Is the Stride Box a Good Deal? (+ Giveaway)

I was recently contacted by the founder of StrideBox to review their brand new StrideBox, which is a monthly subscription box for runners that delivers a hand picked assortment of running accessories, nutritional products, and apparel to your your doorstep each month.

When I first received the e-mail, I was a little skeptical because I'd just recently read about a pretty unpleasant controversy involving another company who makes "surprise boxes."  Also, I'm pretty choosey about what I spend my money on and I didn't know if I'd like receiving items that I first hadn't gotten a chance to look over.

So I received my box last week and......

I was wrong!

It was chock full of some pretty awesome goodies that were all geared towards runners.

my StrideBox bounty

I was a fan of their simple, well-done, clean packaging and marketing materials.

I really liked this esthetically pleasing marketing card.

It contained a few items that I'd actually been wanting to try for a while:

Hammer Nutrition Organic Energy bar, Honey Stinger Organic Gu, and Gu Chomps

and a few items that I'd never heard of but was really excited about sampling:

Skratch drink mix, Mazamabar

The way it works is each month you pay less than $15 for a monthly subscription (which auto-renews or you can stop or take a break at any time) and you receive a box full of products focused on running, training, and recovery.

The box is a fun way to discover new brands without doing all the legwork.  And it seems to be a good dollar value as well.

I added up the suggested retail price of all the individual products and it's more than $22.  Plus there are discount codes listed if you decide to buy any of them.

If you like surprises and you're interested in trying out new running goodies from well established brands in addition to newer, growing businesses, you might enjoy StrideBox.  I wasn't compensated for this review, I just thought you'd enjoy hearing an honest review of this new product for runners.

Do you subscribe to any "surprise boxes"?  Is this your cup of tea?
I didn't think it was, but I surprised myself (pun intended) and actually enjoyed it.

Do you want a chance to win a March 2013 StrideBox?
If you do, please follow StrideBox on twitter and tell me one item that you'd like to see in a StrideBox.  Bonus entry if you tweet about it [Check out @NeonRunnerKat's @StrideBox giveaway! http://bit.ly/WZHdUG].  Please let me know in the comments.  I'll pick a winner via random.org at midnight on Wednesday 2/13/13!