Are These High-Tech Shirts the Future of Hot-Weather Running?
I recently read Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm—which grew out of a 1994 Outside article—that recounts the sinking of a Massachusetts fishing boat at sea. One passage caught me off guard. Junger is trying to understand why the massive storm formed and references global warming as a possibility. It surprised me that he didn’t say climate change was definitively a factor until I realized he was writing more than 30 years ago, before climate change was widely accepted as real and its effects became obvious.
Today, all I have to do to understand the realities of climate change is step outside. Here in New Mexico, where I live, summers are noticeably, dangerously, and maybe forever different. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, summers across the state are 3.7°F warmer than in 1970, and eight of the 10 hottest summers on record have occurred in the last 23 years.
New Mexico isn’t unique when it comes to warming, so outdoor companies across the world are scrambling to find new technologies that will help people continue to recreate outside. Running, one of the most heat-intensive sports, is often in the spotlight, and this summer three new heat-abatement running shirts caught my eye. Nike ACG, Satisfy, and Raide all promised their shirts can breathe and cool in new ways, so I called them in for wear testing and also sent samples to our Outside Lab at CU Denver so we could run a host of lab tests. I also called in a more traditional Patagonia shirt that topped our spring testing of running shirts, as a control for comparison to the new technologies. Below are the results of field and lab testing.
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