Biker Butt has Garlic Remedy

By the time I finished training for Ironman Louisville, 2009, I could have ridden the bike portion naked, or heck, even smuggled rusty railroad spikes across cobblestone streets on a Belgian border town. My butt had suffered hundreds of hours of saddle-time...and at great expense. The '09 season introduced me to my first ever case of hemorrhoids.

What's tougher than spelling hemmorhoids is enduring them. They didn't just hurt while riding, but they were keeping me awake with their itchiness. I remembered commercials from when I was a kid, where a cowboy would whistle for his horse and then jump spread eagle, landing his sweet man-spot right on the bridge of the horse. "Ouhhhh, my hemorrhoids are killing me." As a kid, I never even knew what they were, but I liked the commercial and I remembered the product. (Wow, the power humor in advertising.

Of course, there were some preventative measures that I neglected, like lubricants and fewer hours on the bike. If hindsight is 20/20,  then sight of my hind was hovering at 0/666. It's funny how this mostly invisible shadow of your body can move front and center to become a vanity issue.

My friend and fellow cyclist/small biz owner (massage therapist), Andrew, told me that he always got laughs at this when he would tell the Major Taylors Cycling Club, that there was an old remedy to stick a peeled garlic clove straight up the man-hole. They still give him hell for it. All I can say is that I am so proud that Andrew had the balls to ever try. He knows all kinds of natural remedies.

THE REMEDY
All I did was peel a medium sized clove, put a teeny bit of olive oil on it...and "swallow".

On the scale of discomfort, it was only slightly annoying--like the feeling of having a booger, and only for about one hour before I went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I felt no garlic intruder. In fact, I felt only that my hemorrhoid had subsided and was no longer itchy. When I did my daily number two later that day, there was no problem "uncorking the bottle." The garlic clove popped right out along with some really great humanure. 

I thought I had been cured once and for all. But unfortunately, all it would take is a bike ride or a long run to get the little devil to flair up again. Therefore, I had to do the garlic routine a couple of times per week whenever it bothered me.

Now that I've been focusing more on my running and re-inventing my relationship with my bike (post Susie's bike crash), I have had no problems in my nether-region. So, I try to stick to taking my garlic normally-- down the hatch rather than up.

Garlic is amazing.

Me at the zoo, with biker butt.