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| It didn’t hurt at the time… |
I found these on my chest after my half marathon last weekend. They’re caused by my heart rate monitor strap, which apparently has a slight design flaw that allows it to move too much when I’m running. It’s no problem when cycling, and hasn’t showed up when running any distance up to 8 miles, but anything further, and it becomes an issue.
It’s still a bit novel to me, the little things you discover when endurance training and racing. When you’re running a 5k, or racing in a sprint bicycle race, there are a lot of things that simply don’t come into play. A shoe tied slightly too tight, a wheel a little out of true, or a shirt that doesn’t fit quite perfectly won’t bother you over a half hour, or even an hour. But when you start getting around 2 hours or more, every tiny little thing starts to make a huge difference. It’s taught me to sweat the small stuff with my prep, and pay attention to every little detail. The details will help my shorter races, to be sure, but I never would have found them without riding and running far beyond what I had ever thought possible.