The JPH Experience- Part four, what the suit!

Why would anyone run a marathon in a suit? Here is why.

Me: “Yeah I’m running Hamburg. In a suit"

Other runner: “What?”

Me: “In a Suit”

Other runner: “What sort of Suit?”

Me: “A Business Suit”

Other runner looks at me strangely and slowly backs away looking a bit confused and scared.

This is a conversation that I had a few times in the last two weeks before the Hamburg Marathon.

What the suit?

As I said previously Hamburg was not going to be my A Race, so when we received an email regarding an action to run in a suit I thought about it a bit, but not that long.  The action came from a men’s clothing shop, Policke.  Policke is a bit of an institution and the majority of Hamburgers would have been in there once or twice to buy a suit, or help a friend buy a suit.  I had a very fond association with Policke, as I had bought my first suit in Germany there, my Suit for our Wedding, we also got a suit for my Dad for our wedding there, as well as helping many friends getting their suits there.

Therefore, I had a good connection with this action and like always was only going to associate myself with something I had or would actually buy.  I don’t like the idea of supporting a product or company when I normally would have nothing to do with.  I also thought it would be be a pretty cool action to be running the marathon with 3 other runners in suits.  On top of that there were some bonuses for the fastest runners.  So there was more than a few reasons to run quick.  After seeing a quy run 1:11 in a suit at the New York Half Marathon the thought of running a Marathon in a suit was an entertaining one.

From the get go there was talk about the Guinness World Record being 2:58 and possibly that was on the cards.  I knew I was in at least 2:35 shape and I hoped that by May I would be close to 2:30 shape, but in a suit who knew.  2:50 must have been possible. Therefore, I registered for the record, as soon as I knew I was going to definitely running in a suit.  There was no guarantee that I would be the fastest runner in a suit, or that I would run under the record, but you have to be in to win.

Sadly the preparation for the Marathon was not perfect, as I was not able to pick up my suit until the Wednesday before the Marathon, on Friday I had a pants, and that was comfortable.  However, I did not know how the whole suit was going to sit for a whole marathon.  The Suit itself was off the rack and had no additional changes made to it i.e. the shirt was a long arm shirt, the jacket or pants were made with standard materials and had no cut-outs or flexible inserts.  My Jacket was a bit too big for me, which did allow for a lot of movement, but it was also a lot of material there.

Luckily the weather forecast was for cold weather, so the chances of overheating were greatly reduced. The other factor that helped was that the suit is designed to be more functional and breathable.  Of course the objective is not that it makes it easier to run a marathon. The aim is to make wearing a suit in warmer climates more comfortable and tolerable.  This should help reduce the chance of a manager taking his jacket off and his shirt having a lot of sweat marks on his suit.

How it performed I will mention in my race report, but that is how someone that is relatively sane decides to run a marathon in an off the rack suit.