I have just spent hours five minutes or so googling running injuries. I read about Snapping hip syndrome, ITBS, runners knee, shin splints and sprained ankles, all of which sound absolutely awful and I hope to have none of them (the niggle in my knee is all in my head I am sure). The thing they appear to have in common is that they seem to occur to runners in the area below the waist. This leads me to believe I may have discovered a new type of injury in the shower today post-run.
First let me update you, I have been running – actually I think it may be classified as slow jogging if I reference my recent Olympic viewing, in anticipation that is what I will need to do for most of the first Sunday in November in order to meet the target time previously mentioned. For those that didn’t read the earlier post, my target time is a complicated mathematical equation based on times the PBM and I run on the day, where the PBM runs as fast as she can so on average we are able to beat the time Katie Holmes ran for the NYC marathon in 2007, 5:29:58. We may also have to factor in wind conditions and our celebrity status but I’ll let you know of further changes as we get closer.
This week with the kids back at school and the boxes from our move finally all having left the building I have been able to run a couple of more times than I have averaged in recent weeks and have been breaking all sorts of records according to Runkeeper. Farthest distance in a month for jogging, farthest distance in a month for walking – best time for certain distance – the list might go on but it actually thats it. Still, this gives me some sort of encouragement to continue on the path to more kilometres – a unit of measurement I am resolutely sticking with even though I now live in a country that uses the unit ‘miles’. To say you ran ’16k’s’ to me sounds seriously better than you ran 10 miles, but that could just be me. As one of the world’s online oversharers it may surprise you to know I don’t auto populate my Facebook and Twitter feeds with my running distances, routes or times. I just keep it all to me to panic about.
World first injuries to delicate parts of my upper torso – they’re totally in the public domain.
Back to the point then. After my slow jog of 14k’s through the pretty – pretty hilly – streets of East Cobb this morning I was very keen to shower and rid myself of the extra moisture attached to my body and my hair so jumped straight into the shower and under the full force of the actually very weak water flow. I immediately shrieked and jumped back out. I was suffering from an acute pain that seemed to be stemming from my chest area. Looking down show the reason for concern, it seems that my favourite running top is not equipped for over 10km outings – it had somehow started to chafe and given me blisters – in fact two of them, one each side. If we have to call a spade a spade, we have to call them upper boob blisters. I could find no reference to this as an official running injury so believe this could be a world first. Please let me know if you have in fact suffered this injury previously so I can disabuse myself of the notion of discovering this particularly painful ‘world first’. I’d be happy to note it with an updated entry. Ouch.
As I am not showing you a picture of my injury (I am sure the mental picture is already bad enough) I will substitute with these pretty flowers that I saw today on my route. Enjoy!
Pretty flowers
PBM update – PBM completed the Sydney City to Surf, a 14km gruelling up and down run from central Sydney to Bondi Beach on Sunday in 76 minutes, her target was 75. I have suggested she see a Sports Psychologist, one of us should.
One mountain, One marathon 
The upper boob chafe is a very old friend of mine Nikki.
When training for Sydney marathon – many moons ago – I would return from long runs with blood stained tops. The worst part was the agony of the “should be enjoyed post-run shower”. I tried Vaseline – did not work – and taping – fell off! I wish I could offer you a cure for this painful affliction.
Keep training!!
Amanda xxx
So happy to hear I am not alone – but disturbed by the lid kept on it by the running community ;) I note men are more than happy to post at length about their nipple injuries from running. I obviously haven’t been doing long enough runs, strange that this never came up when we were training for GreenPower – plenty of other chafing but I can’t say I had this one. Thanks for the encouragement. x
Have scars in said spot due to same style running injury. Body Glide available from all good running shops needs to be your next purchase.
Oh and put some on your lower back so label from underwear does not create another Chafe spot.
Wise words from those that have gone before me. Thanks – Body Glide is an old friend of mine but never used it in that particular spot. Great tip Soph. Thanks.
Chafing is agony – look out for any particularly sweaty days or rain.
I hear you. Rightly or wrongly every day running in Hotlanta is pretty sweaty. The humidity is around 90% most days and so far the temp has been around 30 degrees. It’s generally a sweaty middle & very sweaty finish.
Nikki: Earlier this summer while in NY awaiting Daughter #1 from Vancouver to accompany me to Daughter #2’s high school graduation in Vermont, I went on a long jog along the Mohawk River, borrowing a small backpack to carry all my essentials. As i didn’t know quite where I’d end up, I needed to take my GPS, my iPod, iPhone, camera and H2O bottle. Well, the backpack swayed on my back and its straps put two nice huge blisters under my arms, very thin and tender spots. I tried a few remedies but wound up with huge plasters (dressings/bandages) on them every time I exercised, as the sweating and raw skin was incredibly painful. You can buy large (really don’t know what size you need, so please take no offense) stick-on plasters, they are quite smooth, silky and come in water proof varieties so they can take sweat and stay on. Try them, maybe they will provide some defense!
Meg – thanks for the advice. I seem to have mastered this particular chafing but got a new spot now I need to focus on. I might try this approach!