I have always said that workout gear is something that lets you go out in public in your underwear.
I have two sports I participate in. Inline Skating and Cycling. Both as an endurance sport. When you are in a "Monsoonal Warm" climate like South Florida, the problem isn't staying warm, it is getting rid of sweat. Especially through August, you can be completely soaked in sweat after only a half hour of cardio outdoors.
I cracked the code of how to get proper workout gear for cycling online a while back. Going to the shopping website that everyone likes to laugh at, I was getting suited up for under $15, even now while rampant runaway inflation goes on.
Cycle Jerseys can cause ten times that, so since I am not flush with cash, the chance for picking up a full zipper spandex jersey for $8 was one of those moments where I said "Yoink, you are mine". Padded shorts for the same or less. I paid $4 for a pair of those more than once.
I used to laugh at the people in the cycle pack in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia wearing stinky spandex. They would be going past in a large group and you could smell them. You people really should wash better. I do.
But the thing is that something that form fitting looks like underwear, something that you wear under your clothes. If you are in a place where it is appropriate, like a park or gym, great, but in your neighborhood or at a Mall? Nope, No way.
My neighborhood is not one of those places. At least not while I am on the bike. I prefer more "room to breathe" when I am on skates and there is too much rubbish on the streets here to skate. I will stick to the trails where the worst thing to have to deal with is an errant Karen.
ON YER LEFT!!!
However I learned shortly after moving to Flaky Florida, that you need to watch the weather very closely. The emphasis is on the VERY. In fact if you like today's weather you will like tomorrow. Changes are rather small. It never freezes this far south, and temperatures only vary, at most, about a degree a week on average.
Fahrenheit or Centigrade? First one, then the other.
You have Dry Season where South Florida is a desert for six or more months, then you have Wet Season where the air is liquid and it can rain at ... well, it is raining now isn't it?
A good radar program or website is better than tuning into the local talking head on AM/FM or TV. I learned how to read radar as well as the well paid loudmouth on broadcast. Maybe better because my radar program is immediate.
There is also Hurricane Season - June 1 to November 30. Better to just hope it spins fish and watch radar, again.
First thing in the morning, I look and I judge if I am in the barrel of the shooting gallery of "green leopard spots" on the map. Then dress accordingly. If the Leopard has brought the rest of its friends and you get yellow/orange/red blobs dancing across the map, you are on for a wet time.
I had a walk where I told those who I was going with that we were going to be wet, very wet. Getting laughed at I took a golf umbrella that had carbon fiber ribs and no metal. When I heard "there's the FEC from Miami coming North" from them, I said "No it's not a train, that is weather, we are going to get wet. RUN!".
After they stopped laughing at me, I told them to get out from under my umbrella since they were waiting for a train and cramping my style. "Go play on the tracks, you two dinguses!"
This morning, there was a different situation. More Leopard Spots. I had my umbrella and a neighbor was asking. I said if it rains, we're going to get about a half hour of wet. The response was "So that is why you are dressed for the Tour de France?"
"Mais Oui, mon ami"
You see this stuff, that is basically a recycled soda bottle with added stretchy stuff, has its purpose. Not indoors, you need a breeze to make it comfortable. The dog doesn't care about how you are dressed, nor whether it is raining. Only if it is thunder and lightning, very very frightening.
None of that in the thermometer's Mercury, Freddy, just some rain. Bloody unpredictable rain.
I got going and was out a little more than a half mile, call it a kilometer, from the house. It began to rain in that tropical, soaking way. It was as if someone was on a balcony above you using a spray bottle at first. Walking on, my Tour de France spandex was now skin tight, had a sheen of slightly salty acid rain that had blown in off the Ocean from The Bahamas.
On and off, the rain came during that walk, and it stopped about 15 minutes before getting home. Rack really did not care. Cow Dogs, Farm Dogs, and Mc Nab Dogs just don't care about rain. I didn't either. That cool rain was fine, and when the rain stopped, I had a breeze.
The Tour turned into an Air Conditioner. Form Fitting, and I do look good in that stuff.
But basically it's Socially Acceptable Underwear in this context. Big hairy scary athlete in underwear, walking his dog, being cooled by the winds off the ocean coming in from Freeport.
So I guess, really, I do wear it in the neighborhood, but rarely. Even if it does raise an eyebrow. Even if I do think this stuff looks like underwear that can get ripe if it doesn't go into the washer immediately with "bacteria fighting laundry soap".
I mean, I don't want someone to find me by scent. They aren't a bloodhound and I am not a rabbit.
After all, my nickname is Moose. Not Bugs Bunny, silly Wabbit.
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