So I haven't disappeared into the abyss I swear. Just the library(darn finals/end of semester)! Alas the end has come and gone and I shall re-commence some proper blogging. Today I turned 22, I didn't really do anything special like at all. I worked, hung out with the family for mother's day and that's about it. No big deal. I didn't actually blow out candles today. We'll have cake and such some other day. Since I've been home for  a whole 24 hours I kind of wanted to just have a break before the festivities.  Plus I need to do some serious un/repacking since I've got a summer research fellowship at the State University about halfway between my parent's place and my college. The lungs/allergies have been freaking awesome. I haven't seen a number below 590(95%) other than right after the Tri and even then I was still in the green. I could definitely get used to this. Haven't been doing to much training for the 5k that is on Saturday :/. I've been moving things out of the reshall out to wahzzoo so hopefully that will keep me in shape enough. I did run up the big staircase by work this afternoon on my lunch break(without stopping or premedicating, somewhere around 90 steps in the staircase). Anywho just a quick drive-by birthday post.

Official times have not been posted yet, but I finished last at somewhere around 1:15. Edit: Official Time: 1:11:32, splits: 2:44/5:05/38:19/1:21/24:03. The swim went well, no cap for me since the numbered ones were latex. The extra drag didn't really bother me. I wasn't trying to set any records. Swim went well... took it relatively slow, did manage to pass one person (we started individually with 20 second spacing between people). Just kept it long and good form, with flip-turns and lots of gliding under the water to conserve energy for later.
I dried off and put real underwear on/took my suit off to reveal the sports bra already on underneath. Tossed my running shorts on as well as a singlet and socks and shoes. I did manage to pin thru my singlet on one of the pins so I had to fix that right quick during Transition 1. Put my helmet, sunglasses, and camelbak on and grabbed my bike. The course was relatively flat, a couple big hills nothing too major. Had a nice tailwind on the way out, and a few people behind me/close to me. At some point I got overtaken by the other fat chick/non-atheletic non-size-2 person. Then it was just Ivy the bike repair dude behind me. He was great and cheering everybody on and such. Not having a road bike definitely made it hard to keep up with the folks on road bikes.  That and some killer wind coming off the nice rolling fields on either side of us for a good deal of the ride. It was a headwind that was also trying to blow us into the oncoming traffic(wasn't a closed course) on the way back. That wind really kicked my butt.
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I tossed my camelbak, helmet, jacket(which I had but didn't wear the whole bike ride), and bike in the transition area and was off to 'run'. I use the term run loosely. My legs were pretty tight/wobbly, after biking. I walked it out to the first hill we were headed out to. Jogged down the hill and part way up the next hill. Walked the rest of the way up the hill, jogged down. Pretty well jogged the flat  parts and downhills and walked the uphills. I was just plumb tuckered out by this point. However the watered down Gatorade I'd been sipping on all of the bike ride definitely hit me at this point and I got a bit of a second burst of energy. I was running next to the bike rider who was the "tail" for the race. Her name escapes me at the moment she was super nice and talked to me the whole way. The best thing that sticks out is "You know what they call the last person who finishes the race 'a triathalete' that's something less than 5% of the population can claim".
There wasn't a clock at the finish but looking at my phone I estimated the finish time. There was good post race munchies and I got my finisher's medal. The lungs behaved really nicely the whole time. I woke up in ultra mega double-plus green(read 102%), took 2 puffs of symbicort and 2 puffs of ventolin before heading out for the event. Didn't need anymore ventolin the whole course. Took 2 more puffs before I laid down for a post race nap which was after some delicious french toast with a friend who volunteered as a course guide person for the event.
The event was a lot of fun since it was women's only, lots of cheering(the other racers all cheered as I ran past as the last finisher) and good job-ing and high-fives. Not that that doesn't happen with co-ed races too but it was just a really fun environment. If I do it again I'd get my hands on a road bike for the event and do more training rather than going oh hey look that's in 2 weeks that could be fun. I'm really glad that road construction forced the bike portion to be cut short by 2 miles. I'm not sure how well I would've faired with a longer course. Oh and I got a confirmation email with some details(parking, race map etc) for my '80's themed 5k in 2 weeks that promises to be "totally boss". It's weird to think that I can lay claim to the title 'triathlete'. If you said that to me before I would've asked you what you were smoking. I apologize for the lack of action shots, I was busy trying to finish the race :P.

