for the love of steroids

I've been having some terrible allergies lately. The kind where you sneeze constantly for every waking hour. And not just a small "ah-choo", but a full on whole body contraction that causes the sweats and dizziness. All this while on daily doses of Zyrtec. Many times 2-3x the daily dose of Zyrtec.

I opted to given Claritin-D a go after someone was talking in the office about it. She was jokingly telling me that her workouts have improved since she hopped on the Claritin bandwagon. I took it first thing Friday morning and was feeling pretty good and amazed that I could breathe again, but then I had a wee bit of trouble sleeping. I assumed it was because Friday was a rest day so I must just have extra pent up energy.

Fast forward to early Saturday morning where I popped another pill knowing I was going to be out in the elements all day long. I pumped out 65 miles on my bicycle without much complaint. When I got home, I fully expected to crash out and be done for the day, but instead I snoozed for about 10 minutes and was raring to go! I even managed to stay awake for an entire movie which is completely unheard of from me, and I still had trouble falling asleep that night.

At this point I'm thinking, this is just weird. Sunday morning, I wake up early thanks to a faulty alarm clock that thought it was time to spring forward. I sware, DST is a government operation to make people buy a new alarm clock every year. I pop my claritin, and I'm wired once again! I go out with Kris and Matt and jam out my 8 mile run with some unusually speedy little intervals, get home, and I'm still awake while Matt is completely dead on the floor. This has to be a joke right? Me, awake, Matt, dead. This *never* happens.

Monday morning comes around and I'm out of my claritin so I pop a Zyrtec. I fully expect to be completely thrashed from the weekend and was planning on a rugged swim. Instead, I swim like a damn fish and bang out 2000 yards which includes the fastest 100 of my life evah!

I've been back on the Zyrtec bandwagon since Monday, and damn, I'm sluggish again. Just tired and sneezy again. Maybe it's all finally catching up to me just now, but I'm pretty certain Claritin-D is the best steroid ever! I'm gonna have to get me some of that for next weeks first race of the season!

rollin' n crashin'

They say training rollers will help you build up good bike handling skills. The way I ride, I could use all the skills I can get. In hopes of gaining some mad skillz, I scored a nearly new set of rollers off Craigslist.

I decided to give them a go this morning just for fun. I put them in the dining room close to a wall with the dining table on the other side. I hopped up and leaned against the wall and quickly went down in a heap into the dining table. I think I lasted about 4 seconds. Wear a helmet is the take away. This went on for a bit as I continued to fall off. Matt finally had to hold me upright to keep me there.

Then he said he had to hop in the shower and that I was not to ride the rollers unattended. Being a bad listener, I hopped up and gave it another go... Matt came out and could hear the rollers whizzing (you know, cause I'm just that fast)... and he yells out "Hey! Get off of those things!"... I quickly had to yell back "I don't know how to stop!?!" Thankfully, he came out and helped me get off.

This will be a fun toy... :)

one of those days

Boy, today has just been one of those days. I was up at 4:30 to try out Menlo Masters at 5:45. I was a little confused when I showed up in the dark and nobody was out and the pool covers were still on. The locker rooms were still locked up, one duffel bag sat on the floor, and not a person in site.

Turns out the pool heater broke over a week ago and was still dead. A couple hard core folks eventually showed up, one with her wetsuit. They welcomed me, while laughing, to my first attempt at masters.

I said "forget you nuts" and waited for the hot pool to open. The doors finally unlocked at 6 and I hopped in and was quickly yelled at to get out. I guess I didn't notice there was no lifeguard on duty so I was doing a swimming faux pas. Eventually the lifeguard showed up and my swimming commenced. It was unbelievably crowded and when I finally got to the "speed" portion of my workout, I was dying from the heat... 87 degrees + sprints = barf.

I decided to take my chances and went outside to swim. I got a lane all to myself, go figure! The 68 degree water took my breath away but I finished up the speed portion of my workout. Probably in record time because I was so cold I wanted it over with.

I hit the showers which never felt so hot in my life... and I realize, craptastic, no soap. Fine, I showered off with shampoo and headed out to work. Craptastic again, I forgot my laptop. :(

Well, things aren't quite rolling along smoothly today... but hell I swam in 68 degree waters without a wetsuit. I rock. haha.

random funny

Last night we were at REI to pick up some nice food items for running and such... aka nasty gels etc...

Imagine my joy when I found out the honey stinger bars were $0.99 this month. Normal price is $2.70 each. These things are flipping delicious for a protein bar. 20g of protein, 390 calories of chocolatey coconut goodness.

We opted to stock up (not like we just bought 4 cases a couple weeks ago or anything), so we cleared the shelf... and as we're standing in line, we opted to CLEAR THE SHELF aka take every last single honey stinger bar in that store. I even asked the worker boy if he was hiding any peanut butter ones in the stock room.

Some guy on his cellphone looks at the shelf and tells the guy on the other end of the phone "Oh, hey they have a bar of the month that's only 99 cents..." He starts looking around for the bars... "I don't see any though... O. Wait. I see them, this girl in front of me has her entire basket full of them, I think she has so many it's weighing her down..." He starts begging Kris for "one, just one, I just want to try one"... She reluctantly hands one over as she points out that I have the other half of the stash.

The cashier points out to me that I have 20 bars... Kris then counts hers and I hear "Hey, I only have 19...." I think I saw an evil glare going towards the guy on the cell phone...

go away already

I'm so sick of hearing about the lady with the octuplets. I want her to just dissapear into an abyss and live a miserable life. I'm probably not helping the situation by even blogging about her, but I can't take it.

First off, I already think breeders are socially irresponsible egotistical maniacs. What in the world makes people think they're DNA is so valuable that it's worth spawning off more of the same? Have people missed the fact that there's a million children out there needing homes?

I seriously believe if you're going to breed, you should 1. have a license and 2. sign off any rights to social assistance. If you're egotistical enough to believe you have the right to breed, you better have the financial means to handle your own problems. Same goes for all you stupid people losing your homes and getting your sorry asses bailed out.

What the hell happened to individual responsibility. You make poor decisions, you should pay the price. Why the hell should everyone else pick up your slack and pay for your stupidity... Ugh, ok, end rant... Happy Friday!

gung hay fat choy

In an attempt to embrace my inner chinky... I would like to wish you all Gung Hay Fat Choy! We are entering the year of the Ox... Perhaps that means a year full of hard work... Hm, this doesn't sound too good.

Anyhow, get out there and eat some chinese food and do some ribbon dances or something!

back on track

Callie wants to thank her Aunt Lynnie for the well wishes... She's feeling much better now. So much better, she stole my lunch. We ended up having a tug-o-war over who would get the spinach tortillas and I lost.

The dog is flipping voracious now. Like she wasn't a food hound before, but thanks to lots of steroids she's willing to challenge the bober-meister for food. She lets out a sad wimper when Bo chomps her, then she slyly slides in for more tortillas. Yeah, I dunno, we eat a lot of tortillas around these parts.

Lets just say the meeting with the new Oncologist went swimmingly. Little Miss Callie Bearie has responded well to chemo other then that whole puking, shitting, hospital night thing... so for now chemo will continue. The best part is this week is oral chemo, $40! Whoopee!