Guest post: Shirtless, and cold, in Sweden

Here, Anders in Sweden reminisces about his youthful, shirtless times. Hang on, it's an icy ride...

 

Hallo!

 

The picture on top of your homepage just reminds about when i was young, round 16 years.  We were some schoolfriends who went running every Sunday, as much for the fellowship as the training. We persuaded more of our friends to join us and soon we were about 10 tough guys running together.

 

When we were out, we looked much as the runners on that picture. We thought that only cowards ran in jogging suit or shirt. We found in 'tougher' to run in shorts only. We did so the first autumn only until the temperature dropped to zero Centigrade, but next year we stayed bare for the entire winter (and winters are really cold in Scandinavia).

 

Not all the runners stayed with us when it dropped below zero.

 

We thought those bailing out were cowards and not tough enough. We got much "good advice" from "more knowledgeable" runners we met and much ironic commentary, such as: Are you training for Alaska?

 

It made for marvellous fellowship amongst tough guys and good training, too. I just felt a tough guy together with the others. The fellowship made it easier to run in the cold and to run faster. 

 

The best thing was that we became popular among the girls. We asked some girls we knew to be present at the spot where we would reach the endpoint of our run. They came, waited and cheered and clapped their hands.  It was marvellous then to chat briefly with them, before we got too cold because we were standing still.

 

You can call it flirting if you like. Knowing that the girls were waiting for us made the run easier.

 

After running, if it was cold, we would have boxing glowes in our bags. We would then stage short fights outdoors, when we still were warm. It was on a green common. If just two of us brought gloves, everyone could fight but it would be  two at the time. The boxing was also a part of that fellowship. Again, it made us feel more like a tough guy to be in such company.

 

After running and boxing, we would don our training suits, which we would have stowed in bags on our bicycles, then bike home.

 

If it was snowing we might substitute a snowball fight for the boxing. We would hurl snowballs at the bare bodies and shove our friends into the snow.

 

I wrote in because the picture on top of the homepage just looked the same as when we were running in those days.I'm middle-aged now but still cycle a lot.

 

Anders Ström,

Sweden

Guest post: Inspiring other runners to go shirtless

Here's the 50th post on the blog, and it's all about spreading the shirtless running bug! It's a guest post by Rockbound. Read on...





Inspiring shirtless running



I've been running for many years, always shirtless if the weather permits. Over those years, there have been numerous times when I suspected my shirtlessness inspired others to "convert". I've never suggested to anyone that they run shirtless or commented on it, so I cannot be sure I was their inspiration, but I strongly believe my example was a factor in some of the cases.

A typical scenario is when someone else's running schedule happens to coincide with yours and you meet them by chance on the road. After a few days, or longer, you notice that they have shed the shirt. This happens more frequently if you wave or exchange a brief greeting with them when meeting. I think the greeting helps make you more "real" to them, and makes shirtlessness seem less intimidating. This sort of thing has happened many times over the years. The most recent example was in the past month, when I met a high-school cross-country team starting their preseason training. All these runners wore shirts the first couple of days I saw them. By the third or fourth day, several of the guys on the team were running shirtless.

It's not always runners that are inspired. For several years, I've seen a guy who walks along some of my running trails. After two or three years, I noticed that he'd started taking off his shirt for at least part of his walk.

Sometimes, the inspiration seems to work quickly. A few months ago, I met a young woman running in the opposite direction. She wore shorts and a T-shirt. I waved as we passed, but she did not respond. Toward the end of my run, we met again. By then, she had rolled her T-shirt up over her sports bra, exposing her midriff. Now happily "shirtless", she waved, said hello and even made a remark about the weather. I was amazed at the transformation!

Why does shirtlessness inspire shirtlessness?  I think there are two big reasons.

The first is confidence, which can be contagious. Your confident shirtlessness demonstrates to others that it's okay to run shirtless. People often hate to be the only one doing something, so you help their confidence by setting an example.

Next, I think that shirtless runners are happier, enjoying their runs more than many others, and that enjoyment is clearly evident to others. Think about it -- don't you see shirtless runners smiling more, showing more confidence, having more of a spring in their step, than most shirted runners? That positive attitude and enhanced pleasure in the running, I believe, inspires others to do likewise and make their runs more fun.

Let's keep setting an example and inspiring others!