All 236 days of that 80's I was around for that is. I'm training for an 80's themed 5k on May 14th. It's going alright. I've been trying to get running by my calves have been really tight. Need to stretch more which will hopefully help. Also probably should take yoga back up to see if that will help as well. I'm definitely feeling pretty confident about my training at this point. The legs are holding me back not the lungs :).  I'm also looking at a 10k June 11 and 3/4 Marathon October 1. Trying to keep the training up.

Overall I've been feeling pretty awesome this allergy season and I'm as close to asymptomatic as I've ever been. I've still got itchy eyes, the occasional sneeze and an annoying drip of mucus out of my nose.  Compared to last year when I was congested and feeling just plain nasty/miserable I'll take this. I'm gonna say knock on wood allergy shots are working :). Other than excercise stuff the asthma has been non-noteworthy. The lungs have been rocking it out. I definitely have needed to premedicate for exercise but they aren't cranky otherwise. 2 puffs keeps them happy campers.

I've been doing pretty decent at keeping up with towing the PCOS line. I've been eating good for me and exercising as instructed. I did have a blizzard from Dairy Queen last night as some sweet sweet victory. However I've logged 38 km this week and still had 300 extra leftover calories. I've lost about 3lbs nothing major but a step in the right direction. I've been drinking a lot more water than I used to and have all but banished refined/added sugars from my plate/glass. Hopefully, this will be enough to get me going in the right direction.

As you can see not a whole heck of a lot to report, and as the end of the semester approaches I will try to keep up to date on here but make no guarentees until May 7th when things will be a lot more open.

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

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.

So I had a fun allergist appointment today. Basically Dr. B is hesistant to change anything at this point. he likes how my lungs have been more or less beaten into submission by the Symbicort 160. I pretty much have permission to load up on the ventolin 24/7 the week that I am on the rag. Which is good. Basically we're just maintaining the current stuff in hopes of having lungs that are ready to tackle the spring/summer allergy fun time.  We've basically affirmed that nothing new is going on and that I seem to have some semblance of control 2/3 of  the month. While this is exciting I'm not holding my breath for this to last through past the ides of march(always a horrible day for me in terms of being allergy miserable).

Little bit of Holiday Cheer Put Up by  Mom

On another front I really need to get around to making an appointment with Dr. Z. Because well going from a 36ish day cycle and having like 9ish periods in a year last year to having a 21ish day cycle and having like 9ish periods in the 6 months is slightly disconcerting. We'll see if I can get in for an appointment sometime in the next few weeks before I head back to school.

I know it's not the 12th yet and there aren't 12 photos from one day either. I seem to be decidedly camped out in the green zone for a while and I figured I'd show some views from my life. It's been quite a nice little run here. I haven't seen my ventolin in 15 days (okay, so I've seen it in my pocket but not on the other end of the spacer). I would speculate that this lack of flare has two main causes: a)finally winter which kills mold/allergens b) not at the fun point in my hormonal cycle. I'll ride with this as long as it goes good like this. This is an especially nice break in the coughing and tightness et. al. given that semester is ending and I would really like to be able to focus on homework.

Blood Drive (couple days after my last hit of Ventolin): Pint #16(if I've kept count correctly)

Federal Court, AT&T, and Metropolitan Buildings in Downtown St. Louis in dense fog

Shakshouka being made by this Goyeh

View from the front porch as the first flurries start on Thanksgiving

Fancy Sweet Potato Casserole I made for Thanksgiving

Yup that right there folks is the first snow of the year(on Thanksgiving)

So I know I owe you all some pictures from Chicago and will get them up soon. School has gotten the best of me since my fall break trip.

However at present I've either completely messed up my sleep schedule or I'm getting sick. Since I'm not normally so tired that I take a mid day nap AND get 8-9 hours of sleep the night before. Hopefully, my body is just jet-lagged randomly (or I'm still growing possibly, I grew an inch or so last year).  Cause I don't want the nasty cold thing that one of my friends has had all weekend. She apparently has been up coughing every hour on the hour. I haven't been to see her, just received the report from her housemate. It's been a whole 7 months since my first prednisone encounter. I really don't want another go at that stuff. My peakflows have been on the up and up for the most part. They randomly drop or go up a little bit but nothing lower than 78% in the recent past.  However, the bimonthly spreadsheet does show Sept/Oct being worse than July/Aug in terms of Ventolin Puffs. Hopefully I won't get sick and will be able to get a better blog post out here soon.

