What's in a t-shirt

Are t-shirts just a souvenir, or can they be a window into a person's personality? What's this got to do with running??

Last month, a stranger approached me in a bar in LA. It’s always worrying, isn’t it? What do they want? Is this a friend or foe? Luckily, I’d just been on a run, and the stranger was wearing polyester shorts in December. I knew he was one of us.

Incidentally, it was my first evening run in a while. At some point during 2022 I resolved to become more of a morning runner to better cope with the intense summer heat of Los Angeles, but I carried on running in the evenings for the social element. That schedule didn’t work. If I wanted to wake up at 6am, I also needed to shift my bedtime up, so midweek social runs were out.

Anyway, this guy comes over and he blurts out, “I saw your t-shirt and had to say hi!”

Me wearing my Canal Etiquette t-shirt by Your Friendly Runners by the Los Angeles River (not a canal)

I got the t-shirt in question from Your Friendly Runners in London last August. It’s part of the ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt’ souvenir philosophy that I was brought up on.

Simon…