Friday, September 25, 2015

Chubby Runner Problems

In an effort to motivate my husband, I offered to go with him when I forced him out of the house to do C25K. He complained and got crabby, but we made it to the park down the road after dinner. I turned on the app and we got going.

As I suspected, despite the fact that I often take more steps in a day than he walks in a week, his 6'2" body will just naturally go faster than the legs that come with my 5'2" body. I think the first few one minute runs he was going as fast as 6 mph. Even his walking pace put me to shame. However, I could see that it was quickly catching up with him. After the first few intervals he asked me to push the stroller.

The loop around the park is 3/4 of a mile. After the first loop I offered to take our son to the playground so my husband could keep going. I can honestly say this is not laziness on my part- my son has difficulty being confined and I could tell he was already getting bored.

But to get to the complaint the title of this post references... shorts. I see all of these runners at races in their short shorts- which I understand, I would LOVE to be able to wear shorts when I run. BUT, shorts are something that I am unable to wear. For the first few months when I started running I had just had a child, but even before that I felt so chubby that I didn't think I should show my legs in public. Why wearing workout pants that are nylon or spandex and fairly form-fitting is so much better than shorts? That I can't answer. But somehow showing the skin crossed the line.

This past summer I worked up the nerve to buy a pair of running shorts now that I was down 30 pounds or so. I brought them home and tried running up and down our long hall with them. They had spandex built in under the top layer, which seemed to solve all my problems! That week I tried to squeeze in a short run before dinner, so I thought I would try them out. Epic fail. As soon as I started going that spandex rolled up and the top material bunched up. I was showing FULL leg. I might have been able to live with the exposure if that didn't mean my thighs immediately started rubbing together. I can't say I started chaffing, but I didn't give my legs the opportunity to do that to each other. I turned right around and walked home.

So on this run with my husband I thought, why not try them again? Since I'm down 5-10 pounds from last time, surely this has to go better? Even though I wear the shorts around when I run errands and always have to pull the spandex down, somehow there will be a different outcome.

Well, the outcome was the same. I don't know why I bothered. And I can't help but wonder, how much weight do I need to lose in order for shorts to function properly when I run? And can I lose that amount? I ask this when I just had a work-provided lunch of a Potbelly sandwich, chips, and a giant cookie...

On a related note, I have these awesome C9 leggings or tights I wear to run in the winter. They are awesome, my legs are never cold. However, what I have discovered through several very nearly embarrassing sets of trial and error is that they fall down. Without fail. UNLESS, I wear cotton granny panties. And I say cotton because I haven't really gone through the effort to acquire granny panties in other materials.

Now, I don't know if this is a chubby girl problem, a flaw with the pants, or a general runner problem? I love the pants otherwise. And I can say that no amount of running around in my house allows me to identify this issue. Somehow going further without taking off the tag makes me feel bad, like going that 100 feet will cause me to have microscopic sweat that gets on the pants.

But, I haven't lost enough weight to make shorts an option, and I haven't gone down a size yet in the running tights. So for now, I will have to live with apparel not really designed for people of my build!

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