The Infamous Underwear Run

Friday night, a perfect time for blowing off some steam and running in your underwear. Huh? That's right. Last Friday was the NYC Triathlon's annual underwear run in Central Park. It's a fun run to kick off the weekend's festivities with the actual NYC Tri on Sunday.

The event is extremely fun but also well-organized. Although it's free to run, participants are supposed to register and the event fills up very quickly each year. This year's theme was "Celebrate America" so there was tons of Red, White, and Blue on the course.

The race is at 7:30 but participants tend to get their closer to 6:30 so they have time to strip and strut their stuff take photos. I had a ton of teammates running so we met up before hand to take photos in front of the newly reopened Cherry Hill fountain.

The whole time there were a couple of corny announcers making bad puns about underwear which helped make the event feel even more relaxed. Shortly before 7:30 we all made our way to the start. The "race" (it's really just a fun run) is 1.7 miles--the lower loop in Central Park. I ran with a bunch of teammates until the very end when I decided to pick it up a bit, mainly because it was hot and I wanted water.

At the finish they had salads from Qdoba, ice-cold water bottles, and Muscle Milk. Not too shabby for a free event!!! Oh yeah, one of my teammates came in second. The prize? Self-respect.