The one shirt you would never get rid of (Read 218 times)

Back in 1976 when I was in my second year in college I ran the New York Marathon. That was the first year the New york Marathon went through all five Burroughs.  That was also the year the Frank Shorter ran it.  Right after the start I saw frank about 10 meters ahead of me and so i sprinted ahead to catch him. i did but it took me about a half mile before i was able to pass him.  I did briefly get ahead of him, and I killed my marathon by running perhaps my fastest half mile ever, but it was a moment I won't foprget and i can honestly say i was ahead of Frank Shorter in a marathon.

Anyway i got my t shirt from the race, it was an ugly white t=-shirt with a silly ironed on picture of some 1970s looking runners in front of the Big Apple Probably the ugliest shirt I had.  I wore it a couple times after the race but it quickly got put away thinking I would never see it again.  A couple years ago i was going through some old boxes of stuff i had from college and I found the shirt.  It is still ugly but it is closing in on 40 years old and a definite keeper.  I doubt I would ever wear it again but it is my one keeper for ever now.

How do i insert a picture of it?

I've got two that have stuck around. They make me smile. In general, I'm not a keeper of stuff. I've thrown away all bibs, medals, and most race shirts that I've gotten from races mostly because I just find it annoying to have and look at junk around the house. So I think it's meaningful that I've still got a shirt from high school track. I was 15 years old. 1989 SICA WEST CONFERENCE CHAMPS VARSITY-SOPH is what it says on the back. I like having it..

I also still have the t-shirt from my first 5k in 1993. I was 19. That's when I first got the notion to run longer than a mile from a runner boyfriend at the time. I like having it too..

 

This ain't working.

Make sure the link doesn't require a password to access, that it is publicly accessible.  To check, open a second browser (as in not the one you are using, firefox if using chrome, ie if using firefox, etc) and access the URL of the picture you're trying to insert.

My favorite shirt was a yellow short sleeved t-shirt from the Chatinka Day's Outhouse Races. It's a thing--google it. My dad and his buddies won it when they went to Alaska for a few weeks to shoot off rockets when he worked for the Air Force geophysics lab. I was maybe 10. I inherited the shirt when I got to be high school age and wore it to track practice and under my football pads and to the beach and everywhere. I had it for many years after high school too--well after it was no longer presentable in public--but I'd still wear it to run in or work out in or whatever. It was the last thing I had of my dad's. I never got rid of it ... eventually I think it just disintegrated.

My junior year in high school my track team won the "High Five" award which is a thing Channel 5 in Boston does. A camera crew came out with Mike Lynch, the sports anchor and they interviewed our coach and the captains and they recorded us running and stuff. A couple decades later I was watching TV and there was a promo for a "High Five" retrospective of the last 30 years. And for second there we were, the middle distance runners, doing our quarters. I was wearing the Chatanika Days t-shirt, "jams shorts" (anyone from the 80's remember those?) and Nike racing flats.

The first thing I thought was: "Damn, we were fast." The second thing I thought was: "I miss that t-shirt."

My favorite t-short from a race is so worn that I finally retired it. It's actually a rather plain, maybe even ugly t-shirt, but it was the first one I ever got at a race, and the race happened to be the 1972 AAU National Marathon Championship in Liverpool, NY. It was also a flat, fat, and beautiful course around one of the smaller Finger Lakes.

The race was also noted for being run under hot, humid conditions. At the start you could see vapor rising from the road surface from the overnight t-storm. All we had for aid were water stations every 3 miles with sponge stations halfway between. No sports drinks, no GU or nutrition of any type. For the day that was more than most races had. Usually we ran without any aid on the course.

+1 Yeah, truly good stuff.

Hey I got it to work.  Here is my shirt from the 1976 New York Marathon

 

This is a great t-shirt spinach, I would totally wear it. I really enjoyed your story as well. Last night (for some reason) I had dreams of Frank Shorter and a mural in Boulder. Huh.