The Devil's Fabric

Okay, The Monster has been rebuilt and has run with great results … time to dress him up.



What do you wear running? Favorite outfit?

Usual: Old Navy, Target; nothing techy or trendy – it took my 12 years to buy a new watch; Favorite: board shorts and my “Cerveza” tank top

Um, yeah …

Cotton: Yes it’s soft, comfy and certainly easy to find pretty much anything to run in, from old concert shirts to something from a thrift store but cotton is pretty much despised in the “real runner” community. It tends to absorb and hold moisture creating an uncomfortable, chaffing layer next to the skin.

Board shorts? Durable, but … seriously.

I had to face facts … I would have to buy new gear; gear that fit properly and was made from the right materials for the job. No more multi-tasking, all-purpose yard-care to 10K wear. I needed a dedicated running wardrobe.

It took a few tries to find the right shorts. Putting my bikey quads into running shorts always, left me wishing my thighs were just a bit more compact. Fortunately, running shorts these days are not all of the short short variety and I found some with a deep enough inseam to assure some modesty.

I also had to ditch my over-sized shirts … I like a longish, hockey-jersey fit, but after dropping the weight over the summer, Large is just too blousy for me. Medium it is [I’ll still take a large for casual- and skate-wear though].

I had my sizes, I had my style … I had to make the hardest commitment of the makeover.

Technical fabric.

*gasp*

Yes, I know what it is. Breathable, drier, more comfortable, easy to care for … DriFit, UnderArmour, etc.

But it’s still …

POLYESTER!!!

Yes. That word.

I know many, many years have passed, but I still have those memories. The 70s were not kind.



[yes, there are photos of me in the sea-foam poly leisure suit ... I will find them, scan them, post them, and shred them]

Also, cotton is greener, so to speak; it is a renewable resource [some very stylish shirts are even being made of bamboo, now]. Not that I'm the most environmentally conscious person in the world - I'm all for climate change, if I can drink summer beer in November. I just don't want good pteroleum spent used for sportswear, when it could go into my car at less than $2 a gallon.

I put my ghosts, nightmares, flashbacks and prejudices aside and poly’d up. I justified my increased carbon footprint by lying to myself and saying, "They're recycled shopping bags, dude."

It was good. I ran in the cold, I ran in the rain, I ran in the warm and in between. It performed as advertised.

I have embraced The Devil’s Fabric as my own [although, it’s always been there in my clothes, usually the second ingredient behind “cotton” (I kind of denied it)]. In fact, I just received this gem.



[size: M, color: Blue]


1) Good for either running or riding
2) Skull
3) On sale

Next up: New Shoes???