Sunday, September 03, 2006

Vaseline

One of my biggest problems when running any sort of reasonable distance is, ahem, an element of chafing. A quick trawl through running related web resources soon reveals that I am not alone in this. Chris recommended to try firstly a pair of cycling shorts to keep all in its place, and if that didn't work, liberal amounts of vaseline applied in strategic places around big Jim and the twins. Apparently, during his London Marathon, St John's Ambulance had personnel out, wearing latex gloves handing out fistfuls of the stuff along the course. The cycling shorts helped a bit, but I soon realised that for any run exceeding 30 mins I'd need to try the vaseline treatment. In Tesco they sell poxy little tins the size of 50p coins that would hardly coat anything worthwhile. I headed for the big Boots out at Cribb's Causeway. I wander aimlessly about for a while, before asking an attendant. She directs me towards the tiny tins. I whisper that I'm on the market for something slightly more man-sized. She looks at me with a strange expression, and says that the industrial sized vats are kept in the mother & baby section, but that I might want to consider alternative products for 'intimate purposes'. I open my mouth to vigorously defend my honour, but soon realise that there's nothing I can say to rectify the situation. I skulk over to the mother and baby section and grab a tub..

..which works great, when liberally applied.

Thanks for the tip, Chris.

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