Matching Outfits

Any athlete would tell you that the rules of fashion etiquette don't always (or even often) apply to sports. For example, if I walked into a party and saw another girl in the exact same outfit as me, I would have three socially appropriate responses to this calamity:

1. Walk away and never set foot in that household again. Delete all friends who saw me at said party from all social media accounts, change my phone number, move house, and hermit myself away in shame.

2. Cat-fight with the other gal and scratch her eyes out until she leaves the party and never reigns on my supremacy again.

3. Laugh it off awkwardly and pretend it's not a big deal. Less extreme, but pffft! 

But in sport, matching doesn't really matter. You'll never see two people on the same soccer team cat-fight it out when they arrive in matching outfits. Could you imagine?

Flashback to high school basketball: Even our poses matched.

Running has a similar feel. I don't duck my head in embarrassment whenever I see someone wearing the same race shirt as myself.  And yeesh, if I pulled out of a race every time I saw someone wearing the same shirt as me, I would have run very, very few races in my life! ... Because showing up to a race in the same shirt is like showing up to a match on the basketball court wearing your team uniform - it's a mark of community. In a race, it gives you an instant connection with the other runner and is a time-honoured way of saying "we're in this together".

I think it's for that reason - and for ease of spotting one person in a crowd of hundreds - that most running groups encourage wearing the same outfit, as in any other team sport. 

It's...it's...no, it can't be! But it is! Matching outfits at a race!

So the other day when I went running with Chris she discovered that - oops! - we had the same shirt on (courtesy of the Twilight Running Festival 2013!). Chris immediately asked if she should change her shirt to another.

My first reaction...

Actually, no. I just laughed. Because - like any other team sport - we runners are all in this together.

Do we want to kick your butt and beat you across the finish line? Absolutely! But we'll still be there cheering you on when you finish and encouraging you if you fail to meet your goal. And even if you finish before us, we'll offer our warmest congratulations, even if we're tinged a little green as we do so.

Oh, and as for Saturday morning's run - Chris and I ran a lovely loop around hilly Anzac Park. And yes, we wore matching shirts.