Wednesday 16 May 2012

Fashion Calendar: May

This should be the last post before I'll start on writing about my week in Yorkshire, so bear with me - or simply skip this one and wait for the next.

Some of you will remember that one of the many things I like doing in my spare time (but only when the weather is favourable, and never during the colder half of the year) is running, and I am sure I have mentioned before that for the past three years, I have been participating in my hometown's CityRun (a mere 10 km, which is enough for me but something a lot of people run almost every day, and ridiculous to those hardy sportsmen and -women who regularly run marathons - something I do not aim at, since I only run for FUN).

Today, I will show you what I usually wear for running.


The shoes are the new ones I had for my birthday in March. 
The yellow zip-up is a firm favourite of mine, several years old, and came at 15 € from a summer sale at an Esprit shop in Stuttgart, I recall. 

At the company I worked for until about a year ago, there used to be a time when our bosses would quite often hold a competition for the sales team, with prizes to be won by the team member who'd sell the most of a certain product in a certain space of time. Now, I do like my job, and even if I say so myself, am not bad at it, but I am not ambitious when it comes to numbers - what I like about it is constantly being in touch with people, with the numbers just being a welcome side-effect. So it was quite a coincidence that, three times in a row, it was me who won those competitions at work (good job we were a really good team and there never was any jealousy from the others' part). One of the prizes was a voucher for a sports equipment shop in the town where the company was located. And so one lunch break, I walked over to that shop and got myself the running pants, the aquamarine zip-up and a matching t-shirt (which you can not see in the picture), all three from Venice Beach - not because I am particularly keen on that label, but because they were the right colour and size.
This was in 2004 or so, and both the pants and the zip-up have been through the washing countless times - but they are of a quality good enough to still keep their shape, and I will keep wearing them for as long as I can.

For warmer days, I have a pair of shorter running pants and will run without a zip-up, but at the moment, I don't dare doing that yet.

And for the actual CityRun, I'll be wearing the t-shirt given to me by the gym I shall be running for, with their name on it - not my favourite item (it is rather big), but as they pay my starting fee, they rightly expect me to wear it). 

I had an exercise run scheduled for last night, but never went, since it was way too cold for my liking at about 8 Celsius. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, and as it is a bank holiday in Germany, I will have plenty of time to run - and am looking forward to it!

16 comments:

  1. Hello Meike:
    Well, we really do admire the fact that you run which, alas, we do not do. But that said, we are very conscious of the need to stay fit and to that end we walk everywhere!

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    1. Hello Jane and Lance,
      not everybody likes running, and not everybody needs to. It happens to be the kind of exercise that suits me (as I discovered relatively late at 41), can be done without having to consider opening times or financial status, and is fun - for me. Walking everywhere comes natural to me, too, since I have never been interested in owning a car and thus have never taken driving lessons. To stay fit is simply a welcome side effect for me.

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  2. Inspiring post! It makes me think about doing a blog about my own collection of Couch Potato Attire.

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    1. Oh, I bet a fashion post about the contents Bagman and Butler's wardrobes would be quite popular with your blog followers, Mark :-)

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  3. I think I'm too old to run - bits might drop off along the way. But I try to walk, when the weather is dry, not too cold, not too hot, not too windy. This is England where you can get all four seasons in one day, so everything is against me really. Have thought about some sort of exercise machine - still thinking!

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    1. Running is not age-related, Maggie, but your comment about bits dropping off along the way made me chuckle. Like you with walking, I only run when the weather is right... which has not been the case very often lately.

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  4. I live in glorious, sunny, southern California, USA, and so have no excuse for not running, jogging, or walking. However, after a scary encounter with a group of three large miscellaneous breed dogs on one of the dirt roads near my house, I decided no more forays off the beaten path and bought a treadmill. The 'evil machine' is installed here in my small library and I see it all day, every day, and thus am inspired to exercise without threat of dog, coyote, mountain lion, or other critters.
    So, Maggie May, I recommend the treadmill. I'm old too!

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    1. Although a lot of people here have dogs (large ones, too) and can't control them, this has never stopped me from running on the paths between the fields, and in the 3 years since I have started, I have never had an encounter that made me feel I was in danger of being attacked. No coyotes or mountain lions here - I think I'd quite like actually meeting one, and aren't they supposed to be more afraid of us than we are of them? I wouldn't feel too good in close proximity to alligators, though...

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  5. I could probably put together a similar outfit from my wardrobe (though different colour, and size, and I wouldn't look half as good in it). But run I would not... LOL

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    1. So, not really similar at all... :-) Yellow is my favourite colour, and the zip-up on the left picture is worn with almost anything in my wardrobe, even over summer dresses and skirts if it gets a bit chilly on a summer evening.

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  6. I particularly like the yellow. It is such a cheerful colour. I wish I could wear it myself, without looking ill. Really I suit better the blue/green end of the spectrum.

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    1. Yes, I guess that is why I like yellow so much. Maybe you have not tried the right shade of yellow yet to match your colours. For years, I was convinced red was not my colour at all, but these days, I often wear red and feel good in it.

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  7. Good luck with the training / run. I'm curious to know why it was a bank holiday in Germany>

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    1. Thanks, John! It is sunny with a brilliant blue sky today, but still very cold in the morning; right now, only 7 Celsius.
      It is, according to the calendar, the day of Jesus' ascension. As it was Mother's Day not long ago, men have adopted this day as Father's Day. A German tradition on Father's Day is for the men to pack a beer barrel (alternatively, lots of bottles will do) on a wooden hand-cart and drag it in groups across the countryside, emitting raucous laughter and behaving in a silly-drunk kind of way, taking their t-shirts off and getting sunburnt (and being best avoided by any female happening to be out there at the same time).

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  8. Good luck with your run. I have always had a detestation of running any distance over 100 metres (I was a good sprinter at school) probably due to some extent by lung problems when I was a teenager caused by my school's policy of compulsory sports regardless of anything including a note from your parents. It's amazing how many ks a day one walks playing croquet though. Conversely it's disgraceful how few ks I walk when living on Lewis where there are endless possibilities of which I take so few.

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    1. At school, I was a good sprinter, too, but when I was about 14, I discovered I was best at mid-distance (800 m), and only when I was already 41 years old, decades after PE at school had ended for me, I took up long distance running. Thankfully, I have no problem with my lungs or any other part of my body vital for running. On the contrary, I get to be in quite a lot of pain if I do not get enough exercise.
      Right now, I am just waiting for the day to warm up a little and then I'll put my running shoes on :-)

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