odds & ends

Well, the non-decongestant Clarinex seems to help, but not as much as the decongestant sorts. The kind doctor says decongestants, being uppers and all, raise blood pressure, so maybe this comes down to being fully decongested but with higher BP or being just OK on both accounts...

As far as yardage and whatnot goes, last week worked out pretty well: four days, good distance, good speed. The intervention of specialists will be necessary soon as far as the shoulder goes, though.

Day 2 of Clarinex sans decongestant...

... and the breathing's fine, though maybe not quite so purrfect as with the D. Hey, if this is as good as it gets, and the drug doesn't lose its powers, I'm satisfied.

Also, today's swim was about a mile and a half, maybe a tad less, and went pretty smoothly shoulder-wise. I have high hopes that the doctor's orders will help in this regard.

not far, but far better

After visiting with the doctor earlier in the day, I thought it might be prudent to try to ease up a little, which was made way easier by the slowpoke lifeguard-opening-door problem and the unforeseen interruption of my swim by someone hoping to share a lane. Varsity and I agreed to share a lane, which would have given us a chance to show off our ability to flip turn and crash into each other, but Curtis (so it isn't Gary OR Bob, geez) was almost done so the question was moot. The interloper simply took his lane.

I also learned Monkey's real name, because he broke the ice, so to speak, and asked mine. It is kind of nice to know everybody's name after all these months. Varsity, however, wasn't spilling the beans. She did remind me of a great joke, however:

I had a paper route when I was a kid. I was supposed to go to 2,000 houses. Or two Dumpsters.

and you can put a dash after that joke, and then write Mitch Hedberg.

Sinus madness

Well, the kind doctor sent me off today with a bag full o' goodies and prescription slips of all sorts. She says I could take Claritin-D until the cows come home, but suggested as an experiment that I try out the following:

• Flonase (fluticasone propionate) - an intranasal corticosteroid (damn, there goes my eligibility). The manufacturer notes that "as with many medications, exactly how FLONASE works isn’t entirely understood."
• Clarinex (desloratadine, which explains why Rite-Aid's generic OTC is called Lorata) - a prescription antihistamine brought to you by the makers of Claritin.
• Clarinex-D (pseudoephedrine sulfate and desloratadine) - a prescription antihistamine and decongestant brought to you by, well, I think you probably know where it comes from.

Besides sack-o-pharm, she also prescribed massage therapy (hooray!) for the left-arm-and-shoulder ailments detailed here and elsewhere.

On the swimming front, I eased off a little Tuesday and swam an easy 2,400 with time to spare at the end. As a salve for my left arm, I simply went a little slower and shortened my stroke. No big deal, though I felt resistance anytime I foolishly sped up, lengthened my stroke or overlooked some other minor detail.

Water wastrels

I'm sure there are plenty of water misers in town, but after a seriously squishy step on the grassy strip along the sidewalk outside my place of employment, I am reminded of the surplus of water hogs in the city.

To wit: 'Round lunchtime Monday, the butterfly lady and I passed the Mill Creek Brew Pub and saw that the sprinklers had been running so long that water was slopping off the saturated lawn and into the storm drain a few feet away. This in a town in the southeast Washington prairie (a beautifully windblown, vowel-laden word for proto-desert).

Water belongs in a pool, not on asphalt.

shoulder improves

After a day of carpentry, I wouldn't have thought my shoulder would feel much better, but I've got the range of motion mostly back (it didn't leave, but my shoulder did that tummy-twisting resistance thing when I experimented yesterday and it did feel sore).

Perhaps it would be prudent to take it a little easier in the water for the next spell...

off to a roaring start

My ingenious plan was to make this all about water, but I guess it is also going to be about physical woes... Thursday may not have done any permanent harm, but it sure did some temporary damage to my somewhat suspect left shoulder. But I think a three-day weekend will help, and if not, there's always other options.

As I noted recently, all of this is way better than running.

tired of sending swimming notes to sleep with the fishies

So I've branched out, a little bit.

Thursday was normal from a yardage standpoint (2,600 meters), but I pushed a bit too hard on the warmup and the first part of the 2,000, so the end, when I would usually sprint, was about the same speed as my cooldown (aka slow).

That said, I'm optimistic I'll be able to go up to 2,800 next week. Had I eased off a bit in the first part of the 2,000, I think I could easily have added 200 meters to the end. But as it was, there was no way I was going a yard farther.