Sounds like a porn intro doesn't it? well it is a very real thing when you run with any sort of regularity and there are a couple of ways to avoid it but if you are a normie like me, you don' really feel all that comfortable running without a shirt on.... not to mention the fact that depending on where you live it is more than likely frowned upon to do so.
Here is what you can do to prevent it.
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The above is pretty extreme, but i'll go ahead and admit that something similar has happened to me on a number of occasions and normally it was because i decided to run a bit further than I had originally planned or sweat at lot more than I had intended to.
This phenomenon happens because no matter whether you are male or female, your shirt is going to rub up against your body when you run and for everyone, this might start out as being mildly uncomfortable and gradually work its way up to very painful. It can take days to recover from this, if not longer because basically you have cut yourself on one of the most sensitive parts of your body - whether you care to admit it or not.
Vaseline
Vaseline works wonders. The only problem is that since it is a petroleum product it can be quite difficult to actually get off of your body once the run is finished. I have used this to prevent chafing when i was swimming as well. Almost nothing gets it off of you afterwards. Soap has little to no effect on moving it. For me, this isn't that big of a deal because if it sticks around, I don't really give a damn. Just do your best. This is probably the cheapest and easiest option and i'll admit that it is the one that I use most often.
Band Aids / Plasters
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You might feel a little bit silly wearing these on your nipply bits, but no one will see them anyway and they do the job. They cover the area and will stay in place.
There are a couple of caveats though: If you have a hairy chest (and hopefully are a man if this is the case) they will fall off when you get sweaty. This will negate the protection and it can actually make things feel worse because you were expecting protection only to have it disappear 5k into your run. You could always shave to prevent this but I suppose this all depends on how dedicated you are to the sport
Avoid cotton
There are a ton of materials out there that exercise equipment is made of and cotton is probably the worst. I'm not going to try to play scientist here but I speak from experience when I say that other fabrics do a much better job of keeping moisture out of the fabric (the moisture being your own sweat in most cases) and therefore the chafing never has an opportunity to develop and then you wont have a problem
Of course there is my favorite option which is to "suck it up buttercup" and just accept the fact that pain is part of exercise. The only problem with this approach is that for some reason this particular pain is something that for some reason hurts a lot worse than most other things do and it is exactly for that reason that I use one or more of the above in my running regime especially if it is a group event.
If you are new to the sport (running) you will eventually experience it and trust me when I say it is not pleasant and will affect you negatively in many ways after your run is long over...especially when you take that post run shower and it feels like someone stabbed you twice in the chest.
It might be better to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Maybe I have been lucky, but I have yet to experience this even after 2+ hour runs. I wear 'technical' shirts that don't seem to rub too much. I had heard of this issue before I started running. I have to imagine running is a different experience for those with more front body mass (male or female). I'm pretty skinny.
!BEER
Yes, that is probably a factor. I am pretty "chesty" because before I started running I only trained on weights so it really sucks for me. The special shirts certainly would help but one of my worst experiences of this was during a race where we were required to wear the official shirt of the event and they apparently used a very terrible material because I wanted to sue them for nipple trauma afterwards :P
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