You might begin running and nothing strange happens (other than being more tired than usual and maybe a lot sorer). Suddenly things happen. New things even happen to seasoned runners even though they cannot identify any change in gear or routine. What kinds of things? Let’s talk man talk for a while.
How about bleeding nipples? You finish your run, perhaps the best run in a long time and you wonder why people are staring at you in shock and horror. You look down and you see blood leaking through your tee shirt from – you guessed it – male nipples rubbed raw by your shirt and suddenly the embarrassment and pain sinks in. You go home and take a shower and now you know the agony of soap on abraded nipples. The next time you go out you shave your chest so you can put band-aids on your nipples, lather them with zinc oxide or body glide, or use those nipple caps you saw at the running store. You know, the ones that made you scoff and giggle.
Lets talk woman talk now. Those women who are averagely or less endowed, have “no” problems, but those women who have breasts that are large have big problems. (You may now laugh at that for a while. OK, stop laughing now and read on). Running and having your breasts bounce up and down is no problem for a few steps, but ask any woman who has run any distance about the pain caused by excessive bouncing in that department. Clearly I am no expert and I am sure a woman could comment on this with far greater passion and accuracy, but I do know women who cannot find adequate affordable support. The solution is to find the best support one can afford, then wrap a tensor bandage over top to prevent them from bouncing while running. It’s cheap and it works. My wife says that so-called “sports bras” are bullshit and more about fashion than utility.
Now that I’ve dealt with gender specific issues, let get general. You will undoubtedly discover many new and interesting areas of your body that you wish you had put body glide or “baby sauce” (such as zinc oxide or vaseline) before you began that long hot run in the sun. Body Glide is a brand name of a ridiculously expensive (but highly effective) gel designed to reduce abrasion. Zinc Oxide for babies works great and is ridiculously cheap, but can have the drawback of altering the color of your clothing. Which is OK if you don’t care what color your nether regions are. Or don’t wear black running shorts. Whatever.
You will find that, that toe nail you mis-trimmed has interestingly enough, gouged a hole in the soft fleshy part of your adjacent toe and that’s why the blood is seeping through your nice shiny new white breathable shoe tops. I won’t mention the part where you hobble the rest of the way toward the finish line. A lot of runners lose a toenail altogether as it turns black with occluded blood and eventually falls off. I understand they grow back. I don’t have that problem because my shoes have huge boxes on them and my toes do not rub against the tops. At least not enough yet to cause me that problem in spite of my running marathon distances in the hot sun. But I have self mutilated myself a few times by gouging out holes in adjacent toes for the above reasons. A small bandade on the offending toe nail works well.
Remember that Velcro strap accessory you stuck on your running belt? Well your shirt rode up just a little and a small bit of that Velcro began rubbing the place on your side where your skin used to be. It’s amazing what you don’t notice in the heat of a run.
So you are out on a nice 20 km road run, training for that marathon. Suddenly you really wish you could find a bathroom somewhere because (especially for new runners who have also altered their diet as part of a new routine) your bowels have suddenly decided to rebel. And that coffee you had for breakfast is now screaming to get out and there is no where to go without also getting arrested.
Good thing you brought your emergency cell phone so your sympathetic buddy can quickly bail you out of your run, pick you up in the car and race you to the nearest facility.
You start planning for that. Very carefully planning. You make sure you are up and finished coffee and breakfast at least two hours before a run. (Your time may vary depending on your own unique circumstances). I know a few runners with irritable bowel syndrome (the intensity of the symptoms vary of course) and I’m really glad I am not them because I do not have their courage and determination to let nothing stop them. I understand some of them run with protection, but again, it’s not something I have any real experience with. I just know that even healthy people have problems when running long distances away from you know what.
What else can go wrong? Lots of things. Maybe you start out fine, then a quarter of the way through your run you feel suddenly weak and dizzy and you wonder what’s going on and are you dying from a heart attack or what the heck? No worries. It’s just low blood sugar. But I should leave room for other more experienced runners to describe their own trials and tribulations here.
Let me finish this off with a tip for new runners regarding how far you can run, how fast, and how much you can increase as you progress. First of all, start slowly. Do not run fast. If you can’t run, then walk. Run for 10 or 50 feet then stop and walk quickly to recover from that run. When you feel recovered, run a short distance again. Start with a total distance of one or two miles or kilometers and work your way up to 5 kilometers. While you are waiting in the weeks you are working up to that you can read books on how to train for whatever age group you are in. Educate yourself, because – trust me – you know nothing about running, you just think you do. Do not run as fast as you think you feel comfortable because you don’t know what comfortable means. I’ll tell you what it means now. It means, like Kelly said, to run so you can still breath comfortably and still be able to hold a conversation.
To avoid injury, a well known “rule of thumb” is to not increase your effort by more than 10% per week. You don’t want to be injured. Having said that, everyone I know who has ever run has ignored this rule at one time or another and they all got injured. So what does 10% mean? It means you may increase your distance OR your pace by 10% maximum in a training week but NOT BOTH. So if you have been running 10 km, you may run 11 km next week. Or if you run 70 km one week you may run 77 km the next. If you want to run faster you may increase your pace by 10% but not your distance. So if you run a 10 minute mile, you may try to run a 9 minute mile. It’s best in my opinion to run 3 weeks and in the fourth week you reduce your effort by 10% or more in order to rest and heal up from your previous 3 weeks of training. I chose 10% here as an arbitrary number, you may do much less than that. I am no expert and I have no formal training in any medical or sports field so be sure to get professional advice which is readily available from numerous free sources. The idea is to rest and heal up, so that in the next 3 week interval you can do more. And, I’m not even going to begin to talk about how important properly fitted running shoes are. All this stuff is online in endless variety so Google yourself into a running frenzy and you’ll never look back.