My lululemon experience...yes, you heard that right....

First off, let me admit that I never thought I would ever have a blog that included me and lululemon. I'll be honest and say that until  recently I had a poor opinion of the brand. Now, that has NOTHING to do with the clothing or the stores themselves (I have always heard that their clothing was phenomenal) but more to do with the clientele that wears the clothes. It seemed to me that the only time I saw the Omega logo was on some attractive, well-to-do looking woman out at my local Starbucks or organic grocery store. I rarely if ever saw anyone actually WEARING the clothes to work out in. But...I am lucky enough to have a friend that is an athlete ambassador for them and she got me invited to a running clothing review session (wait, lululemon does running clothes? for men?!). To say my curiosity was piqued is probably the understatement of the decade.

I have purposefully not gone into a store for the aforementioned impressions and because I didn't think I had enough money to ever actually purchase a piece of clothing in there...but..I was getting invited, AND they wanted my opinion (which I'm never at a lack of wanting to share) AND I was given homework (which to my happiness I seemed to be the only one that did the assignment) of bringing in my favorite piece of running clothing and explain why its my favorite. After quick introductions of those of us invited and the store's staff, I was paired up with Jess, the beautiful (as you would expect all of the women that work in the store would be...very attractive, fit and athletic looking) store manager who has a half marathon under her belt and is training for her next and was all about wanting to talk to me about men's running clothes. She had me at "tell me what you think".

Now my favorite piece of running clothing are my Under Armour shorts, cut mid thigh, pocket inside the shorts AND a pocket in back, below the waist band at the small of the back. Those shorts never chafe, give me room for a coupe gels and are very light. Sadly, UA quit making those shorts and have moved into another style (which...I...HATE! Isn't that always the case, just when you start to like a product the company changes it?!). Now I spent the next hour trying on every piece of men's clothing in the store (getting happier with each piece of clothing) until I got to the shorts. To my amazement, lululemon makes a men's running short that is almost the exact same as my old UA shorts except a little shorter in the leg (which I love even more) that are soft (and I mean soft, like they could make a blanket out of the shorts material and I'd curl up and sleep like a baby in it), have a zippered pocket in the back and are so light I feel like I'm not wearing shorts at all. Seriously, I've put about 40 miles in this shorts so far and at one point I literally had to look down to make sure I was still wearing them!!! They are the "lululemon 4in light as air" shorts pictured above.

There are just some really great touches to the short that let you know they are made for runners/multisport athletes: laser cutout on the hips provides discreet venting, an elastic-ribbed drawcord for a proper fit at the waist, nice chafe-resistant flat seams and my favorite which is an athletic fit for a muscular posterior (that's what they call a hockey butt). Having been a cyclist all my life I have a larger butt and top of quads than most people and have a terrible time finding shorts that fit (jeans too for that matter). No such issue with these shorts!!

So...in closing...I AM SOLD!!! On the stores, the staff, the company and most importantly the clothes. These shorts are great and I cant wait to try out their running shirts next. Add in that they've approached me to lead local runs and I couldn't be happier. Here's to my being the new "Man" bassador for lululemon.