5 Things Female Runners Should Know About Their Private Parts

Don’t blush. If you want to get the most out of every run, you need to think through how running affects your whole body. Here are five things every female runner should know about the relationship between running and her need-to-mention unmentionables.

Discharge Is Normal
If you get home from a run to find more discharge than usual in your shorts, don’t panic, said Julie M. Levitt, M.D., a 15-time marathoner and board-certified ob-gyn with the Women's Group of Northwestern in Chicago. While running doesn’t actually make your body produce more vaginal discharge, it does make you expel more.

“When you exert yourself physically, you’re going to experience an increase in intra-abdominal pressure,” Levitt said. Plus, high-impact exercises like running work a lot like hitting a ketchup bottle on the end. And all of that pressure results in things coming out.

If you find midrun discharge uncomfortable, Levitt recommends wearing a thin panty liner in your underwear or running shorts’ built-in briefs. However, if you notice that the increase in discharge continues for days or weeks after a run, or it’s accompanied by redness or itching, it might be clue that you have a yeast, bacterial, or pH imbalance down there. Read on for more on that.

Running Can Increase Your Risk of Yeast Infections
As you probably already know, crotch sweat is a real thing for runners. That’s what happens when you work out hard with your thighs rubbing together 180 times per minute. If you don’t dry off from all of that sweat (and discharge) quickly, it’s easy for your natural vaginal yeast to grow and multiply, resulting in yeast infections, discomfort, and a whole lot of itching, said gynecologist Alyssa Dweck, M.D., assistant clinical professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and coauthor of V is for Vagina.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW

Decrease your risk by wearing a synthetic garment that is made of sweat-wicking, Dri-FIT, or anti-bacterial material, Levitt said. Also, keep in mind that cotton and organic fibers tend to trap more moisture than do synthetic ones. And, no matter what you wear on a run, Dweck recommends showering, or at least change out of your sweaty threads as soon as you’ve cooled down.

Breasts (of Any Size) Can Throw Off Form
While large breasts can move more than five inches up and down in a given step, even small breasts can endure a huge amount of force when running, said sports physiotherapist Deirdre McGhee, Ph.D., a researcher with Breast Research Australia at the University of Wollongong. “Women need to think not just about the magnitude of movement, but also the frequency. If you are running for hours every week, your breasts are bouncing tens of thousands of times. All of that force adds up.”