I thought I had terrible allergies

Every few days I've been having a terrible runny nose and blocked sinuses like the awfulest cold you can imagine that lasted for about two days. I thought it was probably the autumn pollen - ragweed, or that big ornamental grass thing outside my bedroom window, and going away when the weather changed.

Nope.

*lightbulb moment*

I'm actually having a reaction to the chlorine in the swimming pool. Ugh. It's a tissue reaction to the irritation of the chlorine, not an allergic reaction. So my normal seasonal allergy antihistamine didn't help one little bit.

Looks like I'm going to be swimming with a noseclip from here on out unless I'm in open water, and maybe experimenting with fun barrier methods like Vaseline up the nose. I'll have to see if it's a little less bad in the cooler of the two pools at our YMCA. People have also recommended neti pots (ewww) but I think a spray of nasal saline is more or less equivalent. I've also heard Atrovent up the nose does a great job preventing it as well, but I'll wait and see if non-drug approaches work first.

Ugh. What a pain.

I think this might be a great justification to buy an Endless Pool, don't you?

Reducing my expectations

One week until Columbia (Olympic) triathlon.

Four weeks until Eagleman half Ironman.

Earlier this year I was hoping to be faster in these races, for my fourth consecutive annual attempt at each course.

But my workouts (the few I've had) have been slow and my health has not been great this spring. After a month of illness and coughing and missed workouts and eating many more calories than I've been burning (with very predictable results) I'm trying to get myself into a different frame of mind.

It's okay to just get through the course, right? Or maybe drop out after the swim or the bike if I'm coughing? I really don't want to push it too hard and re-stress my lungs and have a recurrence of pneumonia.

That does NOT sound okay to me right now, but I'm trying to mentally re-frame it so it doesn't ruin my day and my week to have a slowish time on the course. After all, the older I get and the longer I keep doing triathlons, it's likely (like everyone) that I'll eventually get slower and slower.

Yes, I may indeed have a DNF, if I start coughing too much. And yes, DNF is still preferable in my mind to DNS.

But I still don't like either one.

OK, it is what it is. Mileage for the year to date: Swim 10.7 (989 yd/wk), bike 289 (15 mi/wk), run 236 (12 mi/wk). Let's hope those averages start creeping up now that the weather is warm. And let's call Columbia a long workout day instead of a race.