"Performance" tights

I ran in my first pair of running tights last night.

It was miserable.

I thought I ran in perfect weather to give them a trial run — a cool 50-degree temperature with a light rain. But my legs felt like they were overheating. They were so hot, I had to stop and walk for a few hundred yards to cool down.

On top of that, I only ran for 20 minutes, but my shins ached, and my calves were sore long after I stopped.

The best part of the run was taking the tights off. It felt like I had just removed weights wrapped around my legs.

I’m thinking I should have listened to my instincts when I was buying the tights, and I noticed a familiar looking size chart on the tag. “This is the exact same system used for pantyhose. That can’t be comfortable,” I thought. All the “conditioning web” talk won me over though — the promises to reduce muscle fatigue, improve movement and stabilize the knee joint.

I bought them with the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay in mind. Sometime in the Friday p.m./Saturday a.m. this weekend, I’ll be running 5.5 miles around Rockport Lake. Should I even bother packing them? Or will the tights just need an adjustment period?