Do you have kit superstition? I have an extensive wardrobe of running kit divided into sections, including lucky kit for races – that's my club running top and a pair of Iffley Road shorts. And, er, a Hello Kitty hairclip which my five-year-old says will make me run faster, and, given I've worn it on my recent PBs, who is to say she's wrong?
Then there's the long run kit – the tried and tested stuff you know will never rub, or cause problems or distractions miles from home. Of course, this is weather dependent, but at the moment, I am really loving my skirt.
Eyebrows may be raised at this point. Why on Earth would you run in a skirt? I confess when I first came across the concept, I was more than a touch sceptical. First, is there really any need to create a more "feminised" running look? Of course not. Second, surely a skirt doesn't allow full range of movement? Third, are they perhaps even sexist, as some bloggers suggest?
On the first point, my view is that if a product makes some women feel more comfortable about running (and I've seen, anecdotally, that this is certainly the case) then why not? On the second, well, a lot of the seriously good female ultra-runners wear them – Emelie Forsberg for one. If they restricted movement, or were in any way uncomfortable, these fantastically fit, fast and determined women simply would not be sporting them.
Some of those against the concept suggest that they help generate the idea that women are less "serious" about running. Really? I doubt anyone would look at Forsberg and think she wasn't serious about running. Why specific to this one sport anyway – in tennis, women wear skirts (mostly) and men wear shorts. Does anyone really think the women aren't "proper" athletes?
So I've been running recently in a Salomon "skort", designed in collaboration with mountain trail runner Anna Frost, who again seems to take her sport pretty darn seriously. And it is both incredibly comfortable and – yes, why not? – aesthetically pleasing. Like most skorts, it consists of a pair of cycling-style shorts with an overlap of fabric. In some other models the cycling short bit is a compression short, which many runners swear by to aid recovery. These ones fit perfectly and don't ride up at all, which is more than can be said for many shorts I've tried.
Essentially, they are really comfortable – and what more can you ask from a piece of running kit? If you are comfortable running – whether that's literally comfortable, or more generally, in that you don't feel self-conscious – then you will run better.
So what's your favourite item of kit, and why? And – of course – how was your weekend running? Share below the line as always.