So the topic came up a few nights ago when I was chit chatting with a friend if I would ever want to study abroad. The answer of course being yes I'd love to study abroad!! I have taken many years of french and would love the chance to get to actually try out my french skills in a francophone area. However, there are just so many things to figure out and work out in order to study abroad.

First of all, there is the issue of allergy shots. At present traveling far from home for more than about a two weeks is a non-option because I have biweekly injections. I do have some leeway with these missing a week or two isn't the end of the world but an extended trip is pretty much a non-option.

Second, there is the issue of doubting being healthy enough to really travel significant distances (by myself), possibly to a place where I don't really know anybody. I get nervous even to drive the 200 miles (one way) to school or back by myself. I have never had a problem while driving nor do I anticipate issues. However, I drive some pretty deserted country highways with spotty cell coverage to get to school. This is more a problem in my head. Objectively, I am most likely healthy enough to be able to pick up and leave and do what I want to do. However, there is always the lingering fear/thought in the back of my head, what happens if I have a bad asthma attack, or a latex allergy reaction. Will I be able to get to the ER? Will it be a latex-safe facility? If they admit me, will my parents be able to come see me? Legitimate worries but not the typical 21-year old travel worries.

However, there is a slight possibility that I'll be spending the summer in either Rhode Island or another Missouri town in the central part of the state. I'm a long shot to get into the summer research programs at either of the sponsoring universities but I'm tossing my hat in the ring and seeing what comes of it. Nothing ventured nothing lost right?

On the other hand I am definitely spending part of my spring break visiting family in Manhattan and Long Island. First family vacation in a long time. I'm so excited to get to go through airport security with a whole pile of meds including injectables(epipens), should be interesting.  Last time I flew I had a bottle of Allegra and a single ProAir inhaler.

On the 12th of each month a bunch of people around the blogosphere take 12 pictures. 12 of 12 was created by Chad Darnell. I'll be posting some other visual aids in the next few days to recap my runs. :)

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 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).

Waist Deep, No Joke

So I know that I said on Tuesday, yesterday was going to have to be a rest day due to snow drifts way too deep to run through and the campus rec center being closed. Well the snow drifts are still way too deep to run though. However the campus rec center did open up yesterday afternoon. We got plowed out on campus by a tractor(I assume from the University farm) with a snow blade, a Bobcat with a snowbrush, and Bulldoser moving some of the snow. There are still many sidewalks on campus that need to be cleared, but we have enough north/south and east/west pathways that we can get around. Thus I went to the Rec center and ran my 20 laps around the track(super boring way to get to 2 miles). I split 12:53.6 and 14:54.7 on the two miles which isn't too horrible. I was doing run 2 laps walk 1 lap, pretty consistently. The lungs definitely liked the nice climate controlled temperature. The legs enjoyed some nice flat terrain. However, I did manage to get a blister right along the arch of my foot.

So my university doesn't really give snow days. We do however, about once every 30-40 years get a blizzard bad enough to cancel classes for the day. Today they closed the university at 10:30am and it will remain closed tomorrow as well. Everything is locked up and everyone is hunkered down for the long haul. Save the residence halls, and dining halls there is nothing open on campus. Most of the businesses are closed down til at least Thursday. Needless to say, this would fall under Act of G-d in the excuses as to why I'm not going to be able to train tomorrow. The snow is most of the way to my knees with drifts even deeper.

My lungs have been more or less behaving. I've seen some little blips the last few days I'm thinking mostly from picking up the workout pace/humidity change from the storm. We'll see though, I've definitely been seeing more of the little blue puffer than I've gotten accustomed to. I hit the treadmill Monday night, and did some cross training today. Unfortunately the weather just isn't behaving very nicely for this whole training thing.

So today I went for a run(ish), where I encountered questionably slick patches/uncleared walks/shoulders I did some powerwalking cause falling on my buns while running down the main drag in town sounded like a bad idea. It was a nice 37F/3C outside, with not too much wind. Enough to keep me cool but not so much that I was under dressed in a long sleeve technical tee with a longsleeve 'cold morning' running top over and gym shorts. Yes, I wore shorts outside today.

Overall the run went decent, I felt rather slow I came in at right around 57 minutes which isn't bad but definitely needs to be improved since I'm hoping to do somewhere around 1:15-1:20 for the 8k I have coming up. My legs didn't really complain, got a little tight here or there but loosened right back out with a quick stretch. The lungs where kind of SOB quite a bit but not really tight or cough-y. I lost count of how many puff's of ventolin have been into me today. I kind of crashed after the run. Probably not the smartest idea to run in the midst of my period. However, I did it already. I just went out there to run, no real planned route, just me my iPod, my phone, keys, inhaler, driver's license and camelbak. The camelbak is a blessing and a curse on the one hand I stay very well hydrated. However, consuming 1.5 liters of water in under an hour with no easy restroom access in cooler temperatures does present a slight problem.

My nike plus is acting up the sensor is being dumb. So I either need to beat it into submission(cause all electronics work better after a few love taps) or get a new one. Which is how I ended up going the extra 200 meters not that 5.2k is is a bad distance. Although had I not ended my jog at the far-away parking lot of school(to pick up my car) I would've gone closer to 6km. I'm definitely feeling like I can get there for the 8k. Whether I'll be walking or jogging has yet to be seen. If I could do a like Run 8 minutes Walk 2 minutes or something that would be a happy point. However, a lot depends on what the weather looks like come that part of March, not only temperatures for the asthma, pollen counts/how well allergy shots are working for the congestion factor.