Why My Wife Hates Her 2016 Winter Blast 10k Shirt (with good reason)

Disclaimer: I am a shirt snob.  And probably because of this, my wife has become one.  We are even seeing this in our daughters now.  We don’t really ever wear cotton.  We like our tech shirts, and race shirts and race gear make up probably 75% of our wardrobe.

Alright, I kind of gave a little tease yesterday morning before the Portage (MI) Winter Blast that my wife did not like her race shirt, in fact, she hates it. The race stated at registration, that the shirt would be a tech shirt.  This was the second year we have done this race and the shirts were good last year for both the half marathon and 5k.  This year they added a 10k race.  Each race had a different color shirt.  I believe this year the 5k shirt was a darker blue, 10k was a light gray, and the half marathon was a standard blue.  The color was not the issue.

The issue was the material itself.  I really like the half marathon shirt l.  I think the colors look great and it is an actual tech shirt.  It is one that I will wear regularly (could deal without the sponsors on the front, but still a good looking shirt).

My wife’s shirt, while still being 100% polyester, is not what she expected.  It is the kind of polyester shirt that feels like cotton.  She stated, while seeing others wearing theirs during the race, that sweat is quiet noticeable.  Kind of one of the advantages of a standard tech shirt is that the tech shirt does not get weighed down by sweat.   
Now, Tina probably would not be so disappointed in this shirt if the 5k got the same type of shirts (I have been to races where the longer the distance you run, the nicer the shirt you get). But the 5k shirt was the same type of shirt as the half marathon shirt.  She wore the shirt yesterday, however she probably won’t wear it again. 

Why did they do it this way?  We really don’t know.  My only guess is that they were set on the color shirts they wanted for each race distance, unable to get a true tech shirt in a gray and so went with the other material rather than switching colors.  And I wont even get into my wife’s hatred towards the V neck collar.