It's About the T-shirt

To run, all you really need is a pair of shoes. And these days, some runners even skip the shoes.

But, with the possible exception of the Bay to Breakers race in California where nudity and/or body paint sometimes suffice, it is traditional to cover certain essential body parts, with well, something.

Runners are on their own to purchase pants, but the T-shirts they wear are another story. Since the early days of the running boom, T-shirts have been the souvenir almost always included in the price of a race entry fee. And runners love them.

In a recent scientific survey conducted among a group of seasoned runners, I learned: Runners favor “tech” or synthetic lightweight fabric T-shirts over cotton, the fabric of choice for so many years. Runners say they fit better, don’t get smelly, “breathe,” have a nicer texture and stretch enough to “cover a car” according to one respondent. The few who favor cotton complain that tech shirts smell funny and don’t fit well.

Runner-people own anywhere from a couple dozen to 200 shirts, and admit that T-shirts have a habit of accumulating in dresser drawers making them collectors by default. Some rotate through their shirts as they train and race, others have old favorites they prefer to wear over and over. Favorites become loved because of color, logo, fit, fabric, and “how I look in it.” Favorites recall an especially difficult race, a memorable travel experience, or provide the owner with a subtle way to brag about having completed a status race such as the Boston Marathon.

Fit is an on-going issue. “Unisex sizing means men’s sizes,” one runner says. “Even a small men’s shirt becomes a nightgown for me. If race organizers want me to wear their shirt to advertise their race, then I need to have one that fits.” Women runners appreciate women’s sizing and tapered shirts that fit them better. Several runners mentioned liking a “no shirt” option and paying a lower entry fee.

T-shirts can create a bond between strangers who strike up a conversation based on a shirt. It’s fun to learn when and where a race took place, and whether or not the experience was good. “When I race in my ‘Alaska, Land of the Midnight Run’ shirt I often hear ‘go Alaska,’” one runner shared.

What happens when T-shirt storage capacity is maxed out? Shirts get thrown away, given away, cut up for rags, transformed into quilts, or find new life halfway around the world.  They arrive in huge bundles and get sold on the street for pennies in third world countries. I once saw a young man in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, proudly displaying a shirt that read, “Detroit Dance Marathon, 1995.” Who would have thought?

Occasionally races offer hats, socks, a bag, jacket or sweatshirt instead of a T-shirt as a race souvenir. And sometimes runners appreciate a change. But in the end, it’s the T-shirt most race participants covet and that can even become a factor in deciding whether or not to participate in a race.

A blessing or a curse, T-shirts are here to stay.

Coming Back

Dave Klibbe’s shooting for a sub-24-minute 5k. He’s very close. In fact, he may have accomplished his goal by the time you read this.

A little less than a year ago, Klibbe, 66, a manager at Woodward Governor in Fort Collins, was in Boulder having his right hip replaced. After continuing to run but suffering for years with an arthritic situation that eventually resulted in a hairline hip fracture from the impact of bone-on-bone, Klibbe agreed to surgery only because he was told that he would be able to run again one day.  He did a 24:15 5k two days before surgery and ran six miles the day before he was operated on. Six months and a whole lot of hard work later, Klibbe stepped out his front door for his first post-surgery run. “It felt weird,” he admits. “I couldn’t get any sort of rhythm going.”

Elated that he was accomplishing any forward motion on his own two feet without the pain he’d become so accustomed to, Klibbe kept running, a little farther and a little faster each time he went out. On Memorial Day, eight months after surgery, he completed the Houska Houska 5k in 24:39. In July he ran the Double Road Race (a 10k followed by a 5k) in Denver with times of 55:29 and 28:38 and the Human Race 5k in Fort Collins in 24:20.

Klibbe was able to return to running because he wanted it so badly and because of help from two skilled professionals.  Through his local orthopedist, Dr. Steven Yemm, Klibbe learned about Dr. James Rector, the only doctor in the state who performs a special procedure called Birmingham Hip Resurfacing. After the surgery, Klibbe dedicated himself 100 percent to working with Brad Ott at Rebound Physical Therapy in Fort Collins. “When I was exhausted, Brad would say, ‘Give me five more.’ and I would,” Klibbe said. 

