Swimming day 506 - Tuesday 26th June 2012

Continuous skin friction can produce skin damage or abrasions of variable severity. This starts at the surface involving the epidermis first. If it goes deeper into the dermis, it can produce severe pain – similar to a burn – and/or bleeding. Below the dermis sits a layer of fat. If the skin is well-padded or the fat layer is thick, the skin protrudes. This exposes more skin to friction and produces more severe “burns”. In other words, more slender people report that they are less likely to abrade."

Ouch!!  Yesterday after our quick and long swim I had some chaffing under my right arm; caused no doubt by the amount of swimming and training I have been doing lately, mixed in with a choppy sea and me powering along as fast as I could and maintaining the speed throughout.  It was really red and felt like a sunburn.  The plan this morning was to apply some Vaseline to the area and not swim at quite the same pace.  Naturally with this in mind all night, I got to the arch (with sleep deprivation as Mia was next to me all night and coughing and kicking me throughout) , got changed, walked into the sea and was two minutes into my swim before I realised – bugger, I forgot the Vaseline!  Oh well I thought at least I’ll take it easy today which will help; mmm, maybe not.  With such a gloriously flat sea and a tide pushing to the West, Bob and I swam against the tide to the East, from our beach under the pier.  Around four buoys and back to the shore; at a really good pace; possibly the fastest I’ve fun so far during the last two years.  Ouch ouch ouch.  The patch under my right arm was literally pulsing and sitting here at my desk it feels like arm and my side are sticking together each time they touch.

Tomorrow is a pool day so no salt water; however I wonder how the chlorine will react to it.  Definitely going to smother it is Vaseline though (I shall not forget, I shall not forget will be my nightime mantra!). 

I’m at the gym after work with Ross so will have to also be careful not to do stuff that will aggravate I and I think I’ll definitely lay off the Vasa training tonight.

Oh the joys of being an athlete !