|
There is something vain yet self-satisfying about wearing your 10K, marathon or triathlon
finisher’s T-shirt around town just hours after completing the race. You feel proud about
your accomplishment, and you don’t mind sharing that sentiment with others, provided they
take notice of you. These personal mini-me billboards are especially popular with
triathletes and runners whose closets must be bulging with stacks of finisher’s T-shirts.
These 100% cotton beefy T’s resonate with multisport symbolism. They are hard-earned
rewards.
Each year at the Hawaii Ironman race officials station local burly security guards near
the finish line where finisher’s T-shirts and bronze medallions are given out. If you
don’t finish the race or are disqualified, you won’t receive a shirt. It’s that simple,
that cut and dried. It would be easier robbing a bank than walking off with a finisher’s
T-shirt if you didn’t finish.
T-Shirts as Shrouds of Triathlon
Fewer than 20,000 Hawaii Ironman T-shirts have been handed out over the years. I am
fortunate to own two of them. I have worn my first only once and have never worn the
second. I saved them from the ravages of sweat and laundry detergent. They are in pristine
condition. They are my shrouds of triathlon.
A year before I decided to do the Ironman in 1982, I was a spectator at a local bike race
in Berkeley, California. At the time, I had been thinking about doing the Ironman except I
didn’t know how to swim. The triathlon was at the top of my athletic wish list. It was
still considered a lunatic fringe event and the only entry requirement was sending in a
check for $100.
When the bike criterium was over and I was leaving, I noticed a well-built guy standing by
some racers. He was wearing an Ironman T-shirt. I walked up to him. I had never met anyone
or even knew anyone who did the Ironman. I wanted some first-person advice, so I asked him,
“Did you do the Ironman?”
He looked at me. And all he said was one word: “Yes.” He then turned around and resumed
talking to his friends. I felt stupid and naked standing there, so I walked away. So much
for the Hawaiian helping hand.
Fashion Never Goes Out of Style
Why do I remember that moment with so much clarity, but when I look back upon all the
hours of training it took me to get to the Kailua-Kona finish line the following year, my
recollection seems to blend together into an impressionistic blur. It’s as if there were
only two mental mile-markers that were registered on my personal road to Kona: being rudely
slighted in Berkeley and being overwhelmed with pride at the finish line on Alii Drive in
Hawaii.
In the mid 90s, I returned to Kona again as a competitor and journalist; 11 years had
elapsed since my first race. To my silent surprise, I saw several triathletes walking
around town wearing finisher’s T-shirt from the late 70s and early 80s. The original royal
blue color had faded from use, but if you looked closely on the back was the white
lettering that said “finisher.”
Fashion really never goes out of style, it just gets recycled and re-interpreted. Whether
it’s hemlines or ties, personal taste is a matter of public taste and vice versa. But
there’s real staying power in the simplicity and sartorial nature of the T-shirt. Marlon
Brando might have ushered in the modern era of the T-shirt as Stanley Kowalski in A
Streetcar Named Desire, but the running boom has helped make the lowly T-shirt into an
indispensable and timeless fashion statement.
A Little Exhibitionism Doesn’t Hurt
After my first Ironman, I returned to Berkeley, where I was a graduate teaching assistant
in political science. I had purposely refrained from telling my students that I was going
to compete in the Ironman. I merely told my class that I was going to be out for a week.
On my first day back, I wore my Ironman finisher’s T-shirt and a pair of Levi’s. I didn’t
say anything about the race as I led my class through the theological thickets of Puritan
thought in colonial America. After class ended, several students came up to me and asked
me if I did the Ironman. They read the lettering on my T-shirt. They were curious. Yes, I
told them, I did the race. And I proceeded to tell them a little about what I went through
during that long hot day in October.
Vanity prompted me to wear that T-shirt to class. But a trace of humility prohibited me
from talking about the Ironman unless I was asked. I wanted to be noticed. Yet I didn’t
want to call attention to myself. Contradictory? Probably.
But when you finish an event like the Ironman, or even your local 10K, a little
exhibitionism doesn’t hurt. Just remember one thing: cotton tends to shrink, so be careful
of the temperature setting in your clothes dryer.
|
