Burning up!

I knew there was a reason why I shouldn't run in shorts. I've never really done it before, because of the knowledge of how painful chafed thighs can be when the shorts ride up in the middle between fat legs and reveal acres of white, pasty flab which then rub against each other. But recently I bought myself some running shorts, and I've started wearing them to the gym. They're the tight sort so I'm not sure whether I'd still have chafing problems with something looser and shorter (I'm hoping not), but it's quite a revelation to get my legs out in the gym without causing people to run screaming. I feel a lot more comfortable running in them too.

Anyway, today I was doing a hill workout and was aiming for about 45 minutes (I'm seriously considering setting my alarm half an hour earlier for the earlier bus as I just don't have time to run for an hour on the bus I catch at the moment), when after 5.5k the fire alarm went off. I don't think it was because of the amount of fat being burned or the smoke building up on the treadmill as I raced along, but you never can tell. I'm fairly sure it wasn't anything to do with the friction caused by my thighs, at least.

Believe me, standing on a street corner in Leeds at 8am in shorts and a t-shirt while dripping with sweat is not recommended. After a while I managed to huddle myself in one of those foil blankets with some other people from the gym, but it wasn't the highlight of my morning.

I'm very proud of myself though. Because of the timing of the alarm I knew that everyone would head for the showers rather than back to the gym once they got back in, so I decided to let the rush ease a bit and do 10 more minutes of 1 minute speed intervals on the treadmill before showering, bringing my overall run to only a bit shorter than my target (at 7.55k rather than 8ish) despite the disruption.

So shorts are good for the gym, but watch out for fire alarms...