In my ‘real job’ many of my customers and prospects are Lubricants Distributors. While this makes my teenagers howl with smirks of double entendre it makes me think of topics less amorous and more painful. I don’t know about you, but this time of year I am compelled to dwell on ways to keep my epidermis inviolate.

It wasn’t until I caught the marathon bug that abrasion became a compelling topic. Any old 5 mile dash doesn’t require any defensive technology. I used to leave the house in the dead of a January eve wrapped in long johns and many layers of cotton sweats. It didn’t matter because I’d be back in front of the wood stove in 40 minutes before any damage was done.

Mr. Marathon and his cohort of long, multi-hour training runs soon cured me of the sweat pants and cotton t-shirt habit. Sweat, when mixed with cotton and rubbed repeatedly over the same spot becomes an excellent whetting agent. That all-purpose sweatshirt you’ve been wearing every day since 1984 becomes as efficient as a rotary sander (with 100 grit sand paper). I’m sure I speak for the majority here when I say there is nothing quite as ‘enlightening’ as that moment you discover, typically in a hot shower, that you have removed a layer of skin from one or many pointy places. “Honey, are you alright? I heard a terrible scream!?”

When you get past a certain point in the race, blister and rash pain becomes secondary to the great and wonderful pain of effort. It’s not until later that the damage becomes particularly uncomfortable.

Technical garments are a boon to our generation. Besides the cool shoes with more engineering than a jet-fighter, we get all kinds of high tech fabrics that coddle our corporeal shells allowing us to shuffle off indefinitely without damaging our mortal coils.

More at coolrunning.com

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