That is the question I was faced with as the deadline for early registration for my school's Homecoming 5k loomed about 45 minutes away. I have not been feeling up to jogging/power walking or really much of anything these last two weeks. However, I should probably find some motivation to get up and get moving.I think I've finally turned the flare-ish stuff around. I woke up not only in the green this morning but at 90% PF & FEV1. That was the one thing that was lagging behind these last few days was my FEV1 and I could feel it. I was also just plum tuckered out from the week of less than great breathing. Hopefully, a good night's sleep will come tonight to close my first (fingers crossed) ventolin-free day in almost 2 weeks.

I'm hoping if all goes well that I will be able to get back to some semi-vigorous pounding of the pavement tomorrow. I was doing pretty solid 16 minute mile 2.6ish mile(4.2ish km) walk/jogs before hormones tanked the lungs into purgatory for a good 10 days.  In the interim I've acquired a new toy: Nike + to go with my iPod nano (in case you couldn't guess from the picture). I can't wait to try it out and see it in action! All in all I'd like to go under 40 minutes for the 5k. However, it is October 16th which is fast approaching. I'm not sure if I can get myself going quick that soon. As usual mind over matter but carefully engaged with the lungs.

I'm not sure if this is a dumb idea to try to throw together a 5k training session into 18 days. I'll try my best. If nothing else I'll power walk it and still make it across the finish line. Hopefully the cooler fall weather will make it slightly easier to complete than my July yellow air quality 85F at 8am 5k that I did. Normally as long as the leaves don't mold fall is a nice time for me breathing wise(the last two weeks hopefully being an anomaly).  We'll take it slow and steady and most likely won't win the race but that's okay. I can only hope it's not like last year which was in the 40's when the race started. Average for this part of the country for that time of the year is 40's for lows and 60's for highs. I don't mind the cooler temperature I just don't want to have to wear sweats in public! Of course I really need to figure out what my cold weather on the bottom strategy is for running/walking. Since as long as it is not icy I'm willing to run up to a certain point with the wind speed and air temperature factored in. Generally around 10F(-12C) the lungs start to whine at me about outdoor exertion and at about -5F(-20C) they whine about being outside what-so-ever.

In non-running related Asthma stuff I'm trying out one of the free iPhone App's (yes, I know I'm too addicted to Apple products), AsthmaMD. I downloaded it last night while I was trying to fall asleep despite my lungs not behaving.  My first impression is that it is probably not my speed. I'm not really liking how I can't enter custom zones for my PF's. It's cool that they are using the data to research patterns, etc in Asthma on a huge scale. However, I'm not sure if the App is gonna be a hit for me. I'll let you all know what I think of it once I've messed around a little more.