Thursday, October 9, 2008

Nearly-nudist running

As I was watching Spirit of the Marathon and crying my eyes out because it's such an emotional film, I noticed that the elite female runners wear... well, underwear... while racing.

Exhibit A: Deena Kastor:
















Last Saturday, I donned my usual shorts and headed out for a 10-mile run. Every couple of minutes, I would notice my shorts riding up between my thighs, causing some discomfort and much annoyance. I'd keep having to either correct the problem by hand, or run a few steps in an unnatural motion so that my shorts would fall back into place on their own.

As an experiment, I took a different approach when I did a 4-mile treadmill run last night- a minimalist approach, if you will.

I ran in my underwear, and I liked it. Yup, it was just me, my Hanes-for-Her briefs, and a sports bra. Oh, and my running shoes. It was pretty liberating. All my jiggly bits were bobbing all over, but it was comfortable.

For those of you who regularly run with me, don't worry. You won't have to see me in my underwear anytime soon. I still plan on wearing my shorts to the marathon. Sure, underwear is light and airy, but where would I put my GU gels?

On second thought...don't answer that!

5 comments:

elife said...

you are a thin-thighed woman! Even when I was thin, this would lead to some serious chaffing.

Morgan said...

Oh, I never said my thighs didn't rub together. Quite the contrary!

Anonymous said...

I am going to try that the next time my husband is not around! I already love running in shorts with no shirt ;)

Linden said...

OMG! This is awesome! I was thinking the same thing when I watched the Olympic marathon. But I don't have access to a private treadmill, so I couldn't experiment like you did. Thanks for sharing it!

leah @maritalbless said...

Too funny! While this may work for you in private, I'd highly suggest a pair of running tights or capris for your more public runs. After living in a pair of soccer shorts, I found when it came to recreational running I just couldn't handle the upward drift.

I tell myself that I don't care what I look like in them, or if I ever cause blindness or an accident by subjecting myself on unsuspecting people, because honestly I love the lack of chafing and how they keep everything nice and in place. That the longest run on sentence ever.