How to choose running shorts: inseam, liner and where the pocket goes

A pair of running shorts is three decisions and a colour. The three are inseam, liner and pocket, and they matter in that order. The inseam decides what the pair is for. The liner decides how it feels at mile three. The pocket decides whether you can leave the house with a phone and a key and nothing in your hand.

This page walks through the three in order. The tables are counted from the Soothfeel shorts we list today, so they show where the range is deep and where it is thin. Where the maker states a fact it is on the piece's own page, and where the page is silent, we are silent too.

The inseam is the seam from the crotch to the hem, and every running short on this site states it in inches in the name or in the facts under the name. The women's pairs start at 3 inches and the men's run to 11, and the whole personality of a pair sits inside that spread.

A 3 inch short with a split hem is the fastest pair here. Nothing touches the thigh, it dries in the time it takes to stretch, and it shows more leg than most people want at a café. A 5 inch liner short covers the thigh, carries a bigger pocket and is the pair most people buy for a first 10K. Seven inches is a gym and golf length. Nine and eleven are basketball and casual.

Read that table as availability rather than advice. A length with one pair behind it is one choice of colour and cut. A length with several is a real comparison, and the filter on the shorts page sorts by it.

One warning about inseam and height. A 5 inch short on a runner who is five foot two sits mid-thigh, and on someone six feet tall it sits high. The number is fixed and the body is not, so if you are tall and want coverage, add two inches to whatever a friend recommends.

A 2-in-1 pair is two shorts sewn to one waistband: a fitted inner short in stretch knit and a loose outer short over it. 10 of the shorts we list carry an inner liner, and they are the pairs to buy if chafing has ever ended a run early.

The liner does three jobs. It keeps the outer short from riding up. It holds the phone pocket flat against the leg where a swinging pocket would bruise. And it means the pair works without separate compression shorts underneath, which is the whole reason the style exists.

What a liner costs you is heat and drying time. Two layers are warmer than one and take longer to dry on a line. In July, on a short fast run, a single-layer 3 inch pair is the cooler choice and the liner pair stays in the drawer.

Single-layer pairs come in two kinds here. Split-hem running shorts with a brief liner or none, and yoga shorts in a stretch knit that fit like a liner on their own. The yoga pairs are the ones for the gym floor and for cycling, and the split-hem pairs are for the road.

Every Soothfeel page lists the pocket count where the maker states it, and a lot of pages say three or four. The count matters less than the position. A phone in a back zipper pocket sits against the lower back and does not move. A phone in a side pocket without a zipper bounces, and on a downhill it leaves.

The running pairs put the zipper on the back or on the liner. The golf and casual pairs, mostly the men's, carry open hand pockets at the sides and a zipper at the back for a card. Those are the pairs that pass at a restaurant afterwards, and they are also the pairs that will drop a phone on a trail.

The table covers every department, not only shorts, because the same logic runs through the joggers and the skirts. A tennis skirt with a pocket in the inner short holds two balls, and a swim skirt with a hidden pocket holds a key. The position is on each page.

Most women's pairs here are high waisted, which means the band sits above the navel and stays there in a squat. Most men's pairs use a plain elastic waistband with a drawcord. Both are listed as a fact on the page under Waist, in the maker's own words.

A drawstring changes which size to buy. Elastic alone holds one size. A drawstring inside it spans two. On a drawstring pair, buy the size that fits your hips and let the cord handle the waist, because hips do not adjust and waists do. Sizing down on a drawstring pair produces shorts that fit at the waist and pull across the seat, which is the least comfortable shape shorts can have.

Where the maker states the fibre content it is on the page as a percentage, and the number to read is the spandex. Under five per cent a short holds its shape and forgives little. Between five and fifteen it stretches and recovers, which is where the liner shorts live. The yoga shorts sit higher, and that is what makes them fit like a second skin.

The rule behind that line is specific about how the fibres have to be written. No ditto marks, no footnotes, no symbols standing in for words:

That is the reason a label says polyester and spandex in full, and it is what lets you read stretch off a label instead of guessing from a photograph. The blends we can confirm in the current range are below.

Many pages carry no fabric line at all. That is not a gap we filled: where the maker does not state a blend, the page says nothing rather than guessing.

The men's side of the range is 23 styles, and the shorts among them sort by inseam more cleanly than the women's do. Five inches is the running length: split hem, lightweight knit, a zipper pocket at the back. Seven is the gym and golf length, with hand pockets and a flat front that reads as casual shorts. Nine and eleven are the basketball and lounge lengths, and they are the ones with the deepest pockets.

Golf shorts and pants in the men's range use a waist size in inches rather than a letter, and both sizes appear in the filter where they exist. If you know your trouser waist, buy that number. If you only know a letter, the size table on each page maps the letters the maker uses, and a drawstring pair covers the gap.

One difference from the women's pairs is worth knowing: none of the men's shorts carry a liner. They are single-layer with a mesh brief or nothing, so a runner who wants compression underneath buys it separately, and a runner who does not can go without.

The men's page gathers all of this in one grid with the joggers, the tees and the crewneck, and the filter there splits the shorts from the pants.

A style you cannot buy in your size is a photograph, not a style, and the fastest way to be disappointed on a shorts page is to fall for a colour first. The filter on every department page puts size above colour for that reason. Tick your size, then look.

Women's shorts here run XX-Small to 3X-Large where the maker cuts them, and the middle letters carry most of the depth. Men's run Small to 3X-Large plus waist inches on the golf pairs. Where a pair exists in one size today, its page says so. The table of sizes and colours at the bottom of each page is the honest picture: every row is a size and a colour we can point you to, with its own price and button.

Prices differ between sizes on some pairs, and that is the reason a card can show a range rather than a single figure. The range is the lowest and highest price across the sizes and colours we last refreshed, and the exact figure for your size is in the table.

Stretch knits die in a dryer. The heat sets creases into the liner, weakens the elastic and, over a season, turns a fitted inner short into a loose one. The label on every pair states how to wash it, and the federal rule makes that a requirement rather than a courtesy:

In practice that means a cold machine wash, zipper closed so it does not catch the liner, and a line or a flat surface to dry. The care guide on this site goes through fleece, liners and elastic in detail, and the pants guide covers the joggers that share a waistband with the shorts.

If the choice is still between two pairs, buy the shorter one for running and the longer one for everything else. The running page gathers the pairs cut for the road, and the gym page gathers the rest.