Can 5K shirts be the next fashion craze?

5K-A-Wear wrote:

Since I have so many 5K shirts in my closet...

...I am confident would be the talk of the dance club.

You go to "dance clubs?" What else do you have in the closet, peter puffer?

Some of the vintage-look t-shirts you see at places like Old Navy are actually copies of old race t-shirts from the 80s. I think these are pretty cool, but most modern day race t-shirts are pretty poorly designed.

I've always wondered why race Tshirts are generally so bad. Why not make the race Tshirt look like something somebody would actually buy and wear around?

Way make a race tshirt that is instantly a mow the grass tshirt or worse yet- a rag you'd use to wash the car.

This will never happen, at least not until someone with some sort of actual design skills begins creating the shirts. In my entire race shirt collection (aka, car washing rag/extra sweat towel collection) there are about 3 shirts that I will actually wear in public - the 2004 Peachtree Road Race shirt, a Dublin marathon shirt, and 2003 Chicago marathon. All of these designs had one thing in common - they were simple. I would also like to note that considering the fact that the P'tree is the "world's largest 10k" it seems to have the absolute worst shirts every year. I guess you are pretty much handicapped as a designer if you are forced to incorporate a peach into your design, but still. The worst is that we actually vote on the best design, but you are lucky if there is even one that is worthwhile. Unfortunately, the design is just the first hurdle...even if that is okay, you still have the shirt color which is often such masculine hues as yellow, salmon, or baby blue.

Worst shirt ever - 2004 Tupelo 14.2 miler/marathon (long-sleeve purple, with a glow in the dark skull on the front...if they would have made it black with no glowing it would have been pretty cool)

Too bad we can't post pics here or something. I have some HORRIBLE race t-shirts. I'm embarassed to wear them around the house.

they sell pretty well on ebay.

yeah in loserville circa 1982.

5K-A-Wear wrote:

Since I have so many 5K shirts in my closet I was wondering if somehow us runners could make this some type of new trend in society. I have some crazy orange and lime green shirts that I am confident would be the talk of the dance club. I really don't think this idea is too far out there and possibly could happen one day.

Is it possible?

Arbusto wrote:

Some of the vintage-look t-shirts you see at places like Old Navy are actually copies of old race t-shirts from the 80s. I think these are pretty cool, but most modern day race t-shirts are pretty poorly designed.

That's really annoying to me actually. I see all these kids walking around with a "race" shirt from Old Navy or a State Champ Track and Field shirt from Abercrombie. Those same kids wouldn't run a half-marathon if you payed them, they've probably never won anything in track and field, and they couldn't name a single current top-ranked distance runner. It's just a clever way for kids these days to look like they are actually athletic.

are you a complete moron???? Just wondering.

I was actually planning on organizing my own half-marathon inthe ATL area last summer b/c I needed a prep for an upcoming marathon and didn't want to travel anywhere to race a half. I was going to put it on during the middle of the day, and the race shirts were going to be all black with a simple skull/crossbones design and in germanic font the words "Death March 2004 Half-Marathon". Abondoned the idea when I realized the logistics involved and opted to run the 14.2 miler in Tupelo instead....someday.

I think a big problem with race t-shirts is that the sponsors have to go somewhere, and that is usually on the back. Most of the newest race shirts that I have are covered on the back with sponsors’ logos. I can’t really complain, a lot of these races couldn’t be run without those sponsors.

My worst shirt was not from a road race but from a triathlon. It was a fairly big triathlon with a few hundred athletes competing. It cost close to $70. The shirt was a large, but went halfway down to my knees (I am 6 feet tall). The logo on the front was fluorescent orange and black, and looked like it was made to wash cars anyway. That was my first and last triathlon. I should have known better.

There are some pretty good race shirts out there.

The Salem Lake 30k or whatever, that bright orange shirt, that is a great shirt. I wear it on long runs a lot.

The worst was Kiawah Marathon like 2 years ago. The off-white shirt with the seaside pic on the front. Sorry, that might have been a cool picture if it were on the back, but it was atrocious. I threw it away at the gas station on my way home.

The sponsors ruin all of the shirts, all of the time.

Remember the Pepsi Challenge shirts from the early 80s that were bright yellow with red sleeves and red print? Those were hideous!!

I put on a race once, and the shirt design was just the info about it in a cool freeware font. The shirt printer threw a bunch of small runner silouettes around it, and it was done. The only problem was that it looked better than half of the designs out there. Another problem facing directors is that multiple colors cost a lot more, and having an artist design something can cost lots more. Only the bigger races can afford that expense, and many still get an ugly product.

Moral-if you want to be stylish, don't wear a commemorative race shirt.

Arbusto wrote:

Too bad we can't post pics here or something. I have some HORRIBLE race t-shirts. I'm embarassed to wear them around the house.

Here's a gallery of shirts...

cheap SOB...selling a $5 shirt on ebay so you can pay for your crack?

See, the Salem Lake ones on there are nice and simple.

Another great shirt is the Hospice shirt. The Navy one, it is a good looking shirt.

One of the best shirts is the original Cooper River Bridge Run shirts, from the 1st race.

If you are even in On The Run in Mount Pleasant, I think they have one hanging up.

Good Shirts/Bad Shirts wrote:

The sponsors ruin all of the shirts, all of the time.

I agree, but I know of one exception.

Owing to our position on the border, there's a pretty even split in the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry. So much so that we've got a local chain of "Buckeye & Wolverine Shops" carpeted half in scarlet, half in blue. They used to sponsor a 5k on the morning of the game, and everyone who entered had to designate their allegiance and the race t-shirt you got was in the appropriate color scheme. They even scored it like an XC meet. Considering the sponsor, the shirts were pretty spiffy at times.

Other than that, the only race shirts I'll wear in public are ones from the Boston marathon, and even then not the official one.

I have a green long sleeve race T that I'll wear pretty often in the winter. It's simple with Irish Classic on the top, 10k on the bottom and a clover in the middle. Looks a bit retro. Most race T's have runners or some other nonsense scribbled on them and it looks like it was designed by a high school art class.

Alan