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.

So the weather has improved a bit as has the general snowcoveredness of the sidewalks on campus. However, we've replaced a lot of the snow with ice. One of the watermains through the center of campus broke and gushed out water which then froze. Seeing as how I like staying up right. Looks like this weeks' Distance Run will be in an indoor venue. I know, I know you are thinking but why not run on the roads/sidewalks off campus... You see there are very few clear sidewalks off campus. And the roads just aren't safe to run on in this weather.

On  a completely different note, the lungs are behaving themselves pretty darn nicely. Little blips with exercise and such. I would say in general I feel pretty decent. However, I've been a naughty asthmatic. I've been letting measuring peakflows slip like pretty much all the time. With spring allergy season approaching I really need to get back in the habit of checking peakflows. Also possibly causing some minor lung blips is the fact that I've been trying to decaffeinate myself a bit. I'm trying to swear off caffeinated soda-pop entirely. Ideally eventually soda more or less entirely. Although I do enjoy "real" root beer fresh on tap, not something that comes around everyday so a nice little treat.  Anyway I'm gonna kick back and enjoy some more wintery goodness. (Remind me why I moved north again... oh yeah!... lower mold count).

So the winter months bring me indoors towards the gym. Cause I don't know about you but I'm not very skilled at fitness walking/jogging when there is 3-6+ inches of snow on the ground. I tend to try to avoid trudging out in it in this kind of weather. My usual thing to do at the gym is hit up the indoor rower [aka erg(ometer)]. I'm slowly but surely rowing my way to a million meters. Yesterday was my first 5k in 2011 I rowed a 35:47 which is kinda slow for me, but baby steps.

Water break during my rowing last night

The lungs have been rocking it out. I like that part of winter. They will let me sleep through a Symbicort dose :). Ventolin has only really been happening when I work out which is pretty epic. 2-3 rescue uses in as many months... I could really get used to this :). Maybe I will escape to Inhaled Steroid only someday. I'm not holding out too hard but hope does spring eternal.

The semester is off to a decent start I'm only in 4 classes one of which is online [medical terminology... interesting class]. It has been keeping me mighty busy. However, hopefully I'll get into the rythym of class and get back into better blogging habits.

Spring will bring with it a fun break during which I get to see Dr. Z for a what the crap is up with my hormones appointment, and Dr. B for a check up in the peak of spring allergy season. I know you are jealous of my spring break plans don't lie! Also during the second weekend of break I'm registered for a 5 mile/8k run. It's a St. Patrick's Day run with beers at the finish line so I'm not sure how seriously people will be taking it. I'm excited for it though[not for the beer, just vigorously went 5 miles a brewski isn't on the top of list of stuff to ingest] cause it's chip timed. Should be interesting since I'm looking at my calendar it's 47 days away! Somebody better get on her training. I'm in decent cardio shape since I've been rowing and such but I need to get my buns back out on the track/treadmill/road. Should be interesting to try out cold weather training. It will be a necessary evil since if I can run/rapidly walk 5 miles in Northern Missouri Winter it should be easier to do in Central Missouri early spring. The average for early March in St. Louis is in the 40's (F) which isn't too bad.