BAN ON HALF TIGHTS FOR DISTANCE RUNNERS

Wow, how did I miss this gem of a thread? I've got a meeting to go to so I've got to make this quick.

half tights are NOT ok wrote:

“...PLEASE stop thinking it's ok to wear half tights (at least with nothing over them) for distances over 400m.

...This half tights shit has to end for skinny little distance runners like us.”

I agree with this guy's right to think half tights are not fashionable and I believe that he has a point about all the defaults to gay logic by his detractors. But there appears to be something much deeper than just a revulsion to half tights on distance runners.

I can presume from his singling out distance runners or "any distance over 400 meters” that Half Tights believes that they look good on sprinters, football players and maybe even Roger Clemens (apparently you'll have to get in line for him – note: sorry about the gay reference but I’m legally obligated to insert at least one gay reference in my response to any asinine thread about men’s fashion).

This is where we may need to delve deeper to truly understand where he is coming from. Why does he believe that they look good on the aforementioned athletes and not distance runners? Is it because they are more muscular and therefore more aptly fit his ideal of what a man in half tights should look like? Is it because they are more likely to be African Americans (I’ll leave him to fill in the blank here – not sure I want to go there)? What about Shakespearian actors? Is it ok for them?

Or maybe, just maybe, Half Tights is so filled with paranoia and self loathing that anyone who looks like him should shirk away from the world and be embarrassed by their physique. Its ok Half Tights, you can on out into the sunshine you skinny little runt, we won't make fun of you when you do.

As an aside, fashion has nothing to do with why athletes (including distance runners) have jumped on the half tights bandwagon. It will actually make you run faster (look it up). So when I see Ritz, or better yet, catch a glimpse of myself running past a store front, in half tights I don't think omigod that is horrible. Rather I think there is one fast dude doing his thing. But don't take it from me, sometimes I don't wear a shirt with half tights so I might be a little on the extreme.

Great now I'm late...

Half tights are mandatory at Providence College....you don't have the option of wearing split shorts.

Here's what I don't understand. From my experience the smae guys who refuse to wear half tights are the guys that walk around with their shirts tucked into their jeans, with no belt on an a pair of old running shoes. These are the same guys giving fashion tips on what not to wear.

you sure wrote a lot there. sound pretty defensive!

we can tell the responders here who get real upset and defensive by their automatic jump into accusations of (or at least hints at) homosexuality.

and seriously, if you wear half tights with no shirt, something is wrong with you.

all other things aside, do they really make you at all faster?correct me if I am wrong but the WRs in the marathon, half-marathon, 10k, 5k, 3k, 1500 and 800 were all set in men not wearing tights

Jefe in the CO wrote:

As an aside, fashion has nothing to do with why athletes (including distance runners) have jumped on the half tights bandwagon. It will actually make you run faster (look it up).

All set "in men"?? Is that a Freudian slip??

The evidence mounts...

................ wrote:

Here's what I don't understand. From my experience the smae guys who refuse to wear half tights are the guys that walk around with their shirts tucked into their jeans, with no belt on an a pair of old running shoes. These are the same guys giving fashion tips on what not to wear.

sorry buddy, but this is a gross generalization. The vast majority of distance runners wear normal shorts. The same cannot be said about tucked in tshirts and old running shoes.

posts consisting of nothing but generalizations are not helpful here.

you could say, "i think half tights are cool," or "half tights make me feel like a stud," or "i have hamstring injury and half tights help me out." But just posting crap like yours doesn't contribute to the argument.

I could reply by saying "in my experience, guys who wear half tights are the same ones who look like metrosexuals or euro-trash wannabes off the track," but that's not entirely true. (only partially)

half tights are NOT ok wrote:

4) Here's why I care: people out prancing around in 1/2 tights make all distance runners look bad.

See you had me until your trolling got to this point.

make all distance runners look bad.....except you....because you of course would be wearing the shorts.

So if you're wearing the shorts, and everyone else is wearing the 1/2 tights you'd be the hottest runner in the world, by your standards. Why then would you care about what everyone else is wearing, if anything you'd want everyone else to wear 1/2 tights.

half tights are NOT ok wrote:

I could reply by saying "in my experience, guys who wear half tights are the same ones who look like metrosexuals or euro-trash wannabes off the track," but that's not entirely true. (only partially)

Yeah, I was thinking half-tights are about on par with popped collars. Seriously thought, a 130 pound dude rocking some tights looks simply absurd. It used to be only tri-guys that did this. However, it's fast been gaining popularity which is inconceivable to me.

Perhaps it's not the half-tights, but the person wearing them?

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8068/rieti5eh5.jpg

Also interesting to see shat Usain Bolt was wearing in Zurich (away from the US homophobia nazis):

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/8177/xmanib8.jpg

If you run 400 in a decent meet, you DO wear either a speedsuit or lycra shorts on the order of half-tights, because that IS what the style is.

Personally, I wear the track split shorts for track workouts and the tights only for races. What I see generally with people running from high school, through JC, to D1 (males) is that the short length progresses from capri-shorts, to team shorts (5" inseam) to track shorts (2" inseam), and ATHLETES care more about function and performance that style, until they get to meets with photos and videos. I notice that the HS/JC types who are not the real atholetes, care a lot more about making a fashion statement, while the D1 athletes care a lot more about getting themselves down the track faster.

