The temperatures have hovered above zero (celsius) for much of the week. I haven’t worn a toque during my walk to work in five days. I can’t go snowshoe running without driving 90 minutes north because there is no snow in my balmy part of the province. During a group run last week an energetic guy and the resiliency of an age I suspect to be in the teens (suspicion based on his student status) arrived in shorts. It was warm, but not quite that warm. His claim, he’s British and he “just can’t run in trousers”. As though the two, Britishness and running pants, are mutually exclusive. An easy claim to make at 0C. I want to test his youthful resolve when the deep freeze of February sets in.
I have the soul of a 65-year-old British woman and I run in long tights, although I fought the transition until December. My British running mates are more than willing to don trousers in the fight against frostbite. We have a representative of the Queen in Canada, but to my knowledge she’s never spoken publically about proper running attire, even when giving out awards to runners. But neither me nor my running mates nor the Governor General are 18 years old (except, perhaps, at heart). Maybe this is a trend among Generation Y British runners? I’m not hip to the jive of Canadian youth, let alone have any sort of pulse on the fads of their British cohort. So I put this question to my wise and worldly readers, is it true, do British runners only run in short pants?
Title Reference: The B-52s – Hot Pants Explosion. From the album Good Stuff. 1993.
As a Brit in Toronto ummmm, no! I LOVE my running trousers and tights. Some British runners back home do tend to do cross country races in temperatures hovering around zero in the shortest of short shorts. For me though as soon as the cooler autumn days set in the shorts are relegated and the trousers are out to play!
Mmm, as someone that went to a UK boarding school I would say with 90% certainty that our cross country runner never wore trousers always shorts even in dead of winter. Also, for some reason the little ones at the junior school wore shorts as well as a part of their uniform even in winter.
Funny you should mention this.
A couple years ago, a British friend of mine wanted to join me in the winter race series I did.
Now, I’m pretty anti extra clothing. I’ve been known to wear shorts into the 20s (though less since running capris have come about AND after I blew out a hamstring in cold weather). But this guy? God. Shorts and tank top even into the single digits. I convinced him to wear a T-shirt when we were running into a blizzard with a 40 mph headwind. He was worried he was going to get to hot that way. ;p
Women jogging in the UK will often wear tracksuits or long pants, but I have to say I can barely remember seeing a bloke jogging in them. Obviously most of the time in the UK it’s not cold enough for that to be an issue, but I guess if you get into a habit of jogging in shorts you might feel uncomfortable doing it even when it was considerably colder.
As a dual Brit/Canadian I am happy to let my Canadian spirit ensure that there is an iverse relationship between the temperature and the number of layers of clothing I wear on my runs. However, my British spirit whispers this insight: as a nation we Brits are absurdly proud of our knobbly knees as relish any opportunity to show them off…
My affection for my knobby knees – yet another sign I am a 60 year old British lady.