Okay, so I was thinking of what the next advice post should be, and I've decided that based on some of the stuff that was coming out of the advice about chaffing and blisters that I might do one on TA-TAs, and the inevitable difficulties when one is both 1) a runner and 2) buxom. Which I plan to address soon. But sorry, no ta-tas today.
Instead, I want to address what I've sensed as a growing, angry murmer out there among women who want to be multisport athletes or cyclists. They really do. but, they are stopped, by one thing:
SADDLE ISSUES.
(scary dramatic music here: Dun dun DUNNNNNNNNNNNN)
So, women athletes out there, tell us: What do you use to make long rides more comfortable? What do you do about chaffing? How do you
handle bruising?I'll go out on a limb here and extend the invitation to be brutally honest by being honest myself: I've had races, even sprints, where I finished with everything from feeling bruised to actually having skin missing.
Yeah. Down there.
It happens more in the aero position than not and I've tried various things: saddles, cremes, etc. With varying degrees of success. I'm still working on the problem. Other women whisper to me at races or in the locker room or email me and tell me that although they are fit and/or willing participants, and do long-distance cycling even, that they have these problems as well. Girl problems. Side effects that, quite frankly, make the experience of cyclist much less pleasant than it should be.
So, I KNOW I'm not the only one whose had these issues. But it's rarely written about openly. Oh, there are some veiled references to "soft tissues" here and there, but I don't see much. Much of the advice I see seems to be written more for men, who don't, um, have places for powders and cremes and such to go into and perhaps cause problems.
I cannot believe I'm about to talk about this publicly.
My contribution:
I read recently and article that said that ladies should avoid using, day-to-day, anything that is "warming" down there as a product at any time as it may include honey and/or capsacin, and avoid ever using anything with glycerine in it (like KY)
Why? Glycerine and honey provide, um, er, nutrition, apparently, for bacteria and yeasts, which can cause chronic irritation. As can capsacin. This in turn to make the whole, uh, area
(Okay, it's not as easy for me to talk about this part of my body as it is some others, this is ReALLY hard for me to do)
okay. So these ingredients can make your, um, special place irritated and less, shall we say, sturdy when engaging in things like, um, cycling.
Apparently, menopause and pre-menopause play a role, too, in the, um, condition of skin down, um, there (GAWD, this is hard for me to do...)
So I'm invited all women who've experience and maybe conquered this, in part or whole, to contribute their SADDLE WISDOM. Women cyclists, triathletes, and randonneurs, go ahead.
(Please. I'm excrutiatingly embarassed at what I've already written...don't leave me hanging...)
