WEEKEND WARRIOR
Once trapped by his own race-T-shirt-wearing rules, lockdown has freed Brunty to chest-brag once again! And it’s tiring work…
Once upon a time I wrote a column about race T-shirts, the gist of which was that there’s a big difference between what the wearer thinks the shirt says about them, and what it actually says. It seemed to strike a chord with my long-suffering readers because for the first time it openly acknowledged the existence of ‘chest-bragging’, which we all do but no one admits to.
The column in question, which included a handy ‘cut out and keep’ guide to the hierarchy of race T-shirts, has taken on something of a life of its own and continues to pop up in all sorts of places to this day – someone even sent me a copy of it recently having seen it on a forum saying, ‘You’ll find this funny’.
An unintended side-effect of this column, however, was that it began to affect the T-shirts people wore at pre-race bike racking. On several occasions in transitions I’ve been approached by athletes who recognised me saying, ‘I can’t wear my Ironman finisher’s T-shirt anymore since you wrote that column because everyone will think I’m just posing.’ Or, on one memorable occasion, a lady who came up to me and said ‘I saw on the entry list you were racing so I’ve deliberately chosen a blank T-shirt that you can’t take the p*ss out of.’ I never knew I had so much power.
Well, to tell you all the truth, I too have been trapped by this column and have also had to watch what I wear in case I’m spotted and then mocked for breaking my own ‘rules’. As such, instead of swaggering about at races in my hard-earned finisher’s tops, I’m usually instead to be found knocking about in a Hong Kong Phooey T-shirt, or one of my scabby old cricket shirts. Occasionally, if I feel the need to humble-brag, I’ll still wear a branded training top from my running club, thus subtly suggesting I’m an athlete but that I’m far too nonchalant about it to boast – ahem.
All this has changed, though. During the past couple of weeks I’ve been seen running around the apocalyptic wastelands of my home town of Coventry wearing T-shirts declaring me to have finished Ironman Lanzarote, Challenge Roth, the Outlaw, Ironman Lake
Placid, the ITU Worlds, The Devon Coast Ultra, Ironman Canada, the Jurassic Coast Challenge and every other nutty endurance race I’ve done (all of which, according to my own rules, say, ‘I’ve never done Kona’).
The reason for this dramatic change in policy is of course the lockdown – or more specifically the number of people I’ve never seen before who are now out running during the lockdown. Or more specifically than that, the number of people who are now out running wearing ‘Tough Mudder’ T-shirts. Now, I realise they’re perhaps unfamiliar with my self-proclaimed etiquette surrounding race T-shirts, but they’re absolutely indulging in shameless showing off, so if they’re not going to be modest then it’s gloves off in the battle of the bragging. And I must unleash the big guns of racewear to show them that I’m the boss around here (we’ll overlook the fact that one of my neighbours up the road ran the marathon at the Munich Olympics).
And guess what – it works! Finishing some fun cross-country obstacle runs is all well and good, but it’s no match for me staggering over the finish line of 140.6 miles of swimming, cycling and running looking like a haunted silo. They’re noticeably intimidated by my chestborne athletic accomplishments – either that or it’s my face like a stuntman’s knee that makes them run in the opposite direction.
In any event, it feels strangely liberating to be shouting my achievements to the world via the ‘IRONMAN’ on my pigeon chest for once, although it does rather put the pressure on me to run faster than everyone else in a lesser shirt, while obviously trying not to look like that’s what I’m doing. To be honest, I’ll be glad when this lockdown is over and I can go back to my anonymous shuffling where the only other living soul I can see is my dog Bertie disappearing over the horizon ahead of me. Living up to my chest-bragging is proving to be absolutely knackering.
“All of which, according to my own rules, say, ‘I’ve never done Kona’”