[photopress:riocali.jpg,full,alignleft] The only regret I have from the Marathon is losing my Rio Cali MP3 player.  I have no idea what happened to it.  I vaguely remember tossing it at my sister around mile 22, then someone handing it back to me inside George R. Brown afterwards. Unfortunately, I was pretty loopy at those key moments so at some point, my poor Rio Cali and I parted ways.

I loved that Rio.  It came with 256MB flash memory and an SD card slot for up to 512MB additional memory.  It was lightweight, came with a nice armband and most importantly, it had been my companion through months of training and difficult long runs.  Plus, it had been a pretty cheap deal on Overstock.com. 

So, after a few weeks of denial (”It has to be around here SOMEWHERE.  I’ll go look in the car for the 138,092th time”), I conceded that I’d never see my poor little Cali again…..and went on the hunt for a new MP3 player.  After several more weeks of procrastination and indecisiveness, I settled on the iRiver IFP-799.  One word: awesome.

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FEATURES• Plays MP3, WMA & OGG music files
• 1GB Internal Storage
• Plays up to 34 hours of music
• Transfers music up to 3X faster*
• Skip-free and sport-ready
• Record music from any audio source (no PC required)
• FM Tuner & Recorder
• Voice Recorder
• Store or transfer any file type
• Up to 40 hours of battery life

I love this thing.  It’s much smaller and lighter than the Rio Cali, and holds a whopping 1GB of flash memory.  I’ve got 20 songs loaded on it right now, and it’s barely a quarter full.  It has an FM radio for listening to NPR on my Sat/Sun morning runs.  Dunno what I’d use the voice recorder for, but I’m all about maximum features.  Plus, with the most recent firmware update, I can use the Windows Explorer interface for transferring files - instead of the annoyingly slow iRiver Music Manager program.  Best of all, I got it for $60 on eBay.  I ::heart:: eBay.

The sports armband came in the mail today (another rockin’ eBay purchase).  The iRiver and I will begin our running relationship this weekend at the Law Week 8K.  woo hoo