By Christopher Cudworth

Imagine if you were a turtle and had an itch inside your shell. Good luck scratching that.

For all the hi-tech gear now on the market designed to protect the body from cold, wick sweat and heat and compress the muscles for greater performance, there are still moments in training and racing when the unthinkable happens. You get an itch

Itches are among the strangest sensations known to humankind. They can be pressing and painful or they can be ephemeral and unreachable. In either case an itch can be a real pain. Perhaps you know the feeling of an itch that can’t be scratched or won’t go away. You rub and claw but it keeps coming back.

Or, it’s an itch with a history…

Lance and his pants

An itchy Lance would scratch his pants.

Cyclist Lance Armstrong (set aside the whole scandal for a moment, this is a story about itches, not drugs) had some kind of itch that seemed to crop up only during time trials. He’d be hammering along and suddenly something in the region of his left buttock and hip joint would start to itch him. He’d be piling along at 35 mph or whatever while reaching back to itch the side of his butt. It happened almost every time he got on his time trial bike. Lance got the itch. Perhaps it was a nerve pinched by the aggressive time trial position. Or perhaps he was signaling to drop a bag of oxygen-infused blood into his water bottle. We may never know.

But at least the itch Lance had was a publicly scratchable itch. Which is far, far better than an itch down “there.” That would have been quite the sight on global TV, the world’s best cyclist (however doped or not) standing up in the saddle to scratch his button hole. How would Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin have handled that little scene? Talk about itching to win 7 Tours…

Special itches for bastards and bitches

Of course an itchy butt is just one of the many types of itches that can scratch your performance as you run or ride. Men have special itches. So do women. All it takes is a mistake in forgetting to wash your gear and you can wind up itching for a week or more from jock itch or something worse, crotch rot. Those types of itches can be a real pain.

An itch can be something smaller and still drive you nuts. No pun intended.

Every little thing…

All it takes is the itchy, scratching edge of a tag on the back of a shirt to drive you crazy. You slap it and rub it and still the itch comes back. Some people have been known to tear off garments in frustration if the itchiness will not abate. Have you been there? Done that? I know I have. Stopped completely. Turned off my stopwatch and carefully tore away the stupid tag on the back of a singlet because it was itched a spot between my shoulder blades. It simple had to go or I could not keep running.

When an itch is actually a pain

An itch can become a pain. There is actually an unofficial point where an acute itch moves over to a realm where you can no longer tell what it is. When that happens when you’re in motion, it can really throw off your rhythm.

A really severe itch can be distracting enough to undermine your performance in training or racing. Anything itchy in your running shorts can make cause you to repeatedly adjust the shorts and throw off your stride as you strive to contain the itchy sensation.

C’mon, you all know what a pain an itch can be. Just get a cast on your leg for that ankle problem and find out how frustrating it can be to have an itch on your calf that you can’t reach. You’ll jam anything down their to scratch it. Soda straws. Combs. The house cat. Lighter fluid and a match. Please God just stop the itching!

Itches you can’t avoid

Worse yet, if you have naturally itchy skin or suffer from allergies, there are situations where you know the itch will not go away any time soon.

On a bike that can mean 3-5 sold hours of solid, itchy misery. If you wear the wrong kit on a hot day, for example, the itch can build up around the fabric breaks and wear your skin into a raw rash or a saddle sore. There’s a fine line between an itch and a wound in many cases.

People sensitive to latex or other materials in their garments have been known to break out in itchy hives. Folding back the latex bands along the thighs and arms may help, but it may not.

Even washing your stuff in the wrong laundry detergent can turn a normally comfortable garment into an itchy torture device. And don’t tumble dry your performance tees or good lycra cycling kits. That can curl the fibers and turn them into what feels like fiberglass. Better to line dry anything that costs over $30.

Inside out itches

The ultimate itch is the itch that gets inside your body and vexes you outward. A female distance running teammate was once training with the men’s squad when she felt the urge to urinate. She pulled back, dropped her shorts and did her business in the ditch. But then she wiped with poison ivy. Two days later her entire body was covered in itching, oozing rashes. Yet she kept training and placed 3^rd in the Chicago marathon in just under 3 hours. She also ran 2:56 in Grandma’s Marathon.

She sure showed determination running with that poison ivy . For weeks she ran with bandaged hands and layers of pink medicine all over her body. But when you have the itch to compete it can even surpass the itch to crawl away somewhere and die.

But it’s a fine line sometimes. A fine line indeed. May you never have the itch to cross it.