The Spring Running Triple Threat: Allergies, Illness & Asthma

Ever wonder what it's like when two seasoned coaches break down how they'd

guide an athlete through different goals and challenges? Welcome to Tread

Lightly, the podcast where we bring you easily digestible data-driven insights.

We're all about making training accessible, inclusive, and fun, whether you're

new or aiming to level up. I'm cohost Laura of Laura Norse running.

I have my masters of applied exercise science and I've been coaching since

2015. I've worked with hundreds of runners from first racist podium

matches and I'm your cohost Amanda Brooks of Run to the Finish since 2012.

I've written thousands of running articles and worked with as many runners

through both one-on-one and group programs. So runners start your watches and

let's go. Hello runners. Today we're going to talk about some of the

common less convenient things that happen often during either spring or fall

training or maybe unfortunately just around race day. So allergies,

illness, and often the related asthma. Yes, and we're going to dive into

recommendations on how to deal with them. We do want to say that this is not

medical advice. This is training advice. If you are sick or where you have asthma,

please consult a doctor. We do have a listener question. This came from

Anne on Spotify. Do you have advice for charity bibs? How to raise the

money. I'm doing one for Chicago next year. So I always say first hats off to

everyone who is raising money for charity and training at the same time.

It's a lot of work. So I'm always super impressed. I know I did an

article on this a while back. I interviewed someone who had raised funds.

I don't know 10 or 15 times I feel like. So it was something she had done

frequently. And I do think part of it is leaning into the uncomfortability of

the fact that you're going to need to ask repeatedly. Because people often,

maybe they have the good intention to donate, but they forget they move on to

the next thing in their day. So the fact that you're going to have to ask

repeatedly is probably the first thing I'd say is to just lean into the fact

that you're going to have to ask on repeat.

One thing I've seen some people do is they put it in their email sign off

whether it's the personal or if it's appropriate for the professional,

that way it's kind of there when they're in communication.

Social media is a great way to repeatedly share it. And I have seen some people

go almost like an old school route and they'll do yard sales and all the proceeds

go to that. They'll do big sales, etc. I wouldn't rely on that solely,

but it can be a way to get a few more $100 towards that large sum of money.

I do think it helps to connect people to your why. So why you're doing it?

What meaning does the charity have for you? That often is very helpful.

Don't be afraid to send out the emails. Like she said, don't be afraid to mention it

on social media. Don't be afraid to, if you need to, bring it up at work

and knowing your workplace appropriately.

It is often because we're talking thousands of dollars for most of the charities.

If you're looking specifically to get a charity bib.

So get creative, be open to all the ideas.

Definitely check out the article I have. Like I said, I know she gave a bunch of tips in there.

I wish I had other like things that were just like, here's a way to hit it out of the park.

But it really is a lot of repetition.

It is. So like start early. If you're training for Chicago and you know you're doing a charity start now.

Like don't wait until August or September to do it.

Yeah. The other thing you can do sometimes is to make it fun is you can work with people

so that it's a dollar per mile or a dollar per week that you train.

Or so maybe there's some component to it that makes it feel like they're a little more a part of it or a little more invested in it.

Or for your donation, I'll put your name or the name of your loved one on my shirt.

Or some of those kinds of things can help it stand out a little bit from maybe what someone else is doing

or help them feel a little more connected to you in the whole process.

Awesome. And if you have any other questions, please reach out via Spotify or Instagram or if you're a member of our Patreon.

And now we're going to move into talking about allergies illness and asthma or recording this in the spring.

But this is probably also very helpful for the fall seasons because fall allergies can be as bad as spring ones.

They're just different types of allergies.

I'm sure I tend to fall into that late summer fall. So same.

The ragweed is kind of like the one that hits me extremely hard.

So I will notice that and breathing issues then, whereas maybe more of you now in the spring, early summer or dealing with maybe grass pollen, some of those kinds of things.

But all of these tips will align kind of your regardless of which thing is triggering it.

It is important to pay attention if you're dealing with allergies while running because running can actually increase the response that you're having.

So maybe something that you didn't really realize bothered you previously and now you're running more suddenly you're like, why am I having a little bit bigger response and it could actually be because of the running.

So the reason why that happens is because when you encounter an allergen, which was a foreign protein, such as pollen, your body has a histamine response histamine is a signaling chemical that alerts the immune system.

