Chafing, chafing everywhere

Most of us who participate in endurance events are bound to experience chafing to some degree at one point or another in their training. The more hours you go, the worse it gets. Past experience can lead you to be more prepared, being aware of certain spots that have been vulnerable in the past and taking precautions with body glide or vaseline or simply by not wearing that one specific shirt that gets you every time.

For some reason this past week, the chafing has attacked me almost everywhere. It hit me on the leg grippers on my bike shorts, which somehow didn't bother me the first 9 weeks I've been training this year. It hit me where my heart rate strap goes against my rib cage - again, not that that had been an issue for weeks and weeks before. It got me under my arms when I wore this one base layer shirt to keep me a little warmer but also managed to tear me to shreds. That particular spot hasn't healed in a week, which is ridiculous. Perhaps it is partly because my skin is so dry I feel as though it might turn to dust, but who knows for sure?

Aside from that, it as been the usual. Lots of training, lots of wanting to stay in bed for a much longer time each morning. I seem to finally be getting rid of this cold that has been with me since before Christmas and a few of my runs this week didn't make me feel like I wanted to die before the end. The best part of the week was these past two days when the temperature finally shot up into the 40's. It feels practically tropical. Yesterday was the first time I got to run without my big jacket and also went with the regular hat instead of something to cover my ears. It made me feel 10 pounds lighter.

I might have even ridden outside today if it weren't for the fact that I have to keep going back and forth on my bikes to get used to these stupid Powercranks. But it did give me the opportunity to finally watch the movie Braveheart. Hey, it only came out 15 years ago, I got to it eventually. And it was far, far, far better than the movie Year One which I suffered through earlier this week on a trainer ride. That was one of those movies that had kind of a cool concept, but it just turned out absolutely terrible. This is the problem with trying to watch movies on the trainer that you haven't seen before. You run the risk of putting something in that you are going to wind up hating and it might even make the ride seem to take longer than it would if you had instead opted to stare at the wall. Like I said though, at least today was much better.

Now only 1 day, a 2-hour run and a 1:45 ride stand between me and my rest week. I can't wait.