I'm allergic to exercise

It's that lovely time of year where there's so much pollen in the air, I'm better off staying inside. Instead, I go out and exercise so all that pollen can attack me while my body is too busy working at the exercise thing and can't fight the pollen.  Last spring, the pollen was getting into the pores in my legs when I sweated during bike rides, and making them on fire with itching.  This year, the main target seems to be the roof of my mouth.  (With my eyes and nose being slightly lesser targets.)  Every time I run or bike, the roof of my mouth gets severely itchy shortly after I get home, and continues to plague me for an hour or more.  Super annoying.  I'm already taking claritin and a nasty spoonful of local honey every morning.  When it gets really bad, I have to add a zyrtec in the afternoon.  I really hope the pollen settles down soon...I don't like being allergic to exercise!!

This week : 

T : run 7.5 / 7:50 / 604 ft

W : horseback ride 1:40

R : run 8 / 7:29 / 925 ft

jog 1 / 8:02 / 0 ft

Sa : group bike 20.4 /15.7 mph / 1378 ft 

Su : run 7.1 / 7:57 / 584 ft

bike miles : 20.4

run miles : 23.6

I wasn't feeling very motivated this week.  I took Monday off because no one showed up for the Pub run, and I felt like I could use a rest day after Sunday's long run anyway.  Tuesday was field day at school, and I was impressed that I was able to run as far and as well as I did after being out in the sun all afternoon.  Wednesday I had the afternoon off, and decided to just spend some quality time with my horse.  I probably had intentions of running or biking after I got home, but obviously that didn't happen.  

On Thursday I decided to work on my downhill muscles.  I ran hard down a 2 mile hill, and then of course I had to turn around and run back up.  Shin splints set in during the first downhill mile, but they gave up and quit before I reached the bottom, so that was good.  I have noticed them appearing whenever I push downhills, so I'm hoping if I keep doing it in moderation the muscles will get strong enough to stop doing that.  

I had many good intentions of biking 30 miles for my 30th birthday, or at least running 30 minutes, and also I was going to ride my horse.  But it was the last day of school, and most of the staff got together for some celebratory food and drink.  That started around 12...and I finally left at 5:30 because I needed to shower, change, and get ready for my birthday party at 7.  So, I didn't get any exercise, but it was a very fun afternoon/night!  I still have the rest of the year to be 30, maybe sometime before the end of it I will be able to run 30 miles for my 30th, instead of having to fall back on the biking 30 option.  

Somehow I got talked into a group bike ride at 8 am Saturday morning.  It meant I didn't get a whole lot of sleep the night before, but the ride was fun, and I took a 3 hour nap afterwards.  

I didn't particularly feel like doing anything on Sunday, but I was 54 minutes short on my 3 hour running minimum for the week...so I ran just to finish out the 3 hours.  I may or may not have looked at my watch every few minutes to see how much further I needed to go just to reach the goal... It didn't help that it was ridiculously humid out.  I was really dragging out there, but I'm going to blame all the water in the air.  I think gills might have been more useful than lungs.  

Of course, I'm also allergic to riding my horse.  

But I managed to have a fun ride, despite my nose trying to drip down my face the entire time.

Happy Birthday to me!  

Not sure why we had to look so formal here...

We were just having pizza and beer, after all.