I managed to survive midterms fairly this last week and now I've got today and tomorrow off from class. I am spending it visiting one of my best friends and my younger brother who go to the same university in Chicago. I've got pictures to post but not right now/today since my usb camera cable is definitely on my desk at school.

The lungs and the allergies are behaving suprisingly well for being away from my dust-mite proofed cat-free home. I'm staying with my friend who has a cat and loves fresh air. Hopefully the lungs will continue to behave through the end of the weekend. We're going dancing on Saturday night which should be super fun!

This fall has been atypically rough for me probably because of that lack of hard freeze as of yet. Which means that the mold spores are still out in full force. I love winter for this reason. Colder = less mold = less allergy misery I'm pretty sure having no asthma troubles really hardly at all in the winter is a pretty decent indicator of the allergic-ness of my asthma.  So yeah bring on the hard frost and the snow! (I could do without the ice however, not really a fan of it's low friction coefficient well except for skating).

As far as working out, I haven't really hardly at all lately. I need to get back in the habit of doing that. Midterms really through a wrench in time management. I'm not feeling too bad about not working out since there is lots of little workouts in doing stuff in Chicago. All public transit for us as far as getting around so plenty of walking and hurry up and get goings for the bus/train so we don't miss it. 

view leaving campus

So last night(sunday), I was feeling restless and decided some semi-quick forward motion was in order. I tossed on some gym shorts, a technical tee, and my "cold" weather  jacket(okay not for real cold weather but it breathes and is a decent lightweight second layer). Laced up my shoes and messed around with the nike + sensor until it behaved and worked correctly for me. It was just a little nippy outside 50F/10C, not really cold I mean it's not January yet(thank goodness!).
I got going pretty good and got running for a good half mile or maybe little more. I just kind of wandered the mostly deserted streets on the edge of town enjoying the stars and the road passing by.

Overacheiving a bit: 5.2ish km

Over all, it felt great to get out there and go. The lungs behaved wonderfully for the duration of the run/walk. The big dip wasn't even an inhaler break(had to stop to cross the street and tie my shoe).  The only thing I need to remember is that it's now cold enough with the wind that gym shorts are not appropriate running attire after dark. I came back to the warm indoors and the lungs made the transition wonderfully without any tightness or anything a little post flaring: woke up at 71% this morning. This definitely makes me feel a lot better about the 5k in 12 days. I'm pretty sure as long as I get out there and move a bit the next two weeks I should be fine to go under 40.

View as I left campus

So after a little persuasion in the form of comments  from Kerri and MC and some self reflection. I decided that I needed to just force myself to get up off the (couch) desk chair and get out there and put one foot in front of the other. I sometimes let asthma be my excuse for being a slacker which isn't cool.

Start of the Trail on the way out

I had a beautiful day to go for a walk/run/jog/intermittent speed forward motion. The sky was really that blue and it was beautifully sunny(oops... no sunscreen hope I don't find any sunburn tomorrow).  There is a fairly quiet little walking/biking trail not too far from campus that is 1.33 miles(2.14km) one way from my ResHall to the field it dead ends into.  I took it at a mediumly brisk walking pace down until I got to the part that I was going to calibrate my Nike + on.  At which point I discover that my sensor is refusing to be recognized by the iPod. I messed around with the darn thing for a good 5 or so minutes. In which time randomly two bulldogs and their owners come by somewhat scarily(they were really pulling their owners who had them counter weighted by a little red wagon full of bricks).

Heading back to campus, I love the green stuff that surrounds the trail :)

I gave up on the sensor but did run about half a mile(.8 km) and then walked the rest of the way back to campus. All and all it was a pretty awesome start to my hurried training for the 5k in 17 days. I did get my sensor working once I got back to my room and messed around with it quite a bit. Apparently the accelerometer mechanism was stuck somehow since a good thwack seemed to do the trick. All and all hopefully I'll be able to keep the motivation up and keep on going outside before I have to banish myself to the indoors for the winter.

Pepperoni Pizza

I came across a bunch of pizza scraps like this towards the end/start of the trail. I'm not really sure what the deal was with them since they were all cut off, not torn or chewed. and randomly scattered.

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.