I’ve just got back from a run and I don’t really want to talk about it. We did 35 minustes yesterday and got to 2.83 miles but it was awful and I got shit on by a bird. Today we set off from home for the first time in ages to see if my calf muscle would hold up on the hills. It did but I got a horrible pain at the top of my left side – not sure why but I’m blaming the fish and chips I had for lunch for causing indigestions which caused trapped air.  It happened at about half way and meant I nearly didn’t make it to the end  – a slow plod got me there but it was most unpleasant.

So the good: erm, well, come on there’s got to be something? Oh yes – I went for a run

The bad: hate it hate it hate it

We do need to talk about underwear. Underwear when running is a serious issue. I vaguely remembered that much from my running attempts in 2012. What I couldn’t remember is why or what to look out for. Sports bra is obvious (well obvious for anyone with boobs who has ever had to run for a bus) so let’s leave that aside for now. Knickers  – that’s what is concerning me at the moment. There are some knickers that are ok for running and there are some that are not but there doesn’t seem to be a way of knowing before you actually try running in them. I have knickers that are the same cut and size – even from the same pack – and one pair is fine an the other is quite likely to cause serious injury. Chafing is never a good thing but its worse in some places than others. I don’t understand why I can’t just find a type which works, I don’t understand why it comes down to individual pairs! Am I the only one with this issue? I can’t be, surely.

The other thing about underwear is that it has to be able to deal with sweat. Nobody told me quite how horrible this was going to be. Someone should have taken me to one side and said ‘You won’t really notice it while you’re running but the minute you stop you’ll feel like you’ve peed yourself’. Even after our short runs my pants are always soaked in sweat. I have to literally peel them off me when I get home. After the long runs I doubt they could be wetter if I fell in the canal. The same is pretty much true for my bra but it gets worse: Because of the cut and relatively tight fit as well as the type of material, the bra doesn’t absorb sweat all that well, instead the sweat pools. Only slightly but it pools and, as I discovered today, small flies can drown in that pool. It’s not funny.

So, see this as me taking you to one side and having a quiet word: ‘People will tell you how amazing running is, how it transformed their lives, how it keeps them sane… all of that might be true but there is absolutely no getting away from very very sweaty knickers!’