Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Pool snuffle

Long swim this am. I'd been mulling over the choice of FOMC or CM, and chose CM because I can see the pace clock. My heart sank when half the pool was booked. Kids. Bah! Turned out there weren't so many of them, and these kids could really swim. I found out later it's the Cascade swim club, since their normal pool is undergoing renovation.

The fast lane had 2 people in, so I got them swimming circles. At least they were fast, or reasonably fast and considerate. Near the start I got a bit of water, and spent the next while wanting to burp. Eventually that came out just as I finished a set. I'm sure it echoed off the walls. I messed up and did the 4 x 200m at the end instead of near the beginning, so I didn't quite make the times. This turned out to be just over an hour of swimming. Still trying to surface nicely after flip turns.

I had a chat in the hot tub with a nice Chinese gentleman. To be blunt, he swims very badly, but asked about how to do better. We talked a bit about how to swim faster. I'm trying to find a nice way of suggesting he swim in the slow lane, but so far it hasn't been a problem, so I haven't worried about it.

It's snowed about 4 cm since my run on Monday, and some of my neighbours are slack about shoveling their sidewalks. The roads are getting polished up very nicely, to the point I was running very carefully, more concerned about balance than speed. It was only -15 C (5 F) so not too cold, but I made sure to warm up slow and easy. Ran 10 K, 69:15 overall nice and easy, second half was a minute quicker. K9 was brutal. I was getting tired, it's deceptively uphill, and no shoveling had been done. Walked a bit to cool down, and stretched inside.

Aka Alice posted some nice pics of the weather she has to put up with these days. Visit at your peril. Weeping, wailing, and teeth gnashing are likely to occur.

Yoga class is on again, instructed by Fiona. She promises lots of hip opening stuff over the next 12 classes. Tonight was good. 1.25 hours. Brought some kleenex since pool snuffle struck late this afternoon. I don't understand this. I swim in a salt water pool, though I know there is still a slight bit of chlorine in it. But I don't get snuffle right after the swim. Typically it comes on hours later, often many hours. Sometimes it's not bad, sometimes like tonight I'm sneezing my brains out (which doesn't take much work but I've installed elastic cords so it just snaps back into place) and blowing my nose a lot. It's a royal pain. Anyone have any ideas how to deal with this?

6 comments:

  1. Makes me cold just thinking about it! I get the pool snuffles too - if you figure it out, let me know. I just always assumed it was some kind of allergic reaction to the chlorine.

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  2. I get pool snuffle too and I HATE IT!!!! Since I had a pretty bad sinus cold a couple of weeks ago though, I bought this Sinus Rinse thingie. It came with all these little packets of premixed salt and baking soda -- you put warm water into the bottle then you dump the contents of one of the packets in. Shake it up.

    Then comes the fun part. Bend over the sink, tuck your chin to your chest, open your mouth slightly and don't hold your breath. Then you squeeze the warm water solution up one nostril where the stuff comes out the other side.

    Or, ii sometimes comes out your mouth. Nice. It does help with the pool snuffle though. Plus, it's another reason to talk about bodily fluids amongst other triathletes!! LOL!!!!!

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  3. LOL at 5ยบ being "not too cold."

    I do thank you for the mention. I await more name calling ;-)

    I don't swim much, so I don't know about the pool snuffle, but I'd agree with Missy. It sounds like an allergy. Maybe if you take a mild antihistamine (Claritin or something like that), it might help. Since you don't get the snuffle until AFTER the pool, you could take it after you're done swimming.

    I have LOTS of allergies, so I deal with this kind of thing all the time. Running in the spring would be a nightmare for me if it weren't for Claritin.

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  4. Fricking POOL NOSE. I do not know what that is all about. I swam for 5 years when I was young and I do not remember it - maybe I had it but I do not recall. I know that sometimes it is horrid and sometimes not too bad and at Kilarney - I had none (salt water). Sometimes it is SO BAD I do think it is allergies - sometimes it feels more like a cold. Do you realize if you figureed this out K - it could mean millions and then you could fly down and whoop Alice for them photos on her blog - the swimmer were canadain - for sure!!

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  5. No clue on the salt water and the sneezes. My old pool was salt water and I didn't experience that. Maybe you're alergic to swimming? No, that can't be.

    Oh and I hate neighbors that don't shovel their sidewalks!!!!!

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  6. I get pool snuffle a lot, and I also get hayfever allergies - AND I use anti-histmaine (claritin and others) after the pool if it's bad and it works - I figured I was allergic to chlorine - try it, it might work for you too :)

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