Boston Jackets as Interior Design
The Boston Marathon jacket says so much about the culture of running. On marathon weekend, it offers a visual burst of solidarity and excitement to the streets of Boston. Runners wear it proudly during the expo, and for a few days before and after the event you'll recognize the athletes in restaurants, at the airport, and on the train. Jackets from years ago mark the ongoing tradition of the well-known unicorn logo of the Boston Athletic Organization, but I believe in 2009 they went strictly to Adidas as the manufacturing brand. Since then runners expect this high-end, quality jacket they can actually run in, a style that changes only in color. Every year, qualifying runners of the Boston Marathon wait in anticipation before the color scheme is revealed, with half the population ready to order (especially when it involves the iconic yellow and blue) and the other half complaining about how awful it is. One year they screened the logo instead of embroidered it, and a riot ensued. Not really. Just on the internet.
It's also a damn marketing ploy to bring in a shitload of money. I am certainly complicit and have succumbed to this but who wouldn't be? Running Boston will always be a runners' crowning mark of achievement, so they are guaranteed to sell almost 20,000 of them each year. And at $120 a pop--not bad. But this actually began the turning point in my world of running. 2013 was a really tough year for me financially, and I chose not to buy one (or more realistically, couldn't).
How often do I put myself in such strained, anxiety-ridden places because of the influence of money on running? Running is an elitist, white-collard world where people's ability to run 26 miles is directly
Recently I found a surprising new use for those well-known Adidas stripes: home decor. I wouldn't be the first to want to show off the jacket, but I disliked the level of exclusiveness reeked when it is worn. They stay in my closet where they wait to be used. At one point, I noticed my closet's broken window pane revealed the colored sleeves. I'd covered each of the other glass rectangles with pieces of colored paper to create some warmth in the room, some with nuanced patterns and textures (they are normally used during workshops for making books). The stripes seem to complement them well, so I make sure none of the other clothes in the closet are visible.
