Custom T-Shirt Diary 41: 2.62

Spring in Boston is a special time. It’s like your favorite ice cream sundae. And the Boston Marathon is the cherry on top.

In our recent t-shirt collaboration with Neil and Ruth we celebrate those who get into the running spirit but aren’t as excited about the intensity of such a long run.

The design is purposefully simple and plays with a popular bumper sticker which reads “26.2” (the distance in miles of the modern marathon). I italicized “modern” for emphasis because I found out the hard and personal way that the modern marathon distance is not the actual distance run by Pheidippides to announce the defeat of the Persians at the hand of the Greek army in 490BC (for more on the fascinating history click here). I ran the Athens Marathon in 2008 which traces Pheidippides’s exact path. It’s a straightforward and intuitive route save for an awkward  loop part of the way through. I learned afterwards that ~2.2 miles were added on for the 19o8 Olympics so that the race ended in front of the Queen of England. And ever since it has been 26.2 miles around the world.

Dorando Pietri finishing the 1908 Marathon on wobbly legs and wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Wikipedia Creative Commons image.

Anyways, back to the bumper sticker and the design for the 2.62 t-shirts. By simply moving the decimal point over one spot, a new logo and statement is born, “2.62”, a much more manageable distance. If you don’t particularly fancy looking like Mr. Pietri above, this shirt might be for you.

Close-up of the 2.62 running t-shirt design.