10 Best 2 In 1 Running Shorts Mens

Best 2 In 1 Running Shorts Mens in 2023

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Runners Are Weird

Split shorts? GU? Nip guards? What kind of sport is this anyway? Yes, I dove headlong into the crazy world of distance running-- and resurfaced a card-carrying member of the club.

It was the split shorts that first tipped me off. I remember my first impression of the split short. I was seven or eight years old, and my sisters and I sat in the back of a navy blue station wagon as my family headed to church. It was winter. And it was cold. Very cold. Parka and mountain goat cold. And as we traversed the Midwest countryside in the hope of not being the last arrivals to worship and henceforth directed-in a penitent parade of bows and skirts- to sit in the only open seats left in the pews (which by divine irony always happened to be at the very front of the congregation), I saw him.

Mr. Split Shorts, in all his wind-beaten, red-legged glory.

Mr. Split Shorts was probably forty years old, but to my infant eyes he may as well have been ancient. He was tall and strikingly lean, and he wore black shorts obviously borrowed from a much shorter man. The shorter man must have recently purchased a new pair of shorts and given his torn pair to Mr. Split Shorts, for the shorts were torn on both hips, and the fabric flapped in the wind with shocking violence. Mr. Split Shorts accessorized his tattered apparel with a neon yellow jacket, black gloves, and a red knit cap. He also had a beard, which had nothing to do with the split shorts, but somehow added to the whacko ambience.

Mr. Split Shorts' entire appearance was disconcerting to me. Who wears shorts in sub-freezing temperatures? I thought. If it's cold enough to wear gloves and a hat, it's too cold to wear shorts.

And right then and there, in the back of the station wagon, just minutes before my family of six was ushered through a silent congregation in a failed attempt to be discreet, I first made the following deduction, the verity of which I defend to this day.

Runners are weird.

Years passed, and the conclusion I had formed as a child was only further cemented in my brain. I heard stories about people running obscene distances (a twenty-mile long run?), sucking down packets of mystery "GU" (whatever that meant), chewing handfuls of aspirin (is that even legal?), and- goodness forbid I repeat the atrocity- occasionally but by no means rarely using any roadside object larger than a dog as a bathroom facility.

What kind of sport is this?

Call it a cosmic paradox or some form of galactic retribution, but somehow, at some indefinable point in my life, I became a runner. Despite my opposition, despite my preconceived prejudices, the sport sucked me in, and resistance was futile. Almost against my will I began increasing my mileage and waking before sunrise. I bought a Garmin to track my pace. I strapped water bottles around my waist. I started using bizarre words like "fartlek." I even succumbed to the energy gels, eventually becoming a connoisseur of mid-run nutrition with a taste for limited-edition holiday flavors, such as chocolate mint.

And then... karma.

I will never forget the first time I ran in split shorts, which is significant, considering how short the run was. Having decided it was time to don a runner's moisture-wicking equivalent to a membership card, I purchased a pair of cardinal red split shorts. I'm a runner now, I told myself. It's time to wear the uniform. Opening the front door, I stepped into the sun, hands on my hips, elbows out, and took a confident stride with my newly acquired sense of power. (Think Superman coming out of the phone booth.) However, like a power surge that lasts but a second before it fades, so my swelling of pride lasted only a moment before the downward spiral began.

I took two steps before my confidence began to wane. Two steps more, and I was uncertain. Then timid. Then mortified. Two steps later I turned a one-eighty and hurried back toward the house. I had run approximately twenty feet in my new split shorts.

Dude.

To the novice, split shorts are one step above a loincloth. Half of a step, even, because that's all it takes before you're suddenly showing the world more leg than the Boston Celtics in the 1980s.

When did Larry Bird have a garage sale and how did all the runners find out about it?

Apparently, I wasn't ready that day for the dive into Club Split Shorts. I had given it a valiant effort, but my inexperience thwarted my efforts. Not to be deterred, however, I headed back into the house and did what any appalled yet sensible novice runner would do: I flung off the shorts, grabbed a needle and thread, and sewed those suckers shut.

Thousands of miles and dozens of pairs of split shorts later, I can smile at my initial horror regarding the split short. I don't sew closed my split shorts anymore, but I do still have my first pair, haphazard stitching and all. I've actually grown quite partial to those cardinal red, no-longer-split shorts. It's about as sentimental an attachment to a pair of shorts as one can have. Perhaps it's my link to normalcy. Perhaps it's a reminder of my life before distance running, before the endless miles desensitized me to the quirks and craziness of marathoning. Don't get me wrong: Running has done nothing but enrich my life. It has made me a better person. It has made me stronger. It has given me the best friends I've ever had. But the sport does have its oddities. (Nipguards, anyone?)

I understand runners now, for I am one of them. We are fun. We are adventurous. We are dedicated. We are strong. We don't mind the rain, snow, heat, cold, dark, or ever-present threat of being skunked in the early morning hours. We like carbs. We don't mind if you use all the hot water because we are just going to fill the bathtub with ice anyway. We are about as great a group of people you could ever hope to meet. But we aren't normal. Because we're runners.

And runners are weird.