Man, I was just cleaning out my closet and found my finisher shirt from 2003 IMH. Hasn’t been worn since that night. What memories.
I was wondering if folks out there felt comfortable wearing these shirts around town?. I remember feeling REALLY proud, but almost embarrassed to wear it…like I was bragging or something. I don’t know why I felt that way. Of course, now that I am fat and out of shape, I really feel embarrassed!! 
HC
I’ve worn my IMLP finishers shirt about 15 times since the race at the end of July. Love it. I don’t feel like I’m bragging… just proud I did it. It was my first IM though… and I have no plans of doing another… at least not in the forseeable future.
Yes you wear it…
But under no circumstances do you wear the $80 “finishers Polo shirt” you bought the day after the race to work… That one stays in the drawer…
B
Yeah, i wear mine all the time. Got it off ebay. I’ve never done an Ironman.
Really pisses off my ironfriends.
That makes wearing it sooo much fun.
Only when filming snuff porn.
Get the Tattoo also?
Dave
Not sure yet, but I’ll let you know sometime in December!
Truthfully though, I don’t think I will wear it. Not because I would feel like I was bragging, but just because other than on here or for business reasons, I am pretty modest about participating in the sport. Just a personal thing I guess.
But for those that do wear their finishers shirts, good. Wear it proud, it takes a lot of discipline and hard work to finish IM.
No room for an ironman tatoo.
That spot is saved for the “I qualified for world’s and finished 41st” tat.
Guess I had better not get my tattoo yet since I hope to get to 40th at worlds
next year.
Dave
Its a werid thing.
I have worn one of them a couple times, it felt odd, almost like i was bragging, but when I see others wearing theirs I think “cool”.
On occassion - sometimes I’ll wear it to a crit or road race:)
.
I have only done one and that was last year - I have never worn my shirt, not sure why but I can’t bring myself to do it.
That’s pretty much how I feel. I wore the shirt from IMH '04 on the plane home…but have only worn it a couple of times since, and only then when I thought it was good from a business perspective. The shirts from '06, CDA and Wisc have never been worn.
I will admit to buying a fleece jacket last year and have worn it occasionally, but don’t wear the other 2 pieces of finisher’s gear that I wasted $$ on.
Same reason I don’t have a tattoo, or stickers on my car anymore…if folks can tell from looking at my body that I do *something *athletic…that’s good enough advertising for me at this point.
G
I sure would wear my Kona finisher shirt if it wasn’t way too big (ran out of smalls and mediums). I suppose I could wear it as a dress.
I did IMH in 2001. I doubt I have worn that shirt five times.
Weird, because i wear my local sprint and Olympic distance race shirts all the time.
I think I’m just trying to avoid the inevitable stupid comments / questions that result from wearing it:
Okay, maybe the real reason I never wear the shirt is the disappointment of no one ever actually asking me that last question. Unfulfilled expectations, you know?
Paddy-O
My general policy is to not wear them - ever. Bad karma. I have nine that are sitting in a box in the basement. MissP is the same. She has seven now. We may make a quilt!
I did see a number of people at the IMC 25th Anniversary a few weeks ago wearing various old IMC Finisher shirts. Perhaps I should have pulled out my 1991 and worn it for the first time!
I Havent done Hawaii,but i have done 15 different iman races.I Take the shirt home & put it into an old trunk I have along with my medals.I did part with my 2007 iman cda medal to my 4 year old this year,as he was injured the night before the race & this race was for him.I do take em out to look at everal several years & it brings a smile to my face,after all the only person that it really matters to is you.
lol
I don’t think people actually read what a person’s t-shirt says and even if they don’t probably couldn’t care less.
.
Maybe it’s different for North American IM’s but it is interesting to see threads like this where no one will admit they wear their finishers Tshirt in part because they find the “finisher” aspect a bit like bragging but then two weeks ago participants as well as people watching IM Lou started bitching because even though there was an event T, it didn’t say “finisher”. I will admit I do wear mine, at first it is because of the post IM high but two weeks after an IM it tapers pretty quickly. Now it is usually because it just happened to be the shirt I grabbed out of the drawer. I have found that I don’t wear any of the IM gear I buy at the expo, even though some of it is pretty nice, I haven’t been able to figure out why I never grab it. It is probably because it often has a HUGE Mdot logo on the back and it is a bit obnoxious. Now I limit my expo buying to an event sticker I put on the drawer in the garage that has all my bike gear in it and a water bottle for a whopping $4-$5.
Yup,
most people don’t even notice the writing on the shirt. Ironman is just not that interesting to most Americans.