Trail running, monkey-butt, tape, and miscellaneous philosophical musings.

1. Good to know about the Desitin.

2. I just got my roll of Leukotape P yesterday from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000H94TAQ
$10.03 shipped.

4. As with "Hike your own hike", "Run your own run".

I'm not going to touch upon the monkey butt (ew!)…

but I run alone. Always. I have a few friends who want to trail run with me this spring and I am feeling mildly anxious about it. I've only run one race ever. And it was on snowshoes. No need for official. No need for accurate times or splits or rankings. I'm definitely a lackadaisical purist when it comes to that stuff.

I run for those brief moments where you stop hurting, stop sucking wind and feel more alive than you would ever think possible – no thoughts, completely unfocused… yet 100% conscious of how alive you are. Best feeling in the world.

So I guess I run to feel free. Even though it only lasts about ten seconds before I crash back into the hurting!

Also don't know about shipping and have yet to buy it but leukotape is a buck cheaper here: http://www.wisdomking.com/product12127.html

and the same site also sells a leukotape "equivalent" for much less or you can scope out ebay I've seen it on there a few times for very cheap.

I've had good luck with the higher zinc concentrations for healing chaffing, but not so much for preventing it. For that, it needed more lubrication.

I ran/fast hiked 15 miles in a short amount of time in Shenandoah last Friday and I had the same chaffing issue on both inner thighs. I don't normally have this problem. Not sure why this time, was it my pace, my underwear/pant combo?? Any thoughts on prevention?

That night I applied some hand healing cream I use for rock climbing (climb on) which is miraculous. The next morning I was still a bit sore and I used the aformentioned body-glide product to prevent any more rubbing while out and about doing errands that day. Normally I've used body glide to prevent nipple abrasion while running. By Sunday all was better, but if I had needed to run back another 15 miles I would of really been sore and uncomfortable.

Craig, good job. I really like running alone in the woods. I can't imagine doing it with others. I like hiking with friends but not running. No music, just me and my interior voice reminding me to relax the shoulder blades, drop them and maintain good posture. What kind of elevation and vertical change were you running.

I once came down with a severe case of trail rash and, in desperation, I rubbed it down with triple antibiotic ointment (aka: Neosporin). It really did not make it feel better immediately but in the morning it was clear as a baby's butt! Now I rub a tiny bit of Neosporin in the aforementioned areas every morning on the trail before getting dressed. I have not suffered from trail rash since.