Chin up. Look 'em straight in the eye. Whatever you do, don't look down.

I was standing in a clearing somewhere off of Route 66 in northeastern Oklahoma, racing flats laced tightly, awaiting the start of the Trail of Tears 5-K beneath a canopy of browning scrub oaks and a handful of maples gone red. It was a classic fall day, but I was just trying to get used to the fact that I didn't have any pants on.

I typically wear pants, but when I saw an ad in a local running magazine for this "clothing optional" race, it seemed like the perfect antidote to the gerbil wheel of training, racing, and my overall life. I'd become a predictable, reserved middle-aged drone, the type of person my former self--the one who streaked across the quad as a college junior--would've loved to defy. Shedding my clothes seemed like a good way to lose my conservative persona.

Running Shoes - Gear race, I'd started to get second thoughts. Maybe, I'd told my wife, I'd wear a T-shirt--a long one. "There's more to being naked," she'd said scornfully, "than just exposing your private parts." So there I was at the Oaklake Trails Naturalist Resort, feeling like an extra in an off-off-Broadway production of Hair, trying to get comfortable that baseball caps (17) outnumbered running shorts (0), tights (0), and below-the-waist coverings of any sort (just one lonely jockstrap).

The race director (hat, shoes, not a whole lot else) announced that--duh!--we wouldn't be wearing race numbers. He informed us that when the results got posted on the Southwestern Sunbathing Association's Web site, no last names would appear. Then he called the 50 of us to the start, but not before warning that anyone who didn't want his or her photo appearing in the association's newsletter had better head to the back. My nakedness didn't cool my competitive nature--a race is a race, so I toed the line as the photographer (yes, he was nude) snapped away.

When the gun went off, the first few hundred yards proved rather, um, bumpy. Nevertheless, by the half-mile mark, a single bare derriere stood between me and the lead. And just like that, I was no longer running nude. I was just racing.

Through the woods, I imagined myself a woodland sprite. A primitive hunter. The protagonist of that old Ray Stevens song--"Oh, yes, they call him the Streak. Look at that, look at that--fastest thing on two feet."

A water stop manned by clothed volunteers brought an unexpected bout of self-consciousness. For a second, I felt as naked as Adam cast out of Eden. But the volunteers greeted us with throaty cheers, and soon gone was the red from my cheeks (the ones on my face, at least).

With a quarter mile to go, I caught the leader. Even though a finishing sprint would produce a lot of pain and a revealing photo, I did it anyway. If you thought waiting for the awards ceremony was excruciating, try doing it in the buff.

The race brochure had promised to free runners from "the burden of clothes." But on the drive home, it struck me that the entire adventure had proved decidedly unliberating. Sure, for a few minutes, I'd forgotten my nakedness. But otherwise, my unclothed loins were all I'd thought about. Call me repressed, but the most liberating moment came when I pulled my shorts back on. My straitlaced life--and its wardrobe--suited me.

Still, I did get a medal and, of all things, a T-shirt to show for it. Just don't ask me to show you any race photos.