Various runs, and scratching it up at the allergists

A couple of scratchy days running, but as anyone in Sydney would tell, conditions haven't exactly been conducive to good cruising. Wednesday ended up a pretty grinding 1:15 run home in warm conditions, started out okay but tanked on Victoria Road through Rozelle and just kind ground it out from there. Thursday saw a 3.2km windsprint session with the squad - I wasn't feeling great, with a late tofu lunch not sitting well, but worked through for an 11:27, and this morning slogged around Bedlam Bay oval for a fairly uninspired half hour in very humid conditions.

As for the allergist, well, I'm not allergic to anything. Nothing, nil, zilch, nada. I was sitting there with about 18 or so scratch tests on my arms, and she said "mmmm, you're not an allergic sort of bloke, are you?".

We chatted at some length, and she confirmed that the issue goes back to the horrendous flu I had last year. Apparently it was one of the worse Australia's seen in quite some years, with quite a number of cases turning into pneumonia, and a 'sprinkling' of deaths, including a few people younger than my good self. The antibodies from that are still present in my system, which whilst helpful in protecting me from the flu in coming years (to a degree negated by training) means that the immune cells in my throat are still on the lookout for it, and overreacting to things that aren't flu infections.

The two main factors in this are fatigue, and alcohol when fatigued. The alcohol issue is that it apparently kills white blood cells, and the immune system is misinterpreting the dead white blood cells as a sign of infection, so *bam* I cop the sore throat and sinus. So, I need to be conscious of how I'm feeling. I'll probably give the booze a miss for a while - I need to get on top of my weight anyway, so that'll help there. Bit of a crapper, though - I do like a drink.

Apparently it's going to be like this for a couple of years. I figure it's probably going to be learned behaviour if I keep at it until mid to late 2007!

Would have been nice to get a good clean answer - something like "avoid prawns" would have been easy to implement. Oh well, at least I have a bit more of a guide.