. I was just so worn out from work and class and everything. The last 36hrs or so I've been brewing a nice flare after having my period last week on top of some ?fall allergy? conguestion. The conguestion has apparently migrated down into the lungs and is not playing nice. It feels like I'm running a 5k.

So I ended up doing a little impromptu exercise with my friend Ryan this evening. We decided to go for a jog. Which seemed like a good idea at the time, we had somewhere to be, and both of us are trying to get in shape. It is a little colder than it has been recently outside but still above freezing, between that an a lack of warm up and premedication I got to the last little stretch and was audibly wheezing, which never happens. Ryan was a little freaked out by this, also my inhaler and spacer seemingly came out of nowhere. I have forgotten that it is scary to other people when you can't breathe. I wasn't particularly worried yes I wasn't feeling great but I've def been worse. I took two hits and we went into our destination.

Later this evening he was asking me if I thought it was scary or if I was afraid to run because of it. And I was like no, I normally don't have problems and I carry my inhaler/epipens. It's no fun to live in fear, plus there is too much going on to let asthma get in the way. Now that he kind of understands what to expect and that I'm most likely not dying, he's a lot better about it. The lungs have perked up now. 

This is how I did last night. Under the snow on my shoes there is  hopefully a still working Nike+ sensor. I really had quite a pleasant run in the snow with a few layers on. The lungs were quite happy campers, I kept them warm with fleece balaclava. It was also just a few degrees below freezing so pretty nice outside and made nice fluffy snow. Quite refreshing to have a different running experience. I really enjoyed the crunch of fresh unpacked snow under my feet. It also isn't slick really hardly at all too run on which is a nice plus. Overall I'm feeling fairly confident about my running abilities. I won't be able to run the whole race but I don't have delusions that high. Realistically I'm just looking to keep an average sub 15min mile. Which I'm hoping is doable. I won't win any medals but I probably won't have the honor of finishing dead last like the last race I was in. Ultimately, I'm excited to have the chance to get out there and go, cause if you'd told me last year that I'd run in 4 inches of snow while 2 more inches were coming down I'd have told you you're nuts! This early March 5 mile definitely has kept me going through the winter. The next training trajectory is a Couch to 5k to try to get my walk to run ratio tipping more towards running than it already does.

On the asthma front my almost complete ignoring of the lungs for 2-3 months seems to have proved just fine. I'm still hitting low to mid 600's actually a bit above my PB from a few months ago. It's been really nice to ignore things for more or less 12 hours at a time. And all but forget about my peakflow meter. Best idea in the world probably not, but sometimes I just need a break from being 'sick' and winter is the time for that for me. I am starting to get back towards the habit of obsessively charting my peakflows and inhaler usage. I've had one or two blips but I've been reminded just how crappy 70 something percent feels.

Now for the bad news, I felt fine yesterday, today I'm sneezing and mucused up to wazzoo... I think I'm getting a cold or something. Hopefully not the flu. I'm hoping to thwart it and escape the steroids. I've been behaving myself, inhaling copious quantities of ventolin, drinking fluids, not going out and partying/drinking, and sinus washing. All the stuff you're supposed to do. I've got nothing to do this weekend so I may crawl into bed with my laptop and just kind of lay there quite a bit. We'll see how things go.

I've got three weeks under my belt of 8k training as of late we've been thawing pretty nicely. Gotta love shorts and a singlet to train in February. My number should be coming in the next week or two. I'm excited to race with chip timing and the longer distance.

The goal is under 90 minutes to finish. Which I proved today is pretty doable. I did 3.75 miles at 1:30:2 pace. Not too shabby. My lungs were definitely not happy campers. It was a bit humid for them and I'm also on the blank week of birth control. Thus two puffs before heading out two puffs during. Came home little sob but could tell if it was asthma or just workout. Oh Hai 450 pf (somewhere in the 70s didn't do the exact math). Bounced back to 635 a few hours and 6 total puffs of ventolin for the day.

Not only were the lungs kind of tight the legs were too. Clearly I need to do some more stretching or something. Oddly my right foot fell asleep for a good .5 mile. Which slowed me down for fear of misstepping or it giving out on me.

