What Not to Wear: Episode 2

My clothing incident from last weekend got me thinking about some of my other wardrobe malfunctions.

I think by far the worst was during the Emerald City Quarter Marathon last year. I have a favorite sports bra that I absolutely love but haven't been able to find anything that I like equally so that bra is pretty gnarly looking. I finally did some online research and found the exact same bra and ordered it. Following my own advice of "nothing new on race day," I wore the bra for a couple of trainings outside and it worked fine.

Then the humidity hit. If you remember, it was crazy humid during that event. There was no air movement for the first couple miles. I didn't mention it in my race recap because it was kind of embarrassing at the time. ( Now I figure, why not embarrass myself and my loved ones by talking about my gross marathon side effects on the internet. ) The bra started to bug me in that first mile. I thought maybe the band was twisted and not laying flat on my body. I started to mess with it a little around mile 2, trying not to look like I was fondling myself. I gave up and forgot about it. It wasn't painful, I just knew something wasn't quite right.

Once I got home and climbed into the shower. I am not kidding when I say that I yelped and instantly had tears in my eyes when the water hit my skin. Further investigation of the "sports bra area" revealed that I was bleeding. That damn sports bra had rubbed all the skin off a very sensitive area. I had to wear band aids for several days while the skin healed! I was explaining my troubles to The Pilot (who doesn't race with the exception of two 5ks we did together) and he looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. That same look I get from people when they find out that marathons sometimes lose their toe nails. The "why on Earth would anyone want to inflict these injuries on themselves" look. This is most definitely not a glamorous sport.

Once healed, I tried the bra a couple more times thinking maybe it was destined to be a really short distance bra....like just wear it for a couple miles during the week at the gym. But I discovered I simply cannot sweat in that bra. I'm not sure what's different about that bra because the old one still doesn't give me any trouble. I can't wear the newer one for even a mile on the treadmill without getting really uncomfortable. I had to cut a workout short one day because I could feel it rubbing again and I certainly didn't want to end up wearing band aids on the girls again. So it was off to the donation pile for that one and I'm back to wearing the old standby.

If you have any recommendations for a good sports bra, please comment!! That old standby bra is on its last legs and I really need to find something else that works. And please don't suggest the cheap C9 Champion from Target. They just don't "hold up" if you know what I mean. I need the "high impact" variety. I tried a few on at the store the other day and had a slight hissy fit in the dressing room. Whomever designed a sports bra with seams running along the middle of the cups certainly isn't an endurance athlete. Seams are the devil for endurance athletes.