Monday – Hay Fever Steady State

It’s been warm weather for a few days, and it hasn’t rained much. Also, all trees are in bloom. Finally, Monday saw a change in pressure and wind direction.

For Hay Fever guys like me, that means taking precautions. A daily sniff of nose spray, and at high risk days also a tablet.

I forgot all that and just hit the road unprepared.

In the afternoon, I had to run some errands (bank, notary, post office), and I used the public transport, so I spent some time in trams and buses with open windows.

By 6pm, my immune system decided it was time to go into full emergency action against the pollen dose.

Painful, inflamed eyes and nose, feeling tired, etc.

It is hard to do a training in this state. Energy wise, I felt like even a light steady state would be too much. But, I also know that actually doing the exercise helps reduce the symptoms. As soon as I start sweating a bit, the symptoms seam to ease.

So I did just that. An hour of steady state on the erg. It was hard in the beginning, but I gradually got into it, and the symptoms really did ease up. Glad I did exercise.

I was rowing the session on Painsled, connected to Zwift for some virtual company. I let Zwift chose random courses for me. This time it was two loops in some city environment, with a few short cobblestone climbs in the second half of the loop, which really helped me to get through the entire hour. The nice thing about rowing on Zwift is that the loops give you some kind of “completion point” which keeps you going until you have reached it, as opposed to allowing yourself to stop erging at a random point.