Ten Commandments of the T-Shirt
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from April 1983.
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You've spent hundreds of dollars searching for the perfect running shoe. You've spent hundreds of hours reading running magazines. But if you haven't researched the role of the T-shirt, you'll never be a decent runner.
Proper use of the T-shirt is more important than oxygen uptake, stride length, interval training or carbohydrate consumption. You are what you wear. Unfortunately, the various "bibles" of running ignore the Ten Commandments of the T-shirt, which were revealed just last year, spray-painted inside a rest room:
Thou shalt not wear a race shirt on the day of that race.
It's rumored that Alberto Salazar did this once - and finished next-to-last at a charity fun-run, beating only the 79-year-old woman who had been taking tickets. The mystery of why wearing a race-day shirt turns your knees to macaroni is not quite clear, but someone at some tiny college in Indiana undoubtedly has a government grant to study the matter. At most races, shirts are handed out after the finish. But in some cases, they're mailed in advance or given at the registration desk before the start.
In these cases, you must put temptation behind you. A T-shirt KNOWS whether it's too early to be worn. And if you're chilled after a race, don't put on the shirt you just earned. You'll get it all sweaty and won't be able to wear it to the grocery store that afternoon.
Thou shalt not wear a half-marathon shirt if thy longest run to date is down to the liquor store.
Here again, the shirt just KNOWS. Wearing an illicit shirt stolen off your neighbor's clothesline causes injuries ranging from mild shin splints to loss of all your toes. Thou shalt not wear a 10K shirt in a half-marathon. There are two reasons for this: -Your central nervous system will somehow sense that you should be running 10K pace, not half-marathon pace. You'll collapse just past the nine-mile marker. -You'll look like a nerd.
Corollaries to the Third Commandment: Never wear a half-marathon shirt in a marathon. Never wear a marathon shirt in a 100-mile run. (For that matter, never run 100 miles.)
Thou shalt not wear a discount-store shirt that says, "I Luv Running." Even if it was a gift from your 8-year-old daughter, the humiliation of wearing such a thing just isn't worth it.
My father-in-law, who's been running seriously for more than 20 years, was forced to go out on Christmas Day several years ago in a gift sweatshirt that said RUNRUNRUNRUNRUN, or some such. Coming home, he was bitten by his own dog, who mistook him for a tourist.
Thou shalt, whenever possible, wear shirts from runs of years gone by. You'll impress everyone with something that says "Boston Marathon - 1953." (You'll also impress people by wearing any marathon T-shirt in a 10K.)
Thou shalt not wear the same T-shirt for eternity. The reason for this should be clear to anyone who's ever set foot in a high school locker room.
But don't laugh. This is a tough commandment for some people. Imagine a mile-a-day type who somehow finished a half-marathon, motivated strictly by the vision of the T-shirt he'd receive at the finish line.
Now that he has it, he refuses to take it off. He wears it day after day after day after. ... Passing him on the street reminds you of running past the camel enclosure at the zoo. Or near the Love Canal. If you are just a “jogger,” and if the weather’s cool, you might be able to wear a prized possession several days in a row. If you do five miles a day in cool weather, you MIGHT sneak in a second wearing.
But if you are a 65-mile-a-week person, you’ll need to keep your Maytag repairman’s phone number handy. Thou shalt not wear thy trendy, pale-purple Bill Rodgers singlet.
Save it for running around your neighborhood. It'll enhance your reputation.
Thou shalt not leave thy T-shirt draped over the bushes while running. It won't be there when you get back.
Thou shalt not run in a Marlboro T-shirt. Tacky, really tacky.
