Greg's Running Blog

I run races. And I’m kind of an extrovert, in case you haven’t noticed. I also enjoy the crowd support at the races where they can yell at you all kinds of things. But i prefer when they cheer for me personally. One way to achieve that is by having your name on your shirt. It is not uncommon for runners to race in a custom shirt with their name printed on the front so the crowd can read it and yell out their names. So I have decided to have a custom shirt made with my name printed on it. I have found Running Banana, a company that sells customized shirts for runners and walkers, or pretty much anyone who’s willing to pay for them.

Their store has several designs to choose from and they have designs that you can customize with your own name. Or they offer you the option to send in your own design and they’ll print it on the shirt of your choice. The nice thing about Running Banana shirts is that they’re all made from technical sweat wicking fabric and the printing process actually dyes the white shirt in its material, the image is not screen printed onto it which means that the shirt retains the fabric’s feel and sweat wicking capability. Since I’m kind of technically inclined and dabble with photo editing I have decided to make my own shirt design. It turned out to be a mullet shirt.

So how is my shirt a “mullet shirt”? Well it’s business in the front and party in the back. In the front I knew I wanted my name to be clearly visible and legible so people could cheer me on. This was the primary goal. But since Running Banana gives you a large area to play with it would have been a waste to leave the rest of the shirt’s front empty. So I also put the US flag and the Hungarian flag on the front along with my website address for a bit of self promotion.

For the rear I had no idea what I wanted to do until I have chatted with a friend who said I should put something funny. So I did. I designed the rear design from scratch and I think it turned out pretty good. I’m also thinking about making a second design with a different caution logo along the lines of “CAUTION: This Runner Makes Frequent Stops”.

I took the shirt on two test runs so far and while I’m extremely happy with the design and the quality of the shirt, unfortunately it chafes me in the armpits. the first time I took it on an interval run and I got minor discomfort in the armpits. The second time I took it out for an easy run and it chafed me again. Tomorrow’s the first race that I’ll be wearing it at, a 10K, and I’ll apply liberal amounts of Body Glide under my arms to see how it works. I figure if it gets bad I’ll have to figure something else out for longer races and maybe buy a different size or different style. At any rate, here is the shirt design: