My speedy, singing cooking girl in Michigan inspired me. She photographed and cataloged her entire winter running wardrobe for her blog, revealing a serious diversity of gear and technical fabrics. It takes some special kind of cold weather to get me to put on a long-sleeved shirt for a run, but a week or so ago Sarah reminded me with a jolt to get my second season’s worth of running gear our of vacuum-packed storage (and tucked on top of photo albums from pre-Y2K). As I struggled to find a drawer in my bureau for everything (I threw away a garbage bag worth of single socks, old skivvies, lame-ass tees, and empty jewelry boxes), I decided it was time to part ways with a large part of my race t-shirts. The sorting rules were simple:
- Tees from standing PR’s stayed in the drawer, as do technical tees (can you say Healthy Kidney?).
- One tee per race (so, I can keep my Joe Kleinerman from 2006 OR 2007, but not both).
- Sentimentality is not allowed, unless it’s a Run to Home Plate tee, or a marathon tee.
- They must all fit in one drawer, short sleeves AND long (dimensions of said drawer: 5.5″x13″x16″).
And so, I readily tossed a whole pile of shirts, including last year’s Poland Springs Marathon Kickoff and both of my Emerald Nuts long sleeves. Man, did that feel good. Buh bye.
I still have room in my drawer, though. And I feel like engaging with you, my eleven faithful readers. So, I’m taking a poll. Well, two polls, actually, since it is the season for polls and voting. (This is the closest thing to a political comment you’ll ever get out of me on Pigtails, peeps.) I want to hear from you which t-shirts I should keep. Vote for your favorite in each category (short and long sleeves), and I’ll keep the winners and donate the rest. Or maybe I’ll turn then into stuffing for Matilda’s dog bed. Maybe then she’ll turn into a distance runner by osmosis. Oh, if only it were that easy.
Rock the vote! Etc.
Pigtails Flying 
I voted for the Poland Spring kickoff because it was my first NYRR race 🙂
For the second, I just picked the prettiest.
I don’t know which are the most pertinent or prettiest, I just like to vote (or put in my 2 cents).
When in doubt, always pick the colored (in this case gray) shirt, ditch the white ones. I once had a quilt made out of all my white race tees, because they were not as cool as the colored ones. Now I have a colored race tee quilt, too!
[…] November 4, 2008 by TK It’s not about who you vote for, it’s that you participate. […]
[…] It’s surreal, running over the Verranzano Bridge. Are those minty-hued arches really spread for me to pass beneath? Although, it could be argued that I wasn’t exactly running over the bridge. My first 5K was so slow (29:20) that even my mom told me, after the race, that she was concerned when she saw my split come through over Athlete Alert. (Bless her!) EN reminded me that we had 25 miles to make up our horrifying pace for Mile 1. The thing was, I was so chilled, my muscles were so cold from shivering and being still for five hours, that I simply couldn’t run any faster. I had to warm up and loosen up and get my engine humming. Before we even got off the bridge, EN and I had both gleefully stripped off at least one piece of clothing (he pretended to be the Incredible Hulk; I pretended to be Dita Von Teese). Bye bye ugly green pants; have a nice life striped hoodie; it’s been swell old race tee. […]
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