The Ole Miss XC and track guys, who I pass every morning on the Whirlpool Trails, don't wear singlets. It's shorts and out. That seems to be the norm around here--and perhaps among all millennial men, or perhaps among all young men on warm days, always.
Me, older, I've always worn a singlet on warm days. Until yesterday. When, sick and tired of the long muggy summer in Mississippi--my 14th in this state, after moving down from NYC in 2002--I finally said F--k it and left my singlet in the car. Two Sundays earlier I'd run 13 miles and paused six times to squeeze a deluge out of my singlet. Sticky sticky.
Singletless, I had an unexpectedly nice run.
The niceness of the run was partly a function of the weather moderating ever so slightly from warm and muggy. Instead of 77 and 94% humidity at 6:30 AM, it was 72 degrees and...well, slightly dryer. Not much. But perceptible.
I felt good from the first step.
But there's no question that singletlessness was also part of what gave me that good run.
I'd always assumed that one wore a singlet on warm sunless-morphing-into-sunny mornings for two reasons: 1) if you don't, all the sweat will end up in your shoes; and 2) when the sun finally shows, you'll repel the heat incrementally better with light fabric than with pale skin.
With no singlet, I benefited almost immediately from evaporative cooling. I felt cool. Cooler than with a singlet.
At a certain point, though, I missed having a wet singlet to reach down for and wipe my wet face with.
Then again....not really. My hand did just fine. It felt, over the two hours in which I ran 14 miles, as though I was dealing with much less sweat, much less liquid. Much less liquid management.
It was a successful experiment. I will absolutely do this again. Chuck the singlet. Fook the singlet.
My guardian angel's name in all this, as I thought about posting on this weird yet absolutely central topic, is Walt Stack. Remember that name? He should be your hero, too. Along with Ted Corbitt, he's one of the true badasses.
http://www.woohoo.org/runsf/waltstack2.jpg
http://www.si.com/vault/1975/12/15/613740/the-old-man-and-the-bay