Hangin' It Up

Mission Inn 10K

The colorful and rosy time has come to an end, my friends.

Since I joined the Lopers, I've been wearing pink, worn it during both training runs and races, and have been wearing it proudly (well, as proud as a guy can wear pink I suppose).

But that time has officially passed.

I have decided to retire my pink Lopers shirt.

Loper Classic 15K

It was actually a simple decision to make, really. That shirt set a high bar, and I'm not sure I could have continued to reach that bar.

Here are the races I've worn it in:

Mission Inn 10K (Oct. 09) - 50:24 - PR
Loper Classic 15K (Dec. 09) - 1:21:48 - PR
Surf City Marathon (Feb 10) - 4:42:26 - PR
ARMC 5K (March 10) - 23:03 - PR
Run Through Redlands Half Marathon (April 10) - 1:56:58 - PR

Do you notice a pattern?

Surf City Marathon

That shirt is five-for-five in races in terms of PRs. I can't possibly PR at every race I run, and in fact I ran the Lefty's 5K two weeks after the other one, didn't wear pink and didn't PR.

To be fair, though, two of those races were "instant PRs" in that I'd never run the distance in a race before, the 15K and the marathon. But the other races, I felt like I ran my best race possible... and really I feel the same way about all those races.

And I feel like I have to add that I WILL wear pink in races (sorry for the confusion but had a typo here earlier). Next Loper season I'm sure I'll get a new pink shirt, and I can't not wear it when that happens. But that might not be for a while.

When I look back to my non-pink races, some of the performances I know were not very strong, and while that was more of a reflection of my training (or lack thereof) I still feel like I could have done better with some parts of each race.

Run Through Redlands

The training I've had since before the first pink race was great. Mission Inn was my first Loper race... well, technically I ran the Ragnar Relay after joining the Lopers, but that's a bit of a different animal. But from that first race I felt great, and shaved off more than two minutes from my previous 10K PR. And every subsequent race I felt fantastic in because my training had gone so well.

ARMC 5K

So now, I'm quitting while I'm ahead. That shirt holds some great memories. It's been bled through, tears have fallen on it, buckets of sweat have dripped through, on or have been wiped on that shirt, holes have been poked in it time and time again. It's taken a beating but has continued to offer support.

Now, it will hang up in my closet and perhaps someday I'll display it somewhere a bit more prominently. After all, that shirt took me from novice runner to marathoner.