Race Shirt Transforms Runner Into Something More Logo Than Man

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Onlookers at a local park were horrified yesterday as a runner metamorphosed before their very eyes into something unrecognizable.

The runner, identified as Edward Hyde, 36, had arrived at Stevenson Park by car around 5 p.m. and attracted little attention until he removed the polo shirt he was wearing and slipped into a blue, short-sleeved technical shirt.

The front of the shirt, witnesses said, read “Robert Louis Health Systems Half Marathon & 5K.” What they saw on the back, however, left them reeling: A dizzying array of business logos, crammed tight together and covering nearly every square inch of available space.

While no one can agree on exactly how many logos they saw—estimates ranged from “maybe a dozen” to “hundreds”—their collective effect was overwhelming. Many observers were still shaken, hours later.

“It was shocking,” said Gabriel Utterson, a park patron who watched the transformation. “I guess there was a human being in there, somewhere, under those graphic promotions for Great Clips, The Beanery Coffee & Bagels, Poland Springs, Wheeler Brothers Cycles, Hutz Law Partners, Nuun, and St. Mercy Sports Rehab Clinic… but I couldn’t see him.”

Utterson added, in a whisper, “He was more logo than man.”

Responding to the visual assault, witnesses said, the crowd gasped and parents scooped up their children.

Hyde, they said, seemed startled.

“He sort of looked up and grunted,” said Utterson. “Then he ran off.”

Reports that Hyde’s logos were spontaneously reproducing as he fled, expanding to cover the few remaining available spaces on his shirt, could not be confirmed.