Amy Lindholm sports her "Run Thru Hell" tee shirt at the Crim 10 mile.
I RAN THRU HELL. That's what the t-shirt said and that's why I ran through Hell. I wanted the shirt.

I knew it would be a nasty race and it was. I had run it a dozen years ago and knew it would be warm, if not downright hot. Clouds kept the sun from Hell-baking us and overnight rain left dirt roads less dusty than usual, but humidity had to be 90 percent or higher.

Race director Harrison Hensley found a course with hill after hill. "Someone has to push you runners," he said with a sly grin afterward. Push, he did.

There were reasons other than the t-shirt to Run Thru Hell. Hensley puts on a great race - two races, actually: 4.8- and 10-milers. Both are challenging. A couple thousand runners and many well-wishers came, to make matters more exciting.

Since I'd run through Hell before, I already had a shirt - somewhere. My wife, Karen, and I had renovated our house and I couldn't find it. Now I have one again and got more: a great time that got me thinking. ("Uh- oh," as Karen always says.)

Why are we fascinated with race t-shirts? I remember cleaning during our aforesaid renovation - throwing out lots of things, donating others to charities - when I came on an archive of race shirts, many of which I hadn't seen in years.

"Put them in with the Goodwill and Purple Heart stuff," said Karen. Horrors! I couldn't do that!

It took me the better part of a weekend and a few weeknights to go through my old shirts. What memories they conjured! I remembered something from almost every race.

Some shirts were more special than others. Mementos from my first marathon, the 1986 Free Press, and my Bostons stood out. I still have the shirt from the first race I ran, the West Bloomfield Half Marathon; all from the 10 Huron Valley Hospital Runs, and from the Pizza Challenge I ran with my then-young son, Matt. (Thank you, John and Anne Gault.)

Matt, home on break from college while I was going through my old shirts, ripped into a disco tie-dyed green-and-blue monstrosity I picked up at a race in Lackawanna, N.Y. Post-race refreshments at the VFW there included grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and beer.

There was one from I Ran the Reuther, a 5K on I-696 in Detroit just before it opened to car and truck traffic. The race was delayed almost an hour because the turnout was overwhelming: not a few hundred, but a few thousand to christen the new expressway. (Thank you, Ed Kozloff.)

I could have made quilts out of all those Kensington Challenge and Big Bird Run shirts. I loved the Challenge: a great, unique distance (15K) and an opportunity to brag to my running buddies how I finished a race ahead of Doug Kurtis. I conveniently neglect to say that Doug pulled off of the course a few yards from the finish. (Thank you, Roy Brown.)

Although my string of Roseville Big Birds isn't as impressive as Darrell McKee's 26 straight, the only one I've missed in 16 years was due to a family wedding in New York. (By the way, I have a shirt from that weekend too. My aunt found a race for me in Buffalo the morning of the wedding. The mothers' club that served post-race refreshments didn't know about bagels, bananas, etc., so they "force-fed" us homemade pies and cakes.

Look at all of those Crim tees! All those hot, sticky Saturday mornings. I remember limbering up with the Kenyans and German standout Uta Pippig near the UM-Flint campus. (OK, they were warming up and I was parking my car; why quibble?)

I smiled at my tees from recent Crims, run on just a few hours of sleep. After his Friday-night football games, Matt and I would watch game tapes (Thank you, Aunt Kathy and Uncle Jim) until the wee hours of the morning. Then my running buddy, Bob Drapal, would pick me up at 5:30 a.m. to head to Flint. I don't remember being tired, for some reason.

I have all eight evening Light Fest 8K t-shirts, including two from one year (I don't recall how that happened). Those shirts glowed in the dark, and most still do. They're my grandson's favorites. Bob and I run it every year from finish to start (to beat the traffic), and then the race. We take in the holiday decorations on the course, then stop afterward for our favorite pizza. Yum.

I laughed out loud at the tee from my wife's first race. Way back when, I was pretty possessive about my shirts. One day, Karen tried to wear one of mine and I must have made a stink, prompting her and neighbors to decide they would run a race so they'd have their own shirts. They asked me to find a race we could all run.

We chuckle looking at that shirt now, although I don't recall Karen laughing then. You see, she trained to run that race "for the t-shirt," which, to put it nicely, it was not "her color." The logo was more than a bit odd too.

I could go on and on, as could most runners with the memories race tees conjure. There are a few shirts I put on regularly, to shop or to go to ballgames. I wear a few others for "dressing up" - none of those monkey suits for me!

But most of my tees remain in their drawers and boxes, waiting for my next housecleaning and/or nostalgia session. Get rid of them? Never. When I go, they can go, too!

MR

Or maybe not. A month after filing this story, Ron Marinucci wrote:

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and several requests for help, I sent about 120 of my running tee shirts to Houston for evacuees. Karen is happy and it was nice to be able to do a small bit to help."