bored on the treadmill...

SteveQ said...

There is not a single photo of muleskinner gloves on the internet! So, um, I guess my comment wouldn't make sense... but the 1500's gloves are similar.

wildknits said...

Fascinating look at handknitted (or is some of that nalbinding) gloves and mittens over the years.

Well, until modern times and the advent of tech fabrics.

As a northern Minnesota runner with Raynaud's I am always on the lookout for a good pair of gloves/mittens. I am hampered by, apparently, having unusual sized hands.

Thanks for the review!