Here are excerpts from a post by blogger Mr Petes, describing his first shirtless run. You can read the original, in full, by clicking here and visiting his blog Runners Write.
"Every now and then, I will take a jog outside and notice those runners whose self-confidence and washboard abs allows them to run outside without a shirt and without any shame. How free they seem as they pass me and splash me with the sweat that glistens off their torsos!! As they became but a speck in the distance, I can’t help but look down at my bobbing shirt and wish that I, too, could run without a shirt on... I am a paranoid person by nature and feel as though I am being gawked at whenever I do run outside. I could only imagine how I would feel as on-lookers are entranced by the combination of the hypnotic up-and-down motions of my belly and the glistening and pouring of the sweat as it cascades down my covering-like-a-sweater chest (and back) hair...
(But on a trip to Cartagena, Colombia), I quickly became aware of the horrendously-oppressive heat and humidity that I would need to run through... and began contemplating how I could still go running and not (have) all my clothes bathed in sweat. Dear reader, by now you probably know where this is leading, but if you don’t, let me just tell you that the idea I came up with in that shower that night was at once so delicious, cutting edge and awe inspiring that I could not even reveal it to my dopeness wife.
As the sun rose the next morning and the beef was being dropped in the deep fryer for breakfasts around the city, I stepped into the streets hugging myself, not because I was cold, but…because I was not wearing a t-shirt!!! That’s right, dear readers, I realized that I was in South America, and really, who cares what them natives think of my belly movements or my glistening sweat? “Not I”, I said to the wind (and to the gypsy family behind me trying to sell me junk). And so it was that, with great enthusiasm, one of my many running-related dreams became a reality! Shirtless and unafraid, I hit the streets at a lighter-than-usual pace...
As I sit here now and write this, let me finish by saying that running without a t-shirt is as heavenly as those Dunkin Doughnuts Jelly Midgets!!! The freedom you imagine one feels running without a shirt is even greater than you can possibly conceive. In the end, dear readers, I encourage you to get over your inferiorities and rise to the occasion! As you cross your next start line, I hope that, like your money and other goods you cannot fit in your running outfits, your t-shirt has been left behind!"
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