Great Running T-Shirts

Today’s Runners’ Lounge Take It And Run Thursday topic is all about great running t-shirts. Tom split up his entry into a few categories, and I think I’m going to do the same, with a few “awards” in each category.

Category 1: My own race t-shirts

Funniest: Okay, so this one is a little biased because I had it made myself. And even though it generated a little controversy when I wore it, I still really like it and think all first time marathoners should make one 🙂

Most inspiring: I love my Picnic Island Adventure Run shirt, because it was my first race ever. It started on a sandy beach, then had us slog through swamps, hop through tires, crawl under cargo nets, wade three feet deep in the Gulf, jump hurdles, and run a zig zag pattern up and down a hill about five times. (I make it sound really intense but in retrospect it really wasn’t that hard.) But it was my first race! I was so proud of myself for just finishing – at the time I was definitely a “non-runner,” and it was an accomplishment for me to finish even though I had to take walk breaks. Who would have thought that less than two years later I’d be running a whole marathon without walking?? Wearing this t-shirt reminds me of how far I’ve come in a short time. I don’t have a picture of the race shirt, but here’s a link to the Webshots album where I posted my pics from it at the time. I cannot believe I had the nerve to run without a shirt on! The shirt is definitely a necessity now.

Category 2: Shirt slogans I kind of want but don’t have

Drunkest: “Wine bottle – 26 ounces. Marathon – 26 miles. Coincidence?”

Girliest: “My mascara runs faster than you do.”

Most inspiring: This isn’t meant to be a running quote, but it’s one of my favorite quotes in life, and I think it definitely can apply to running. Courtesy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “To reach a port, we must sail. Sail, not tie at anchor. Sail, not drift.”

Best pickup line: “Your pace or mine?”

Dirtiest: “Endurance on the track means endurance in the sack!”

Worst grammar: “It’s funner with a runner!”

Best joke that is probably too soon: “My Kenyan legs are in the shop.”

Category 3: Running shirts that don’t exist but I really want them

They always call shirts “technical” and then they just turns out to have wicking fabric. What’s up with that? That’s not “technical”; that’s just necessity. When I say “technical shirt,” I mean I want some cool technology built in.

I want a shirt with a built-in heart-rate monitor so I don’t have to wear one of those straps.

I want a microphone up at the neckline so when I’m running and think of something to blog about later, I can capture that thought.

Of course, I need Garmin functionality built in. However, to one up the Garmin, that info will sync to a live coach (probably outsourced to an Indian call center) who can then talk to me via the speaker that will also be on the shirt and tell me to “stop being lazy and speed up! You’re almost there!”

It will be wicking, but unlike traditional wicking shirts, it will also have a layer of heating/cooling coils hidden in the fabric with an automatic temperature control so that I’ll never be too hot or too cold.

And of course, it will be available for $20 because I generally won’t pay more than that for a t-shirt (ignore the fact that I’ve entered races that were way more expensive than $20 and all I got to show for my efforts was the t-shirt.

Which brings me to one last shirt that I don’t think exists, but should: “I trained for four months, I paid the $100 entry fee, I ran 26.2 miles… and all I got was this lousy cotton t-shirt.”

This post was written as a part of Runners’ Lounge’s Take It And Run Thursday, in which runners from all across the running blogging community come together to post about a single topic. This week’s theme was “That is a great running t-shirt!”