>	Blog entries about: chaffing

Pogonotomy and Omadóphily (In the style of Sonnet XIII)

O, that you wear your hair! but, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to smugglers give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination: then you were
Yourself again after your beard's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet face is bare.
Who lets so fair a chin fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of an october's day
And barren rage of the channel's eternal cold?
O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know
You had a beard: let your team say go.

You might say when there’s no underbrush, the tree looks taller…

This may be of interest to the swimmers looking to gain that 2%.

Trim that bush [youtube]

Try....do

It is true that myself and the swimmer formerly known as wolf (TSFKAW) did a triathlon recently. While I am happy to recommend doing such an event I am not happy to recommend this particular event. Why? The waves. 8 waves by 30 minutes = 4 hours of waiting to go when you are (for some crazy reason) in the élite wave. If you are a chick then do the race…you will be home in time for lunch. You go off in the first 2 waves. Smart men that we are though, we realised that this temporal glitch was going to see my breakfast of porridge wasted (in terms of energy - despite all the effort that went into making it - thanks TSFKAW)so I had to go in search of food in Portlaoise. A grubby and generally unhappy man threw 2 brown bread hang sandwiches together and that sorted that problem out.

But that only wasted 20 minutes at most…there was 4 hours of this. A gameboy or scrabble was really required.

Eventually I was preparing to race and I met the guys in my lane (3 others) 2 would be doing 750m in 10 mins (GREEEAT) I said I would be 15 mins at best.

In we went, lapped 4 or 5 times by the pacey lads and last out of the pool (it was close though - I might have been second last but of course I was in lane 5 and had to get all the way across the building to get out - and then get photographed by the goons as I jogged along in my tiny togs)

Transition - 4 mins…drying off, checking blood sugar, getting out of togs, putting on runners and top and helmet (don’t forget helmet or you will be in trouble). I made 2 major mistakes here (and they are related) 1. I did not put on my cycling shorts. 2. I took off my togs. The real solution to both problems is to wear the "tri shorts that everone seemed to be wearing (or indeed tri suits in some cases). Why? Faster transition is a good reason…a better reason is so that you don’t get severe chaffing on your inner thighs after the run section ( I think the togs may have saved me on the chaffing front - but that is unproven)…so tri shorts are a must for me for the TriAthy at the end of May.

So I was last onto the bike, I saw no one ahead of me through the whole cycle (other than people on their way back), and I was last off the bike and off on the run.

The run was HELLLLLL. After about 1k my quads were seizing up and I thought I might have to stop - but then I saw TSFKAW on his way back to the finish so I felt if he was finishing it then I suppose I would have to, despite the fact that there would be blood oozing from my thighs and I could feel the chaffing starting up (why did I not put on those cycling shorts? WHYYY?)

When I got to the turning point I was so far behind all the élite goons that the steward had left his post…groan.

On the upside I did complete and received a tinny medal and a cup of tasty soup (as well as a gourmet TSFKAW sandwich).

The weekend improved to an extent when I travelled to the UK to watch leinster beat harlequins in a dogfight at the stoop (although my legs did not function well for the days I was there and the chaffing was at its worst on easter monday)

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