Running Shorts

I think that most runners go through phases with running shorts. When you first go out for middle school track, you look for ways to hide the fact that your thighs are as white as a ghost and force your parents to buy you spandex half tights to wear under your way too small running shorts. There is inevitably one kid who’s spandex don’t fit him because his legs are too skinny and he decides to go with the look of one baggier pair of spandex atop the other, more snuggly fitting pair. He thinks he has hidden his small legs, but instead he has drawn more attention to how stilt-like they are. Most kids disregard the school issued drawers and rock shorts of the basketball variety, which is probably the best call.

By the time you make it to high school, you have accepted the fact that running shorts are a little too small, and because you are sick of the football and baseball players calling you a homo for your shorts, you overcompensate. So you get the shortest shorts you can find, preferably of the American Flag variety and any other hideous design that running stores sell. A runner often embraces the shortness of his shorts at this time. You’re like the John Stockton of your high school track team. And because of this comes scenes like the one in “Juno” with the short shorts (side note: best part of that movie is when Michael Cerra is running through the hospital and you can hear the spikes of his shoes scratching against the tiled floor). I think in high school, the shorter the shorts, the more confidence you have in your running. If you’re fast, no ones going to make fun of the shorts you wear.

As you start to age and perhaps one day join a collegiate team, you find yourself surrounded by a lot of runners who are cocky and willing to wear shorts of the itsy bitsy, teeny weeny variety. And in seeing all of these short shorts, you realize what a fool you liked like in your dainty little things, and decide to go back to some normal running shorts, ones that won’t impede your ability to run quickly, but also not show too much. The perfect balance.

Sometimes, you can’t really help it though. The race day shorts issued by Columbia were not the longest things in the world, in fact they were extremely minute. It didn’t help that they rode up once you started running. The main problem with short shorts is that you look like a goof in them. Case in point: Jonah Rathbun. He was aware of this, and has been quoted as saying, in regards to Penn Relays ’07: “Greatest athletic accomplishment of my life, and every single picture of me has me in those doofy ass shorts.” (Pictured below, it also did not help that Jonah was making the face of a complete “doof,” I imagine him saying, “derrr, we’re number one, derrr,” and then snorting and pushing his glasses back up on his nose while the picture was being snapped.)

Eventually, your days of running extremely fast without care come to an end; whether it is age, injury, or inability to perform. It is at this point that you hang up the normal pair and move to a more basketball styled short. Not gangster style b-ball shorts, but the ones that end a little above the knees. Every once in a while you’ll pull the shorter ones over the legs and do a stride or two on the local track, but that’s just to relive the glory days. And you stay in the normal sized shorts for the rest of your running life. And as far as half tights go, I have no idea how those factor in, all I know is that I don’t like wearing them unless its really cold.
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Had a nice day in Belgium. Talked to coach on the phone and I may be running another 8, but we’ll see. I would like to if its possible, but they are a little tougher to get into since lanes are at a premium, unlike the 15 where you can throw a bunch of people in there.

I did have to travel to the coffee shop twice since as I sat down the first time I realized that I had forgotten my computer. One hour later I was back at it drinking some coffee and writing up some emails trying to figure out my life. Oh, and had my first Belgian beer of the trip. I liked that it came in a fancy glass. Duvel was the brand, and it wasn’t too bad. I wish I was a beer connoisseur so I could explain why it was good, but to me, beer is either good or bad.

Only a week left in the trip, and excited for the races to come.