Family T-Shirts @ Ironman

I chose lime green since there would be both guys and girls wearing the shirt - and it was bright. Oh how I wanted PINK but I didn't think my 7- and 10-year old nephews would appreciate that

Did something painfully simple on the front - a phrase my Dad has yelled at every one of my races (GO LISA GO) but since he was unable to be there that day, he kind of was in spirit through the shirts (cheezy! yes!).

On the back I had "Team Wisconklin" - a play on words since I did IM Wisconsin and my last name is Conklin. Originally I didn't want to put a location or year identifyer on the shirts so they could wear them to ANY race, but the word play was just too good!

We went with bright lime green as well..wanted bright colors my husband/sons would be okay wearing.

I would go with something generic so your family/friends could wear them in another IM or races in the future.

Mine were IMLP shirts with my race number and stuff on them. I liked them but in future would do something more generic so we could wear them at other races for my husband, daughter or me depending on who raced...mostly I race.

Some BTers have some amazingly clever shirts with logs or s/b/r stick figures. Hopefully some of those creative types will post their shirt designs.

Here is my family in their my shirts race morning.

I opted for a dark pink, magenta, color.  I made short sleeved shirts for my family and a long sleeved shirt for me to put on at run special needs.  If you look in my race report, you can see me finish with the shirt on.  My Dad jumped out on the course (in front of me, no one else was around) and flashed his "Team Stacie" shirt at me during the run.  It was a cool moment!

I attached the pdf file that my shirt company sent me for design approval.  I, too, would probably not put the race date/name if I were to do it again.  I didn't think of it at the time; however, it makes sense to have something your family/friends can use over and over again!

We did a similar thing with "Team Hohl" on the top of the back of the shirt for the ones I had made for my husband's first IM.

I put IronDad on the front with some images for swim, bike and run, and on the main part of the back I put

140.6 = difficult

140.6 + real life = amazing!

However, the next year I did my IM and didn't want to spend the $$ to redo the shirts for me. This is going to sound stupid, but I put duct tape over the "dad" in IronDad and wrote "Mom" on it.

Advice - Order early. I had to pay for rush and premium shipping and I could have gotten some nice race gear for the amount it cost me.

We also did bright lime green.  I did spot my family, but had a few 'false alarms' before I did.  The color really stands out, but you will almost certainly find other groups who had the same idea. 

True, green seems to be a popular color on this thread, but to be honest I saw every color in the rainbow, plus tie dye, cammo print, animal prints, stripes, polka dots, you name it.

Despite other groups wearing the same green as my family's shirts, I had absolutely no issues picking them out of the crowd.

If your spectators REALLY want to stand out, encourage them to wear a costume or have a theme for the spectator group (super hero's, greek god/goddesses, cave men/women, angels/devils, farm animals, 70s superstars, etc.)

I went with yellow.  I was worried that yellow would be a popular color and I wouldn't be able to distinguish my family from others.  But I had a group of 15, so 15 yellow shirts stood out great.  I had no trouble spotting my family!

Bright colors are over-rated.    My wife chose to go low-viz with a military theme (I'm ex-Army and a big supporter of the USO).  They really weren't hard to pick out.  Harder is THEM picking YOU out!  I taped a stripe down the middle of my white bike helmet using red electrical tape.