Underwear Race

Hey, I copied this article from the Associated Press. It’s interesting. Here's a link to the article. (I don’t know how long the link will be good for.) There is one picture. Man, I would have loved to have watched that race, and maybe have been in it. :-)

Here’s the article:

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii - Some 100 runners wearing nothing but their skivvies turned out Thursday for the Underpants Run, a fun run that has become an annual event in the days leading up to Saturday's Ironman World Championship.

"It's pretty much 'the' event now," joked founder and former professional triathlete Paul Huddle. "People fly in Wednesday night just for this."

Not all triathletes would agree. More than 1,800 competitors from 80 countries are in Kona for the grueling Ironman, a 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike leg through the lava fields and a full 26.2-mile marathon run.

Some of the international athletes who come to Hawaii to train in and around the village for the race in the week before the event sparked the idea for the fun run, which began with three people in 1997.

"It was a reaction to the abhorrent and unbelievable practice of wearing Speedos around town, in the post office, the grocery store, even restaurants," Huddle said. "It's just a clash of the cultures, between the more conservative Americans and the whole European and Mediterranean resort vacation thing."

After taking a pledge not to wear racing Speedos for anything other than swimming, the runners took off to Kailua Pier for a quick round of calisthenics and then continued along Alii Drive.

Some runners sported their best Calvin Klein or Banana Republic undies. Others were more creative — grass skirts, coconut bras, black and yellow Joe Boxers, even the layered look with bright white Hanes peeking out from under a colorful thong.

Huddle and co-founder Roch Frey drafted their wives to sell T-shirts printed with the phrase "I see London, I see France, No, it's your underpants," for $20 each, with the proceeds benefiting West Hawaii
Special Olympics.

Huddle's wife, Paula Newby-Fraser, is an eight-time Ironman winner and Frey's wife, Heather Fuhr, won the race in 1997 and is considered a favorite this year.

As the runners went through their warm-ups at the pier, several Speedo-clad triathletes looked on, fully aware that their attire was the butt of the day's joke.

"We just got out of the water from our swim and haven't had time to change yet," Oliver Gallob of Germany said in his own defense.

Why Always Call ‘Em Speedos?

I address this issue in my very first post (Speedo brand was first with this style of suit and the name stuck) but now I will elaborate further. To avoid trade mark infringement, after all the Speedo name is registered, the generic term that used to be used most often was ‘competition style swimsuit,’ but now that male swimmers are wearing ‘Jammers,’ ‘Johns,’ and ‘Leggings’ to name a few, ‘competition suit’ is no longer an accurate description of the sexy brief-style suit we all love. ‘Brief-style’ is a term that works well, but to me it sounds like the suit should have a fly like in Fruit-of-the-Loom briefs. ‘Bikini-Style’ works too, but to me that connotes a suit that is thinner on the sides than the traditional ‘Brief-style’ even though I would be happy with either in my ‘Speedo’ collection.

The basic fact is that the term ‘Speedo’ is one everybody can relate too, whether the suit has 3-inch sides or 1-inch, we all get the picture when someone says ‘Speedo.’ It is the simplest and easiest way to describe those incredibly sexy suits.

If only the real world was that easy though. Take eBay for example. Do a search for ‘Speedo’ and you get everything that that company makes from watches to water wings. Plus you get Speedometers for cars (Speedo is a nick name for them) and all sorts of thing you don’t care to see. ‘Competition’ is the heading of the sub-category under ‘swimwear,’ which is under ‘Men’s Clothing,’ under ‘Clothing, Shoes & Accessories’ where you will have the best luck of finding ‘Speedos.’ You will see the other styles of competition suits in this category as well, but you shouldn’t see any of the baggy styles of suits that most men in the USA wear. Of course, if the seller calls his suit a ‘Speedo’ and it is instead a brand like Nike, N2N, Laguna, Tyr, Aussie Bum, etc. that seller is in violation of eBay policy and the auction might be cancelled by the powers at eBay. So doing a narrow search with ‘Speedo’ in the search under the limited categories and you are still stuck not finding everything you might want. Uhg!

I know that use of some brand names has become so wide spread that companies have lost the right to own the word. I believe ‘escalator’ is an example. Perhaps if we all just insist on calling them Speedos (maybe I should stop capitalizing it) the word will enter the public domain and we will all be set free.

(Wow, I ramble on and on and on and on and on sometimes)