I'm Orange Now on Nike+ :)

All in all my runs have done good for the mental health just being able to get out there and get going. I am definitely feeling slow and not running as much as I'd like but I don't want to push too hard and get hurt/sick.
PS I'll add some pictures later when I'm not doing this from my phone. Pictures added 2/25

This has not been a weekend of particularly smart asthma moves. Part of it is that I haven't really had to deal with too much of anything asthma-wise in about 3.5 months. I've been on autopilot, wake up 2 puffs of symbicort and an allegra down the hatch. Ignore asthma/allergies for the next ~12 hours 2 more puffs symbicort. Lather Rinse Repeat. It's been quite nice to not have to sneak much Ventolin, and I've also gotten lazy and quit taking peakflows at any regular interval. With the lungs behaving I haven't really felt the need to chart their progress obsessively.  Minor asthmaland rule infraction there. I will work on it.

So dumb move of the weekend #1: on Friday night I was out at the far away parking lot which is about .5 km from my ResHall. It was 14F/-10C outside, and about 9 minutes to Midnight. The doors to the ResHall except the front door lock at midnight thus making me have to go around the entire building twice if I didn't make it in by midnight. With no pre-medication and not having had my evening Symbicort dose, I made the run for it. Got there in about 4:30 which was good. However, I got to my room and was feeling pretty crappy. Hit up the Peakflow, oh hai 67% long time no see. Couple puffs of Ventolin, 2 of Symbicort, and a nights' sleep and I was feeling better. Yes, I know my bad, asthmaland prohibits the quick footwork in the cold weather without placating the lungs with some Ventolin.

Second rule violation of asthmaland this weekend: Alcohol during the super-bowl. I tend to have asthma troubles from consuming alcohol the next day. I don't get "hungover" in the traditional sense. I get what I term to a friend or two an 'asthma-hangover'. It's the joyous experience of waking up with an elephant on your chest, shallowly breathing  shards of glass. I had some vodka while I was watching the Super-bowl at my friend's place. I had about 2 shots worth of it over the course of the entire Superbowl. At most I was slightly buzzed. I did not really cross into any heavy level of intoxication. However, I assure you I paid for it this morning. I've learned my lesson and will repent from my bad habits this weekend.

In other news, I've also been trying to break my caffeinated soda-pop habit. I'm on day 7. I still consume caffeine in the forms of tea and dark chocolate.  I also got a new Nike + sensor to replace my dead/lost one. Not really sure where it got off to but it's MIA and will probably resurface now that I've got a replacement.

So I'm up and jittery from taking enough albuterol to open up the lungs and stop coughing 'em up. I hate how this always happens to me the night before an early morning. Never the night before I can sleep in. Alas, I digress... Murphy's Law of Asthma, I suppose. So for the record my lungs apparently really do not approve of me going outside in the thunder and rain with a high level mold count. I did get to whip out my JedInhaler at Six Flags which was pretty epic. I got some strange looks. I'm not sure if that was because of the spacer or the stickers on the inhaler. My friend and I went to see Jeremy Camp's concert. Which was epic, he really rocks it out for Jesus. (Picture to follow on my 365 once my hands stop shaking enough to connect all the connections needed to upload pics :P ).
On another random note, a friend wants me to do a fundraiser walk for depression with her. It's 5k, I feel fairly confident in my ability to do the walk. Other than the fact that I've pretty well been not up to working out for the last like 2 weeks. If I'm going to do this I do need to start getting up off my buns and working out a bit in the next few weeks (It's on the 14th of August). One thing I learned from the 5k run I did was that I need to inquire about the balloon usage at the walk. if it's like 2 in an open air area of the thing I can deal with it (ie don't stand down wind of them) but if they are gonna be all over then it's a no go.
Anyway I should stop rambling and attempt to sleep. Hopefully this is coherent if not blame the 4 puffs of albuterol currently charging their way through my system.