There's something here that shouldn't be here.

However, you kind of get an extra histamine response with running to it is part of a normal cascade of physiological responses that do long term help with adaptation.

But what you can have is this compounded histamine response, which means more allergy symptoms, the itching, the sneezing, the redness in the eyes or skin.

Also, exercise does increase your respiratory rate. So say you're walking outside and there's that like cotton all over the place where you see the cotton visibly you're walking might not bother you as much.

But when you're running, you have an increased respiratory rate says you go through that snow like cover of cotton or dogwood or whatever it is and you're breathing it in more heavily, you get more pollen into your airways, thus compounding your response.

Yeah, one of the interesting things that can happen in running, even if you're not having a reaction to something in the air is where you almost get itchy legs while you're running and it is part of this.

It's this blood flow coming up. It's this histamine response and usually that is something that gets better over time as your body kind of adapts to what's going on.

But that is like an interesting scenario of like kind of seeing how this happens as part of you just working out even.

Yeah, there are actually some people will who will have like a histamine intolerance and they will have an allergic reaction periodically to intense exercise where they'll get like swelling in their face, maybe even like some breathing issues.

And it does, like you said, impact some people more than others.

Now what happens when you do get this histamine response from environmental allergens is and you're probably thinking, listen to us thinking duh, it gets harder to breathe.

It impacts your running performance and you just don't feel as good on a run.

Yeah, so obviously if your breathing starts to change, then that can increase your heart rate a little bit.

So as your breathing is kind of being impacted, then your heart rate is getting higher.

Anytime your heart rate gets higher, that means your perception of how hard you're working is getting higher.

It's kind of a yes, we know, so we'll get into some like tips here, but there is some interesting even like research where they've started to look at what kind of decline are we seeing.

Yeah, so there was a cross sectional observational survey of athletes and pollen induced allergic rhinitis allergies and 80% of those athletes in this study.

Saw a performance decline from the environmental allergens, so it's not just you who's dealing with that.

And I think also it shows that it's not just this perceived impact.

It is actually enough of a performance decline to show up with statistical significance.

Yes, I think that is really important because sometimes we think it's just us and like we need to toughen up or something.

So no, really something is happening and important to also know that beyond things like pollen or ragweed air quality is also really important and it could have even bigger impacts than what we're seeing with just allergens.

So air quality you'll see it as this is a qi means that there are particulates in the air that can pass through the membranes of your lungs and cause inflammation and athletes who have allergies and or asthma and especially if you have both will be heavily impacted by poor a qi.

So I recommend for asthmatic athletes and or those with pretty severe seasonal allergies is to check the a qi and if it's in the range of like 50 to 100 you might want to adjust workout intensity if it's over 100 you might want to either make it an easy run under an hour or take a hard work out to the treadmill.

And if it's over 150 for anyone you absolutely want to be on the treadmill, but I do think these populations have to be more aware of the air quality.

So I did find one really weird fact while I was researching some of this and I just had to share.

So one sneeze every 60 seconds could add a minute to your 10k time or four minutes to your marathon.

I don't know exactly how they studied making someone sneeze like every 60 seconds, but I thought it was amusing so beyond just your breathing there is obviously like impacts when other things are happening so dehydration is actually another one that's really important here.

So if you're dealing with allergies and some of this stuffiness really, really pay attention to staying on top of your hydration because your body is actually using a little bit more of it as it's trying to kind of deal with this inflammation that it's getting from the allergen response.

Yes, and on top of that you might have sleep issues if congestion is impacting your ability to breathe, especially when you're supine for a lot of people it will be more pronounced when they're laying down.

And then you get that horrible post nasal drip and another thing we'll see with post nasal drip can actually be minor gastro intestinal upset from accidentally ingesting your own mucus that can cause a lot of stomach upset for people and that will be compounded by that dehydration.

You don't need multiple wearables stacked uncomfortable on your arm and a grocery boils worth of monthly subscriptions to have both health tracking and a multi sport GPS watch.

The balance to from a mass fit is competitively priced high performing wearable that provides advanced training features health tracking and a long battery life with over 170 sport modes.

This watch contract you're running your skiing your swimming your pickle ball and more the dual band GPS uses six satellite systems and sharing you have high GPS accuracy whether you're in a big city or out on the trails.

