Race Shirt Etiquette

What's the penalty for breaking Rule #1 and #10?  I wear a shirt from the 2008 IM in Kona all the time (not a finisher shirt).

after throwing away 90% of my race shirts, i'd like to create a list of "designing a good race shirt" rules for RDs.  i'm not in danger of breaking these rules cause I rarely ever want to wear my race shirts!

starting with - have a women's fit.  no women's fit - automatically out.  (for me, that is!)

Originally posted by DanielG I have intentionally dug out sprint and super sprint shirts to wear to HIM races after reading that. I've got a 14.06 shirt for a couple years they've done the race (.24 mile swim, 11.2 mile bike, 2.62 mile run) and I bought extras just to wear for OLY, HIM and I wore it to B2B full a few years ago

thats awesome, i was thinking i should start doing the same thing for any HIM's i do next year after reading that

I have a couple of race shirts from races that I DNFed at.  I don't wear them out in public, they are relegated to work around the house.That beingsaid, I love to wear my volunteer shirts as I always have stories to tell about them!

yup.  those rules are about right

So yeah, rules exist for a reason.

For the small (~350 participants) race I ran. i offered a women's fit shirt one year. We have about 35% female participants, only about half of those ordered the women's style. Of those, about half complained that the shirts were too small, even though we had a link to the manufacturer's size chart on the registration page. Most of those complaining the shirt was too small admitted that they didn't check the size chart.

All this is apropos of nothing, except that you're never going to please everyone. 

That's pretty funny.  I hope you don't mind, but I think I'm going to steal that idea.

Originally posted by cjhild

Originally posted by DanielG I've got a 14.06 shirt for a couple years they've done the race (.24 mile swim, 11.2 mile bike, 2.62 mile run) and I bought extras just to wear for OLY, HIM and I wore it to B2B full a few years ago

I want to do this race in the worst way.

X2!!!!   

There is a triathlon every year in Iowa that is put on by long-time family owned business in Okoboji.  His shirts are the absolute best.  He has men's and women's cuts.  He orders a ton of them.  At packet pick up you go to his store (clothing store) and you can try on your shirt to make sure it fits.  He put's no sponsors on the back of his shirt.  They are all on the race material, but not the shirt.

I've done the race 3 times and he does a complete and total re-design of the shirt every year. 

Obviously it's the exception rather than the norm, but they are awesome.

One question for the general masses......  Is it appropriate to wear a non-event specific 140.6 shirt even if you have not done one yet?  explanation: I saw a guy at a restaurant with a shirt with just a big 140.6 on the front and asked him which one he did.  His response was "I didn't do an Ironman.  I just liked the shirt."  Since there was not a specific race associtated to it, I felt like I did not have a good "Nu Uh!  You need to do the distance to wear the shirt" grounds to stand on.

In 2012 I did a 1/2 mary that also had a full mary but they only produced one shirt which listed the full..

I LOVE the shirt but after the 2nd time being asked how my marathon went I started to get frustrated with the RD putting me in such a position!!!

Step 1:  Don't bother with offering shirts.

I going to find some old Marlboro shirts and wear those.

That's great advice, Jason...more Crossfit will guarantee he qualifies and finishes Kona with ease next year, so he'll be able to wear a Kona Finisher shirt with pride!

Exactly.  I have DNS'd several races but still picked up my swag bag and got my shirt or hat or whatever.  I paid for it so I'm going to wear it.  If someone asks, "How did you like the Florida 70.3 race in 2010 (which was one of my many DNS races)?"  I'd respond, "I had fun with my family at Disney.  The racers looked miserable though."