So I'm hormonal, which normally turns me into a mess asthma control wise. I pretty much spend the whole week waking up half way through the night taking some puffs of ventolin and sleeping til about 20-60 min before my morning symbicort dose is due. Then I spend most of the rest of the day with the ventolin every four hours (you could set a clock w/ my lungs). So this month I got my symbicort dose up as a trial, which has helped immensely. However, I was tired of being home this evening. So I decided a bike ride was in order. It was about 95F/35C outside, humid as all get out, still this warm at 6:45pm. I put on my technical top and bike shorts and headed out. I did pass go I did not collect two puffs of Ventolin into the lungs. Had a pleasant bike ride, went about 6.5 miles round trip. Along a small river tributary by my house that has a paved trail next to it. This also happens to be next to a road and I have to bike on the road for part of it(can you smell the exhaust??). When I got home I again passed go and did not collect 2 puffs of albuterol.
For those of you unfamiliar with the rules of AsthmaLand, this violates pretty many of them.  Which is why I'm now recovering from super tight chest and weird double dip peak flow phenomenon. It went down came up and went back down but now it's back up after evening symbicort dose. Oh my crazy lungs. To sum it up: hormones-bad, mugginess-bad, skipping pre/post medication-bad, symbicort-good.
This post topic will undoubtedly be an on going series as I misbehave on occasion and don't do what I should to keep the lungs happy.

Okay, so you probably haven't heard that Eiffel 65 song in like 10 years. And no I'm not desatting and actually blue. I'm just seeing a lot of my (blue) ventolin in the last 3-4 days. I've been super tight like somebody is taking a vice grip around my lungs and squeezing. Two puffs of ventolin and it's good for 4-6 hours. We aren't in full blown flare mode by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just tight and short of breath. The nasty gross cough has not shown up yet. I also have not taking on exclusive mouth breathing. On the upside the allergist will get a chance to see myself in semi-wheezy mode. I can also mention to him the whole flare while on the rag thing and the fact that I've made it through an entire rescue inhaler since June.  Hopefully he will find a better cocktail for me than the current symbicort/allegra regime which keeps me not miserable but could certainly be improved.
I'm also currently considering getting myself a digital peak flow meter because a) I'm a nerd. b) it would be smaller c) FEV1 might be interesting to track. I'm thinking a microlife digital meter because it seems to have better reviews in general and I got a more definitive response from them about the latex content. I definitely love my truzone meter and it has served me faithfully I'm just horrible about using it on the go when I feel SOB. Which is weird since I have no problems with using my spacer+inhaler in public. I guess I'm a little self conscious about the noise it makes. Although I did use it tonight on the train because I just couldn't for the life of me tell if I was getting tight or if my bra was just doing something wierd. For the record I was getting tight (450, 75%). I have more musings on my asthma gear and such but I shall save those for another day. Adieu

So the hot muggy weather is still here for some fun breathing conditions. It seems to be temporarily giving us a reprive for the next day or two but then it will be back in full force no doubt. I thus have been not getting much training in for the 5k which disconcerts me as it is a mere 12 days away and I'm not looking too good for getting the running in I need to really be ready for the race. I'm not really trying to break any records or place or anything. I just really want to be able to run it.
However, as of late the lungs have been doing a fun almost flare thing. I'm not exactly flaring. I'm hovering right on the yellow/green line 78-81 percent up to 85 right after meds-o'clock. I definitely had a bit of an attack yesterday after I ran down 3 flights of stairs, across the street, and up 2 flights of stairs in under a minute to try to catch the train(I made it through the closing doors). I was talking to a friend on the train and every few words I would have to stop to breathe. My chest was super tight and I kinda sounded wheezy with a light cough but it was hard to tell since I barely had a voice from all the talking at work. 
I'm not sure but it felt like I might have been air trapping. I can't tell if I was just feeling way super tight or if it was more of a feeling of air being stuck in my lungs that made me feel so miserable. Today I've just felt tight and slightly labored in the breathing dept. My posture has definitely taken on a kind of hunched over stance when seated that makes it easier to draw in air.  I'm not at the point of calling the Doctor yet. I clear up with a hit or two of ventolin so nothing too serious right now. However, I'm hoping this is just a little dip in the road that will flatten it self out in the next day or two.