The bright AMOLED screen is scratch resistant unless you see your data in real time whether you're logging early morning miles in the dark or training midday in the bright sun and all of this for just $2.99 USD use code tread lightly for 10% off at a mass fit if you're in the market for a new GPS watch.

So let's talk a little bit about how this can then lead into or often kind of coincide with exercised induced asthma.

Yeah, so exercise induced asthma is marked by symptoms such as coughing, weezing or chest tightness they can occur during exercise or in the five to 30 minutes after stopping exercise and I think that's really worth important to know that if you are worried about this you want to monitor not just how you feel during the how you feel after.

They are common in winter during very cold temperatures below usually 32 Fahrenheit zero Celsius due to airway construction from the cold however after winter research demonstrates that spring is the time you are most likely to experience.

Exercise induced bronchiospasms one study demonstrated up to 73.1% of young adults with asthma like symptoms will experiencing that in the spring especially around exercise and unfortunately if you begin to experience this the only way to work through it is usually to stop especially if it occurs after a heart interval and it can take 30 minutes or so for symptoms to pass.

So one of the other things that most of us may not realize is happening is allergies or even asthma could actually peak around your hormonal cycle or be higher in those using hormone replacement therapy and there's some really interesting kind of information about this now and it makes sense to those of us who kind of think about inflammation that we feel throughout our cycle.

Also going to happen around allergies so as your estrogen levels are declining during perimenopause menopause a lot of women will actually notice new or worsening asthma and allergy symptoms so it's not uncommon you're not crazy if you're starting to know that so what's happening is just that your inflammatory responses become more pronounced and your body is starting to respond differently to.

And if you are for the first time experiencing exercise induced asthma or asthma like symptoms it is highly recommended to go talk to your doctor as they will often prescribe a pre exercise inhaler to treat those symptoms but it's not something you want to go and just start treating yourself.

So the other one that's interesting is that stress could also increase allergy symptoms which again we're talking in that same kind of world of hormones and how the body is just sort of reacting to things because it's already in a little bit of a heightened state.

So again, make sense that while you're running you are currently stressing your body and particularly if you're in a heavy load of training a little more stress on the body so maybe you're just noticing a little bit more stuff that didn't really bother you in the past.

Some practical tips that can help for an allergen response honestly when the best things that I've used and this was recommended to me by a doctor in Colorado after I kept getting sinus infections from the allergens out there is sailing it's so gross the baby sailing from the store does taste a little less egregious than the adult one.

But the sailing is a non medicinal way to clear things out in your sinus passage and it's totally safe to use before run it usually safe to use with most things it's just kind of gross but again it really helps clear out that congestion the other one is immediately removing clothing after you come in so especially jackets shoes.

But honestly, whatever you were wearing if you've just been outside and picked up all that pollen you don't want to then track it through the house or sit somewhere and then you've transferred it to another thing in your house so yes having a spot when you come in where you can sort of immediately try to get stuff off is actually really important.

Additionally, it can help to wear sunglasses and a visored hat especially like I get really dry itchy eyes with allergens and even if it's not sunny out the sunglasses add a protective barrier around the eyes that can help and then the visored hat can keep the pollen of your face and that's especially important if you're trail running or you're running in an area with lots of trees and the pollen might literally be falling like I remember sometimes in Colorado the wind would blow and you would see like a ghost.

Of the tree with pollen all around it so anything you can do to keep it off your face and eyes will help yeah and I would say if you're someone who doesn't want to wash your hair daily wearing a full hat so that you can try to cover and keep it out of your hair also helpful good to remember that often lotions hair sprays those are things that are going to trap it and sort of keep it on your body so.

Helpful to just think about maybe once you come in you're trying to not just remove your clothing but hop in the shower pretty quickly so that you can get it off your skin to especially if you had on obviously sunscreen which was necessary and things like that.

As we mentioned allergens can be dehydrating and so bringing some fluids with you even on shorter easier runs can help offset that dehydration and that dry scratchy throat dry eye feeling.

And then nasal strips like we see people wear them as if they're going to be these amazing performance enhancers and I think we talked about that in the previous hot takes episode.

But the one place I do feel like they can help is when you are experiencing nasal congestion from allergies that can really just open up your breathing airway a little bit more.

One interesting thing that I found years ago when I was doing some research is if you are already using over the counter allergy medicine.

