Chafing

****** WARNING - DISTURBING IMAGERY AHEAD! ******

Walking gingerly tonight.

It being the Easter bank holiday, the Horse Doctor declared that she wanted to go to the garden centre to get 'a few things.' Now Aberystwyth doesn't have what you could call a decent garden centre, even if you were being charitable, so we went instead to Welshpool, an hour and half's drive away. Having spent a fairly hefty chunk of money there, it was only right to carry on to Shrewsbury and do the weekly food shop at a decent supermarket for a change. Thus it was that most of the day was spent in the car.

I wouldn't have minded too much (it's her money, after all), if it had been raining, but today's been a scorcher. The sun was still high and bright when we finally got home from the shopathon, so I decided the only thing to do with my numb bum was to take it for a run in the hills.

I've recently borrowed from work a tiny little GPS receiver, so I can see how far I've gone, how long it has taken and how fast I've been going. This is a bit depressing; for ages now I've been taking distances off the map and assuming that I was some kind of Olympic athlete, manfully eating up the mountain miles with a casual disdain. The only good news (in an oddly masochistic way) that the GPS has provided is that my normal run includes a nine hundred foot climb over the course of 2.4 miles. Written thusly, it doesn't sound much, but believe me, it's a bugger. On the bad news side, my previous nine mile run is now only eight, and my average speed wouldn't frighten a granny.

Today being a day of sitting in a car and getting bored with the Easter traffic, I decided not to go the whole hog, and instead do a shorter loop. As it turned out this was four miles and plenty enough. Since it was lovely and sunny for a change, I shunned my usual running attire of stretchy lycra longs and let the world see my impressively muscled thighs in shorts instead. As it turned out this was a mistake.

You see, there's no polite way to say this, but my thighs are large. It's the way I'm built - I have a long back and short, muscley legs.* When I walk, there is friction; when I run, there is more. Wearing trousers, or lycra running longs, or even my mid-length running shorts, this is not a problem. There may be a little localised warming, but nothing more serious than that.

In my short shorts (and they are embarrassingly short) there is no protection. Struggling up those nine hundred feet, thigh clashes against thigh with monotonous repetition. Warmth turns to heat, and heat begins to burn.

So now, dear sensitive readers, I have a bad case of nappy rash. I won't go into the agony that was showering this evening. Suffice it to say I've been liberal with the antiseptic and I'm wearing the loosest fitting garments I own. I am walking around like a little boy who's peed in his pants, if I am walking around at all.

There's a moral in here somewhere, but I'm damned if I can find it.


* I can sit next to someone who is six foot three and we'll see eye to eye even though I only scrape six foot when my hair's gone all bouffant