Sunday, November 23, 2008

Sartorial postscript

I inadvertently provoked curiosity among the wardrobe-attentive!

It was some combination of practical good sense and insane last-minute only-a-new-thing-can-fix-the-problem money-spending, but I went yesterday morning to the running store at the Time Warner Center and bought a pair of these (I do not usually run in the tights style, I prefer regular running pants with legs - I have large calves and ankles, and the 2 pairs of tights I had previously both have tapered legs and ankle zippers which dig into the leg!) - and I wore the tights under the RaceReady fitness shorts.

I also had gloves, a hat and a jacket; the gloves came on and off at various points (they are very good ones, lightweight with a sort of windproof mitten cover that you can pull over for extra warmth, and they clip together so that one is less likely to lose them - but I am too lazy to get up and look at the brand and find a link), the hat was only on my head at the start and thereafter in the jacket pocket, and the jacket itself was tied round my waist - Coach Mindy said I could drop it off with her at mile 8, but I thought I would be wise to keep it with me in case I wanted it.

(Coach Mindy was on the course in three separate spots cheering me on - she had another runner there too, who was hoping for a BQ time after finding counterproductive seeding/crowding in Berlin earlier this fall - she was at mile 8, mile 14 and the finish, it was very nice!)

I had a long-sleeved shirt on, but no extra layers - I was pretty warm most of the time, too.

(The jacket was a less strictly necessary part of the purchase, but I somehow did not have the right thing, i.e. a soft medium-warm zippered jacket - I only had a windproof one that chafes at the neck and somehow never turned into a favorite clothing item and then over-the-head fleece-type things that are too inconvenient to get on and off and too bulky to tie comfortably round the waist in a race. Also, and very impractically, fashion outweighed common sense - I bought it in black, because I did not like the other two colors, but this will mean I cannot wear it for dusk or evening running because of the safety issue!)

(And in a typical lesson that one should not look after the fact of purchase for things on the internet - but really the thing was that I needed it that day! - it was this, and though it really is extremely nice it has already been marked down at the Nike website (I paid full price at the running store), plus they have it in several colors that were not at the store & that seem to me - unlike marina and mulberry, the two options they had on hand other than black! - entirely acceptable!)

I need to calm down and go to sleep, because I have a lot of work to do in the early AM due to frittering away my time running and blogging!

4 comments:

Becca said...

Oh, I feel much better now--I was painfully envisioning your reddened legs, or perhaps envisioning your painfully reddened legs--but I do think mulberry fully acceptable (in jackets. not legs). And the right tights are the way to go--K bought me some a few years ago that are perfect, though of course I have no idea what they are and am too lazy to go UPSTAIRS and look. (Hmm, maybe this should have been an email, not a comment...)

Laura said...

I really like that jacket! Also, I still don't have any running tights, but I think I'd really like to get a nice pair for winter racing...

ShirleyPerly said...

Wow, it must have been quite cold! I've never worn shorts over tights before but I suppose the warmth factor is comparable either way. Glad your last minute clothing decision worked out.

Unknown said...

I very much like the jacket -- the tights are very much like men's racing swim wear. ;-)