Chaffage - the Great Equalizer

Before anyone reads on I want to make a note that this particular post contains some fairly graphic information about my anatomy, and anyone worried about getting TMI should turn away now. RUN! RUN!

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Anyway, now that the weaker element has been scared back to their LOLcats and www.fuckyoupenguin.com posts I can get into the issue at hand: chaffage. All runners who have gone more than 10 miles at a clip understand the unrivaled horrors of chaffage. From bloody nipples to the dry sawing sensation that an ill fitting pair of shorts can cause to the inner thigh (I'll spare pictures of that,)we've all dealt with this devil from time to time. But for the most part an ounce of prevention in some band-aids, or Body Glide, is all you need to avoid looking like you were shot in the boob by Lee Harvey.

But what if the chaffed area wasn't somewhere that could be baindaided? What if it couldn't be Body Glid? What if it was an area that has absolutely no buisness being abrased at all?

You see where I'm going with?

So a couple nights ago I'm about to go out for a run decide to throw on on of my pairs of half-tights (not quite tight as tights but not quite loose as pants - really like the uber tight being that they incorporate the best of all worlds). I've worn these things three dozen times without much of a problem. They're black, a little loose fitting, totally standard half-tightage in every way but one - the inside of them is made of a material more abrasive than asphalt. It's literally like 2000 kitten tongues all situated right around my junk. Of course I get no DANGER WILL RODGERS alert from anyone down there before we take off for a nice five mile tempo, and by all reports everything seemed fine. Up until the point I take the pants off and survey the crime scene.

I seriously ran through the same kind of emotions that President Bush must have felt while flying over Katrina damaged New Orleans - fear, guilt, confusion, animosity, anger, a strong desire to drink. It was all a little much to handle, but the end result is my stuff had been rubbed a little raw (I warned you that this post wasn't pretty).

Is the damage permanent? Obviously not. A couple days of not wearing shark skin pants and I'll be right as rain, but for the meantime it's all about getting my heal on. If it was any other part of my body I might attempt a lap, but really, is that something you'd want to mess with? I didn't think so.