Two days after surgery, Klibbe went home on a single crutch with manageable pain. After two weeks he was off pain medication and had begun physical therapy. “I had no idea how much my leg had suffered from running on a bad hip,” he says. “I began learning how to activate the proper muscles, develop balance, muscle control and strength. After four weeks I biked 20 miles and hiked five easy miles. By three months, my limp had disappeared, I was sleeping all night and could drive without pain.  I could trim my toenails and put on my shoes pain-free.

When Dr. Rector told Klibbe he could begin running six months after surgery, he began harder workouts and Ott checked him for symmetry and any favoring of the reconstructed hip.  At month five Ott could not distinguish the difference between the repaired hip and the healthy one.  Klibbe learned a great deal about his body, knowledge that made him a more aware and better runner.

Is this guy a superman? Is he a little crazy? He’d say “no” to question one and a “maybe” to question two. Klibbe is incredibly grateful to be back on the road, continuing a running career that began when he was 35, and has become an important part of his life.

Epilogue: Dave Klibbe ran a 23.05 5k at the National Masters 5k Championships in Syracuse, NY in October 2014  

Doubling Up

Who says there’s nothing new under the sun? On Sunday, July 21, a contingent of Fort Collins runners participated in the Double Road Race-Denver, the first of its kind in Colorado and only the third Double ever held in America.

So what’s a “double?” And maybe “so what?” Take it from some of us who made the trip to Denver’s City Park. It’s hard. It’s fun. We’d all like to do another one.

Here’s how it works: You run a 10k, pause for an intermission, then run a 5k. Simple enough—until you try it. Bob Anderson, founder of Runner’s World magazine, has done several doubles and says he learns something new every time. The concept of the double is his and he has the innovative spirit, organizational savvy and wherewithal to turn his idea into an event as popular as any 10k or half-marathon.

He describes the Double as “something like the triathlon only different.” It’s a two-stage race where competitors don’t switch from swimming to cycling to running, they just run. The second leg, the 5k, starts an hour and forty-five minutes after the 10k start which means that the faster you run, the more rest time you get.

During the recovery period you have all sorts of options: You can visit a chiropractor, massage therapist, roll around on a foam roller, drink, eat, walk or simply rest. Herein lies the trick. What is the best way to recover and prepare for segment two? Perhaps it’s different for everyone and the only way to find out is to practice during training. The founding organization has published the Runner’s Guide to the Double Road Race that lists training ideas and 25 strategies you can use in order to do your best in the Double.

Denver race director Tyler McCandless of Boulder, one of the nation’s finest long-distance runners, encouraged an elite field to participate in the inaugural Colorado race. McCandless has competed in Doubles in Pleasanton, California where he finished third in an aggregate time of 47:13 and in Overland Kansas where he set a men’s world record in 45:15:05.

The first Double held in America attracted more than 1,000 runners in Pleasanton, California and was won by Fernando Cabada of Boulder, Colorado and Tina Kefalas of Hillsborough, California. The fastest aggregate times for the Double are McCandless’s 45:15:05 and 53:13:04 posted by Molly Printz who trains in Boulder and won in Kansas. Winners of The Denver Double were Colleen DeRueck of Boulder with a time of 54:26 and Brandon Johnson of Denver, 48 flat.

McCandless didn’t compete in Denver, choosing instead to participate in the children’s one-mile event. “Halfway through the race, the young girl who won her division, took the time to tell me this was her first race,” Tyler said.

The Double is for everybody, from beginners to old-timers, with an unusual emphasis on runners over 40. There’s prize money three deep in 10-year age groups and acknowledgement of an age-graded scale to even the playing field for older runners.

The event will return to Colorado, probably Denver, in the summer of 2015.

Return to Boston

John Hagin, 70, of Fort Collins, nearly finished his twelfth Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. A police barricade forced him to stop shortly after the 25-mile mark and wind his way another weary three miles to his hotel near the finish line.

His wife, Woody, by now a veteran spectator, departed from her usual plan to shop for a while and then wait for John at the finish. This year she’d beat the crowds and make sure she had a prime viewing spot by walking a half-mile or so along the edge of the course to find a vacant spot next to the railing that separates runners from spectators. “It was the first time in 11 years that I wasn’t at the finish line,” she says. Her decision may have saved her life.

One of the lucky few able to reach his hotel after the race was stopped, a keyless John talked a sobbing maid into opening his room.  When he turned the TV on, he understood why. Grabbing his cell phone, he frantically called Woody, only to discover that he could not get through.

