liralen | Breathing a Little Easier (Reply)

With the winds going a different direction, the smoke hasn't been as bad lately from the California fires. Yeah, I know, we're nearly 1000 miles away, but the jetstream was bringing it right to us.

The bemusing thing was that I started going my breath capacity tests last night when I was wondering how it was affecting me.

The highest scored I'd *ever* gotten was 400. I was averaging about 360 and going as low as 330 on bad days, and got to about 380 last summer when I was doing well. Even with the smoke, I blew a 430, twice just to be sure it was real, yesterday evening. It's a volume reading, so it really does mean that I've, possibly, regained another 8% or so.

So I am improving, indeed.

One of them was that at the beginning of the summer I was half afraid of trying to go an entire two 50 yard laps in our neighborhood pool. And the other day I did twelve laps and could have gone more but we had to stop for dinner. *laughs* I think I've improved either technique-wise, or my endurance simply has gotten better lately.

I've been trying to swim or bike every day, but avoided running because of my knee.

This morning the kids all had a late start day, to let the teachers have a little time, once a month, to catch up and do things while at the school. We had two other kids over as their parents work and it's kind of a disruption of their childcare. So we had them over for a while before all of them had to go to the bus. Being *three* kids they were all waiting for the others for every stage of the 'getting ready' process.

So when we were out in front of the house and the bus came onto our street, we were all caught in the driveway.

"RUN!"

So we all ran for it. The three kids and I, at least, John stayed to take care of the last few things they hadn't put away, and we ran the block and a half, and all made it with time to spare. The bus had a stop sign that the driver took a little extra time at as she could see that we were running for it.

I wasn't even out of breath. I was... amazed.

And it felt good to do.

The exercise bike has been easier, too, but I was attributing that to my watching the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime series while I rode, it was my incentive, so to speak. *laughs* But really, I'm getting better and stronger at that as well. I've gained some of that initial 15 pounds I lost back, and while I wish I hadn't gained quite so much back during the trips, I halfway wonder if enough of it is muscle that I don't really want to go all the way back.

I also switched to the one-third the price drugs over the last couple of months, so it's good to know that they're not making a negative difference in any way.

It's kind of cool to realize, though, in measurable ways that with the combination of the allergy shot series and regular exercise, I've been improving.