It's just that the mileage-obsessed long distance guys with 1 microgram of muscle mass wearing tight-fitting race outfits are exposed for what they are--non-athletes.

As long as the male distance runners stay away from bun-huggers, I'm fine with it.

However the front view pic of the TX foursome wearing half-tights leaves little to the imagination...it's up to you if you want to expose that much.

To each their own.

[quote]half tights are NOT ok wrote:

posts consisting of nothing but generalizations are not helpful here.[/quote

Nor are fashion tips from runners.

Sorry I did get a little carried away but that is my m.o.Anyway to use the volume of my response versus the content seems to be an attempt by you to dodge the real question that I asked: are you ashamed of your body or do you suffer from an abnormal level of self loathing? Not that there is anything wrong with that, many short, skinny runners are competing with America's image that all men need to be 6'4" 225 lbs. All I'm saying is that you don't have to be. Contrary to what Coach D said you must be a real athlete to run fast at distances.I didn’t perceive my response as defensive, quite the contrary, I may not be defensive enough given my proclivity for being shirtless and half tighted.To an economist the benefits of half tights have been thoroughly documented. In a nutshell they allow for increased blood flow and the compression allows for more relaxation of the stabilizer muscles, which can prevent them from sapping much needed blood from the working muscles. It also speeds recovery. They are also not fashionable but if you are truly chasing speed you will not give a shit. When the picture of Tergat running with his compatriots last week showed they were all wearing half tights I thought the fashion police like Half Tights and an Economist would have been the first to jump on the bandwagon, apparently not. Also to compare World records to the lack of need of half tights is not a good argument for their validity. American runners are much, much bigger and more heavily muscled than the current crop of World Record Holders. I do agree that the tights benefit the more heavily muscled athletes than the inverse. So while Half Tights rightly believes that distance runners are too skinny to wear these it would hold more water if all the distance runners at the Penn Relays were 5’4” 120lbs. If you are over 5’8” and 140 lbs then you need to be racing in Half Tights.

half tights are NOT ok wrote:

you sure wrote a lot there. sound pretty defensive!

we can tell the responders here who get real upset and defensive by their automatic jump into accusations of (or at least hints at) homosexuality.

and seriously, if you wear half tights with no shirt, something is wrong with you.

................ wrote: Here's what I don't understand. From my experience the smae guys who refuse to wear half tights are the guys that walk around with their shirts tucked into their jeans, with no belt on an a pair of old running shoes.

Not I. And how you know that about the other voices of reason on this thread, I cannot even guess.

For the record: shirt usually tucked, in which case belt is mandatory and should match shoe color; more often slacks or cords than jeans; and running shoes are for running, period, end of story.

But none of these rules is nearly as crucial or inflexible as NO F***ING HALF TIGHTS OR CAPRIS ON MEN. It's got nothing to do with sexual orientation; no free passes for gay or bisexual men, the few of them so style-deaf as to even consider it. And I don't think they're kosher for the shorter distance guys either. If it's cold enough to need tights down to your knee, do the honorable thing and wear the genuine article down to your ankle. Don't even try and claim that keeping just your knees and shins uncovered is the key to your thermal equilibrium and optimal performance.

what not to wear wrote:

For the record: shirt usually tucked, in which case belt is mandatory and should match shoe color; more often slacks or cords than jeans; and running shoes are for running, period, end of story.

You wear cords and you are handing out fashion tips? There's irony for you.

But none of these rules is nearly as crucial or inflexible as NO F***ING HALF TIGHTS OR CAPRIS ON MEN

Because it doesnt look good to YOU. Yah, we got it.

You need to get this straight: You are a runner. By definition you are the last person EVER qualified to comment on fashion or "what looks good".

Calling "no f***ing half tights or capris on men" a fashion tip is akin to considering "don't plow your speeding Hummer over a sea of schoolchildren crossing the street" to be merely a driving etiquette tip.

In your honor, I am going to wear my half tights on my run today, and if you have a problem with that, I shake my skinny little tush at you, girlfriend!

wear them all you want but this is just stupid...you want to see something there so you are finding reaons/theories for how they may help youoh, americans are bigger, what a load of crapwearing compression shorts will not make you run 1 second faster, any more than a nasal strip or any other snake oil crapyou can quote studies all you want, the data is on my side... i've already pointed out that the fastest guys in their respective events DIDN'T wear tights in the record setting runsbig runners - fine... paula radcliffe is a big woman by distance running standards... she ran her 2:15 in basically underwearhow about alan webb when he set the american record in the mile?some people will believe anything put out there by researchers paid to find a certain result

Jefe in the CO wrote:

In a nutshell they allow for increased blood flow and the compression allows for more relaxation of the stabilizer muscles, which can prevent them from sapping much needed blood from the working muscles. It also speeds recovery. They are also not fashionable but if you are truly chasing speed you will not give a shit.

an observer wrote:

This thread has legendary potential!

no it doesnt.