MileSplit's Manhattan T-Shirt Showoff!

MileSplit's Manhattan T-Shirt Showoff!

We know that there are two main reasons why you runners head to the Manhattan Invitational. First is to show off your speed. Second -- and far more importantly -- to show off your tees. You've put in many hard months of work slogging through the online shirt ordering sites and squeezed out every ounce of savvy discrimination to find the tee that perfectly describes your current slightly deranged state of mind. And now you are ready to display the goods proudly on the Van Cortlandt Park Parade Grounds. Good for you. Flaunt it baby!

But for those of you who are still scrambling to find something reasonable to wear at VCP, here are a few tips and examples about the standard wear at the meet and what message you should have posted on your backside. If you want to be the 10,000th runner to wear the cheeky "Run Like You Stole Something," tee, by all means go ahead and be lame. If you want to be truly original, just forget about it, it's been worn before. However, if you want to lay down a truly big psyche job on that hated state rival, you might want to try the increasingly popular slogan seen around NYC, which to paraphrase says, "Running Sucks!”, and which will show how much you disdain having to pop off yet another ho-hum 12:30 time on the VCP 2.5M.

In the meantime, welcome to our 2012 Manhattan T-Shirt Contest.  We need you to T off with your T's on this weekend at Van Cortlandt Park for the first Milesplit Manhattan T Showdown. A roving photographer will be looking to catch you in the act of flaunting on your torso the most profoundly inspiring pieces of XC wisdom. Give us your best quips about the agony of the feet, your exhortations to become insanely tough and uncomfortably good, your famous and infamous quotes from Pre, and your clear insights into why runners are superior to all other creatures bounding over the face of this earth.

At this weekend's T-party we got your back -- or rib cage, and sometimes even that cap or sweat bottom leg. Wherever it is, we'll snap it up and post the pics on the post race recap of all the important T action taking place at VCP.

Here's the facts:

Who: You, in your customized T with a message that is funny or inspirational or rude or clever or crazy or existential or cheeky or clueless or whatever.

What: ManhaTTan T Showdown (Note: some running will also be taking place)

When: Saturday, October 13, from 9:00 to 4:30ish

Where: Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx, where XC running all began (Hares-and-Hounds stuff, 1800s)

Why: Because you're there, with the best T in town, and you want that obvious fact recognized by the Milesplit X-T-C Rankings

Which: Go for the gold in 7 categories:

Team Spirit   -- Why we rock more than any other pack of runners

Tough Enough  --  All that stuff about pain, courage, sweat, sacrifice, and loving every moment of it

Girls Just Want to Have Fun  --  The ladies dish it to the guys

Catch Me If You Can  --  One-upping eat-my-dust battle of the boaster with the most-er

Funny Feats --  Cheeky twists of trail humor

Inspirational  --  Classic gems of running lore

Running Shorts  --  Brief bromides with a lot of character and very few characters

Just so you know what you're in for, here's a few blasts from the recent past that give an idea of what you're up against in the race to make the hottest T.

Show Some 'Tude

Make'em Gut-T-y

Put Some Sugar in that T

We'll get to the Part-T......

And Also Get the Full-T

We Don't Have to Get Brevi-T-y .....

But We Can Always Use Some Levi-T-y

And We're Expecting You To Plead Insani-T-y

Get Nas-T-y

We Know It Gets Swea-T-y in the T-eenage Wasteland...

And Some Like It Hot

Some Are Hear-T-y
Some Have Feroci-T-y                 And Some Have Honest Sinceri-T-y                     In the Long Run, Maybe Just Go with a Shor-T-y                           For more inspiration on fashionable wear at Manhatttan, check out last year's coverage in Teeing Off: We Got Your Backs --- Manhattan Invite Fashion Guide and The Tees from the Manhattan Invite 2011, courtesy of Section 1 - NYS Running.