Thus began a seven-hour saga for the couple who were eventually reunited at their hotel after dark. By then John had showered and was resting on the bed. “Rotten guy,” was Woody’s first reaction. Exquisite relief was her second.

John ran the race, but it was Woody who experienced the full impact of the chaos caused by the explosion of two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon.  She heard shattering booms, then saw police running toward the finish, ambulances, cops on bikes,  swat teams and crowds of frightened people who’d been told to “evacuate” but weren’t sure where to turn.  Rumors were rampant about the likelihood of more bombs. All the focus seemed to be on the safety of the runners.

When Woody tried to buy a charger for her dying cell phone, she discovered that a swat team member had purchased every charger in the store. For a very long time she walked the streets aimlessly wondering what to do. She hadn’t eaten all day. A lonely meal at the Cheesecake Factory seemed a far cry from the celebratory dinner she and John had planned. As daylight disappeared, she discovered a back way in to her hotel by sneaking through a small opening in yellow tape defining a crime scene.

John has been a runner since the early ‘70s when he weighed 200 pounds and a doctor told him to change his ways or die. He stopped counting marathons when he’d completed more than 100. He’s done every event possible in Leadville from the 100 mile trail run to the 10k. He’s run almost every day since he began except for three weeks off  to heal a broken leg. These days he puts in 35 to 40 miles a week and insists he “doesn’t train. I just run.” He gave Woody an entry into the Hawaii marathon, her first, which she ran on her 50^th birthday.

The Hagins have a room reserved in Boston for the 2014 marathon. They know it will be a huge crowd, and they don’t care. They have to be there.

PS John Hagin completed the 2014 Boston Marathon in 4:10.

The impact of a running club

A couple of Cache La Poudre Elementary School teachers in LaPorte, Colorado,

met three times a week summer before last to run together. When school started they wanted to continue and they wanted to share their joy of running with their students.

They invited students to join them for an after school run on Tuesday afternoons. They chose a secluded trail behind their school with a bridge that spanned the nearby Cache La Poudre River.

Leslie Glenn and Payton Schneider had no idea how much their running club would grow. They conduct two sessions during the school year, one in the fall until the weather makes them quit, and another in the spring. At the most recent registration, 50 kids showed up. That spring thirty-five of them, along with Schneider and Glenn, participated in the local “Hunger Pains” 5k  organized by Poudre High School junior Lindsey Derringer to benefit the Larimer County Food Bank.

Now an established after school activity, the running club costs nothing and welcomes all grades. Parents of kindergarteners through second grade run with their children. “It’s become a social time for parents,” Schneider says.

Sessions begin with stretches in the gym before everyone heads out the door to what has turned out to be an ideal running course along the river. There’s no pressure. Walking is encouraged as needed.  Faster runners often go beyond the Poudre River Bridge and gauge their turnaround time so that everyone is back at school by 4:30.

“We’d like to do this twice a week,” Glenn says. Both she and Schneider are parents of small children and have limited free time.  They would welcome helpers to expand the program.

On a warm May afternoon I joined 40-plus kids, four teachers and several parents to run. Most had running shoes, but an occasional kid trucked along in flip-flops or Crocs, unconcerned about their footwear. The feeling was festive. School’s out. It’s warm, and we’re here enjoying the outdoors.

A note I received after that run describes the impact of the running club better than I ever could.

Hi Libby,

I’m Ryan’s mom. Thank you for running with the club yesterday and talking to the kids about running. I want to tell you how much the club has impacted our family.  It has made Ryan a runner. Mrs. Schneider and Mr. Strutz noticed his talent and suggested he start racing. Last year’s Hunger Pains was his first-ever 5k. He beat the teachers and he loved the race.

Ryan ran several more races over the summer. He had pneumonia when he was young and then developed sports-induced asthma. Luckily he has outgrown the asthma, but it still amazes me that he does 5ks.

Running has given Ryan power over being small for his age. He’s been picked on and has always hated any reference to “short.” Now he shocks runners as he passes them. He’s heard them call out, “Way to go Little Dude.”  These days he wears the  Little Dude title proudly and takes any name calling in stride.

I am so thankful for the CLP Running Club and the teachers who give their time to share the experience of running with kids.

Thanks,

Deb Lippert

Ryan Lippert  was a fifth grader when he ran the Hunger Pains 5k in 21 minutes that year. He has been steadily improving his times as a middle schooler.