Shorts

To run, all we need is a pair of good running shoes and shorts. Period.

As Peter Sagal said in The Incomplete Book of Running: If you don't have sneakers, just grab your most comfortable shoes, or go barefoot on dirt or sand. If you don't have shorts, get an old pair of jeans and cut off the legs. If anybody judges you wearing ratty clothes, one of the privileges and benefits of running is leaving people behind.

To those who pay careful attention to my first sentence, I sound a cautionary note: we need more than one running outfit. We can't have that many runs each week if we have only one pair of shorts, for example. To get around this, some runners - okay, many - okay, me - can wear running outfits more than once before washing. If I choose to be honest, I'd have to say that it's not uncommon for me to dig out my smelly running shorts from the laundry basket for my second run the next day.

I admit, sometimes I find my running speed ramped up by how stinky my outfits are, the way a cheetah energized by an antelope. The stinkier you're, the farther you prefer to go ahead of others.