The Perfect Racing Shirt

I like free stuff.  I mean really, who doesn’t?  I especially like free stuff that I can use and use often.  When I run a big race, I go through that gift bag like a madman – tossing away the advertisements and seeing how much of the free stuff I can use, and what I should throw away.  Ooh, chapstick… that I can use.  Ugh, a $5 coupon off entry into the 2016 Jakarta 5k… hmm, not so much.

More often than not, the best item in the bag is the shirt.  Technically speaking, you probably shouldn't even consider the shirt to be free.   There’s a reason your race entry was so expensive and in part that’s because they use that money to buy the shirt.  A few days, weeks, months after you have paid for the race, you have likely forgotten how much it actually cost, but hey… free shirt!

Having only been involved in running races for a little over a year now, my collection of race shirts is fairly small.  But I feel like I have the general sense of what I look for in a shirt.  There is also an “expectations” factor involved.  For example, there is a weekly race in my local park that costs five bucks to run.  I’m not expecting a shirt.  But when I shell out nearly $300 for the NYC Marathon, I’m expecting a nice memento to commemorate this historic accomplishment.

Here’s a good example.  I rarely wear these two shirts.  They’re cotton and I typically don’t wear cotton shirts to run or to the gym.  I might wear these shirts while doing yard work or just hanging around the house.  The difference is that the shirt on the left was given at a small 5k in a local park that raised money for a cause, while the shirt on the right was at a relatively large event - the Newport-Liberty Half-Marathon.  The one on the left was a pleasant surprise – I think I spent twenty bucks to run that race.  The one on the right was at a half marathon just across the river from Lower Manhattan.  Not only did they hand me an ugly, long-sleeved cotton shirt, but they didn’t even give finisher medals (BOO!).  A half marathon deserves a medal.  I was very disappointed.

The Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Road Race hands out a shirt each year, with a similar logo.  Last year’s race shirt was a horribly ugly shade of blue, but they stepped it up this year to a darker shade and with a more worn-out look.  Even so, I probably won’t wear it all too often, but I do appreciate the upgrade.

Many races do hand out some of the nicer fabric shirts more conducive to running.  I don’t really know what to call  them – tech shirts, wicking material…  I don’t know.  I just know they’re nicer than cotton.  Even with this material, some races still manage to screw it up.  Take these two shirts, for example. 

Were these color shirts offered at sale price from the printer?  I mean, the one on the left is so bright orange that I could put it on and direct traffic.  If I wore that shirt and fell off a boat, nobody would rescue me because they would think I was a buoy.  The one on the right mixes a somewhat eclectic horse motif with a strange bluish, marbling pattern.  Certainly not my style… I don’t know that it’s anybody’s style.  Do I wear both of these shirts out on runs?  Yes, I do.  But you’ll always find them on the bottom of the shirt stack, only to be worn when close to laundry day when nothing else is available.

The Cheshire Half Marathon got it right last year – a light weight shirt with an acceptable, if not simple pattern.  I love wearing this shirt out on runs, even though I destroyed my first one when my nipple band-aids fell off during a rainy long-run.  Look, if we're going to have an honest blog here, we're not going to shy away from such talk.  In fact, here's a picture:

But, I kissed the race director’s ass on facebook enough by including my experience in last year’s race on my youtube video and he was nice enough to send me a new one.

Then there are my two marathons – New York and the A1A in Ft. Lauderdale.  Now, the A1A gave out a pretty decent shirt (seen above on the right pictured with a shirt I got for registering for, though not running, the Hartford Half Marathon).  The pattern is a little funky, but it’s a nice enough color and made of a light material that makes it good for wearing on a run.  My problem with this is simple.  The A1A has a 5k on Saturday, then a half-marathon and a marathon on Sunday.  And though I hate to sound snooty, would it really have cost so much to delineate a runner as a marathoner vs. a half-marathoner?  Wasn’t it enough that at the 7-mile mark, I had to watch all the wimps veer off to the right on their pansy half-marathon course while I continued on with a few brave souls willing to go the full distance?  And what did we get to show for it?  Nothing… same medal, same shirt.  I feel a little ripped off, I must say.  I might actually get some tape and tape-over the “Half Marathon” part of the shirt.  Maybe blot it out with a Sharpie, I don’t know.

On the other hand, New York’s shirt was a home run.  Great pattern and look at the back.  It just pronounces the wearer as a “MARATHONER.”  This is the type of shirt that I’m proud to wear.  This is the type of shirt that I automatically put on as soon as the laundry is done.  Then, when I’m done wearing it, I long for the next laundry day so that I can wear it again.  It’s so simple – it makes me wonder how anybody else gets it wrong.

So, listen up race directors for the next time you go to purchase your shirts.  Simple goes a long way.  It's not difficult.  And it helps you out too, because the nicer the shirt, the more us runners will wear it when we train.   Otherwise you get relegated to the bottom of the stack.