Very Serious Business

Chafing, that is… very serious business.

But, before I get to that.  First: the runs.

A fairly average performance on Thursday.  The weekday runs are beginning to wear on me.  I enjoyed them when they were 30 minutes.  When it moved to 40 minutes, I felt the strain.  With Monday’s 50 minute run it started to get to be a bit like “uh, this sucks” which is not how I want to feel about running.  However, I only have 3 more weeks of training and then it’s the week of the big event so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Saturday’s run:

I have to admit to something here:  I didn’t feel as strong on this run as I usually do.  It could have been a number of things.  One, I just added cross training in this past week.  I know I should have been doing it all along but something always came up and so I haven’t.  Adding it in likely put some extra strain on my body this week and tired me out more.

Second, the temperature rose by 11 degrees while I was out.  Whenever I experience that, it just seems like my heart rate gets crazy hectic and I did battle keeping my heart rate in the specified zone for a lot of the run.

My legs may not have felt as strong as I wanted them to but I did manage to pull off some negative splits at the end which is nice.

And finally… the serious business.  I’d been wondering if I would have an experience with chafing or not.  I mean, everyone said when they started running longer than an hour is when they dealt with it.  This week’s long run took me 1 hour and 26 minutes (not including the 5 min walk at start and finish).  When I finished, I initially thought the only place I’d chafed was on my arm from the arm band of my zune.  It was so horribly painful and I ended up wearing the arm band on my forearm (rather haphazardly as I was loathe to stop to fix it).

That, however, was NOT the only place I chafed.  After I stopped running I noticed another discomfort.  When I got home and started tinkering around with stretching and then eating I noticed it also.  However, it wasn’t until I decided to shower that I knew for sure:  my butt crack chafed.

Holy hell does that hurt!

Needless to say, I went out Saturday afternoon to buy some body glide.  It’s time and I don’t intend on going out again without it.  No way.  I’m totally not going through this discomfort again if I can help it!

Sunday Link Love

Sooo, I’ve had an incredibly busy week and as such I haven’t been the best reader this week.  I do, however have a couple of links which will be relevant in my upcoming posts

1. Vegan Bacon Recipe @ No Meat Athlete I’ve posted this link before but this time it’s going to be relevant because I’m totally soaking the beans and buckwheat to make my very first batch.  I figured the 3 day weekend is the perfect opportunity to try something new.  Also, I’m dying for a BLAT sandwich and I am loathe to actually buy real bacon.  (Mind you, I’m still at the point where I’d likely eat real bacon but if I have a decent substitute… it might be bye bye bye!)

2. The 9 Spots You Must Treat to Stop Chafing @ Just Your Average Joggler With my 7 mile run I encountered chafing for the first time.  This experience will be discussed in a future post.  However, as I scanned the internet for advice on what parts to use the anti-chafing product on, I stumbled across this post and jumped for joy that someone had spelled it out for me.  Thanks!

There you have it!  You can expect a discussion about chafing and vegan bacon this week!  Wait… maybe I shouldn’t have put them in the same sentence…..