The blue jeans running record

Everyone we know, young or old, has or had at least a pair of blue jeans inside the wardrobe.  Be it deep blue, faded or distressed, denims are the easy choice and it matches with anything, well, almost.  Denim is a shortened word from the French term “serge de Nimes”, meaning a sturdy fabric (serge) from Nimes, a city in France, hence “de Nimes”.

A short history on our favorite garment.  In 1853, Jacob W. Davis, a tailor from Reno, Nevada partnered with German immigrant Levi Strauss, who was selling sturdy materials for horse blankets, tents and wagon covers.  They made the first jeans with rivets that became popular with miners and cowboys in the area during the gold rush.

Our uniform during my high school days at Don Bosco were denim pants and white t-shirt with the school’s logo printed on the upper left chest and there’s always a need to bring an extra shirt.   From dakop-dakop to ping-pong to basketball to football and the occasional secret sinumbagay, we sweated in our maongs during breaktime and dismissal and would go home with the noticeable sweat stains on our pants and our bodies smelling closer to vinegar.

Which brings us to the feat of one of America’s best middle-distance runner.   Putting on a pair of Levi’s 501s, Johnny Gregorek, 28, with a shirtless pacer also in a pair of Levi’s, ran the fastest mile in denims with a time of 4:06.25 on the tracks at Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York last March 30.   The informal event called the Blue Jeans Mile began in 2017.  He broke the previous denim mile record done by Dillon Maggard by more than 5 seconds.  Streamed live on Instagram, the run was watched and commented by several top U.S. distance runners.

A Tokyo Olympics hopeful, Gregorek has speed on his genes as his parents were elite runners in the 1980s.   Both surprised him when they flew in from Massachusetts to cheer for their son who ran in memory of his younger brother Patrick to raise funds for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).  The non-profit organization is special for the Gregorek family as Patrick died March of last year after a long struggle with mental illness.

The goal was to raise $2,500 but when word spread of the fund raising, donations came in, including $5,000 from Levi Straus and Company.  The run raised almost $40,000 for the foundation.  His sponsor Asics provided Gregorek with a customized yellow running spike with denim accents and laces.  On the left tongue of the shoe was stitched “Paddy” after his brother and on the right tongue “NAMI”.  Sooner or later, this shoe will find its way to the auctions, of course, for NAMI’s benefit.

In the 2016 Olympic Trials, he finished 6th.   He finished 10th in the 1500m during the 2017 World Championships in London.   He won the 1500m silver medal at the 2019 Pan-American Games at Lima, Peru.  Another Asics-sponsored runner, Emma Ulmer, ran a 10K in denim shorts with a time of 32:45 earlier in the day at Boise, Idaho to draw attention and in support of the fund raising race. 

The previous weeks, I had seen guys shown on TV in denims, with backpacks doing speed runs that could rival Gregorek’s.  Yes, those were the guys running away from the police after smashing and looting stores.

Blue jeans for a running record.  Better do it in Asics and 501s.