Is The Pollen Complaint Real Or A Joke

Out of the loop wrote:

?? What happen?

Have you tried running this weekend in the pollen? Forget about it.

Seems pretty silly. I have bad pollen allergies and I just take a 24 hour antihistamine and never have an problems.

Out of the loop wrote:

?? What happen?

You're kidding? If you have allergies it's very real. If you don't it's not.

When I lived in Eugene I used to get hit every June with when the grass blooms, and now that I'm on the East Coast I get hit every Fall during ragweed season. My reactions are debilitating so it's not that bad. But I do have empathy with those who have severe reactions.

It is not a joke!

Use to run with a guy in H.S. who you never knew what you were going to get out of him. Talking to him many years later he told me that his allergies were so bad that at some meets he was exhusted just warming up.

It's real, and a joke.

So you don't have bad allergies is what you are saying.

No offense to people who have bad allergies they are terrible as I use to get very bad red eyes....

Visine

Allegra

back to the drawing board.

See for yourself. Notice the worst cities? On friday, eugene, or was the worst city in the country for pollen.

tom waits wrote:

Seems pretty silly. I have bad pollen allergies and I just take a 24 hour antihistamine and never have an problems.

Do you have asthma or exercise induced asthma as well? makes a world of difference.

Have you checked to see if your antihistimine is not prohibited by the WADA code?

malmo wrote:My reactions are debilitating so it's not that bad.

So is it debilitating or not that bad?

Typo, Mrs M. "...My reactions aren't debilitating..."

Having coached a young kid who went into a full-fledged asthmatic attack, literally gasping for his life and later losing a family friend who stopped breathing after merely mowing grass---it is not a joke. Kudos to Alberto for understanding the potential seriousness of this all too-common reaction to high Springtime allergen levels.

Thank you for the clarification.

malmo wrote:

You're kidding? If you have allergies it's very real. If you don't it's not.

When I lived in Eugene I used to get hit every June with when the grass blooms, and now that I'm on the East Coast I get hit every Fall during ragweed season. My reactions are debilitating so it's not that bad. But I do have empathy with those who have severe reactions.

I remember running The Race in Eugene one year - it was right after NCAAs (I think 84 maybe?) - I didn't realize HOW allergic I was to grass pollen until that race.

Holy smokes, when I was done, my eyes were nearly closed shut due to the swelling...didn't recover for a couple of weeks.

The air in Eugene has a tendency to just kinda sit there - not a lot of winds that blow through - unlike the Portland area where you get a nice wind now and then to blow things out (although my allergies are having a field day this year for some reason).

malmo wrote:

Typo, Mrs M. "...My reactions aren't debilitating..."

Your typos are getting worser and worser malmo. You are almost past it!

Very real. The best you can do is to stay away from competition during that time or move it to where there are less pollen. Train indoors no matter how boring the treadmill is. It sucks but for most it's only a couple of months a year. Medication like Zyrtec helps to some extend, inhalers can help some more but it will never be 100%.

This is the first year that I think it may have affected my running. I've had low level fatigue since the beginning of May, it ruined the end of my track season. Not sure if it was overtraining or allergies, but I took a week off, then a week of nothing but running 8 minute miles, and it's still here. So maybe it is allergies...

Also twice now during the middle of a run I've felt this tickle in my throat and started coughing badly, and it almost felt like my throat was started to close up, because I had to take really deep breaths. Again, this is while running easy. WTF man.

If you don't have allergy/exercise induced asthma issues, it is easy to dismiss just how much this problem affects performance. Even when I take all my medications - Advair, Albuterol inhaler, Singulair, nasal spray, and eye drops, my performance still suffers. However, before I began taking medication, I experienced some scary races where I could not get the air out of my lungs. I would literally start suffocating. Once I was allergy tested - allergic to just about everything outdoors-and placed on medicine, it helped. While my I don't every pr during allergy season, at least I don't feel like I'm suffocating.

For the poster who mentioned Allegra, be careful with that medication. I was placed on Allegra for a while and when I ran it caused an sharp increase in my heart rate.

It is important to have a coach who understands that allergy/exercise induced asthma aren't just frustrating to the athlete, but can be dangerous. A couple times a year, both in the fall and spring/into early summer, my running times suffer. Not surprisingly, my best times have come during indoor track.

Battling allergy/exercise induced asthma is incredibly frustrating. It doesn't matter how disciplined I am, how hard I train, etc. It only takes high pollen/grass/ragweed/mold levels to derail all the hard work.

I feel for Rupp. IThough I'm sure he still wanted to race, it was a wise decision to withdraw, because it takes quite a while to fully recover from an attack.

I've never had allergies to any significant degree, but I have to wonder why Galen lives and trains in Oregon if his problems are so bad. Are the differences between pollens in Eugene and Portland that significant?