You might try taking it at night there is some potential that one it could actually help potentially with sleep which makes sense if you're not congested you're going to sleep a little bit better.

But also better than taking it immediately before you go out for a run so something to just try see if it makes a difference for you.

Yeah also we're up and down by that trick trick it helps so much and it helps if you're prone to drassy symptoms too.

But now we're talking through all of this and the one thing that gets confusing for some people is what is allergies versus illness is this stuff he knows okay to run through or should you rest all together.

Yes, the should I run or should I not is always the difficult decision because there's a lot of components happening here so I think oftentimes what you will hear people talk about is sort of the above.

The neck rule or below the neck in terms of kind of helping you decide and explain how that is kind of used.

Yeah so with above the neck that is truly symptoms just in the head so minor headache maybe like sinus discomfort where you feel it behind your nose and your teeth itchy dry eyes nasal congestion sneezing those things.

Neck and below so sore throat means no go a fever is even if you're majoring in your forehead it is not the next symptom it is a systemic total body symptom so fever absolutely no go chest congestion no go there's a high risk of that turning into pneumonia or bronchitis and.

You know the one thing I would say and obviously GI distress is a no go body chills malaise fatigue the one where it is above the neck where I would pause for question is if you are having clear symptoms of a sinus infection and it's just not getting better so that's that.

Heavy sinus pain that discovered heavy snot you might want to go into the doctor for that and I think it's important that also even if you can exercise with nasal congestion a head cold that doesn't mean you should especially with a high intensity or a long run over 90 minutes.

And then the other thing I'd add is a lot of times you'll have these tell tell allergy versus six symptoms so I have with allergies my eyes will be dry and itchy that's a tell tell symptom if nasal congestion is related to allergens or not if i'm sick I won't necessarily have that itchy eyes feeling and usually there is more fatigue with sickness so really be careful in learning your body and distinguishing those symptoms.

I think like you said one of the keys is that okay i've got a runny nose how does the rest of me feel like am I tired like.

Maybe I need to just back off for a day even with allergies if you push your body too hard we could still create a different issue so I think it's important like you said to kind of pay attention and.

Listen runners often talk about watching the color of their pee to see if they're hydrated watch the color of your snot honestly if it's clear you're probably fine but if it's starting to change colors.

Something else is taking hold there and needs to be looked at yes oh yeah 100% of someone who definitely had run through stuffing like oh this is just allergies and then became a full blown sinus infection that took me out running for a week.

It's always better to stop early and one thing that's important to think is I know people are always anxious about missing training or stuff but a lot of times if you train through illness you are not having productive training and you might be prolonging your illness which is going to keep you out of productive training for a while so not only is it that you won't adapt to your training when your body is fighting illness and then the catabolic state.

But especially runs longer than 90 minutes or moderate high intensity runs will temporarily depress immune function and that's not something you want when you're sick.

So one of the things that we often see in runners is getting sick during taper or getting sick right after a race and there is this theory called the open window theory from David Nieman.

Which sort of says in the three to 72 hours after an intense training session or race your immunity might be suppressed making it easier for viruses or bacteria to take hold.

So this is an interesting one because there is other data on this too that kind of says it's probably a much shorter window for most people most of the time.

But I do see it and you see it a lot in taper and I do think it's a component of going through a very hard training cycle where often your body is using a little bit of adrenaline to shut down your immune system because it's trying to get through.

So then when you start to pull back it's almost like it ramps back up and kind of says like oh okay I can come in now and clean up this stuff that I've been sort of ignoring.

After logging all these miles in the dark and cold winter we runners want to see our winter training pay off and spring however for optimal performance we need to make sure our nutrition supports our training.

Like many runners in the northern hemisphere I know that I need extra vitamin D in winter to support my training and health.

It's not like I'm going to get it from what we call the Seattle sunshine.

I also want to know that whatever I'm using is clinically tested and certified safe for sport.

Pro bio nutrition offers an all-in-one daily supplement that's both lab tested and real world proven.

After developing it they spent 18 months observing how pro athletes responded and drawing their blood work before releasing it to the public.

In addition to the much-needed vitamin D pro bio contains magnesium, vitamin C, B vitamins,

leucine and more all those micro nutrients that we runners need.

What you don't get in it matters as much as what you do.

There's no unappealing greens flavor, no adaptogens, no questionable undisclosed ingredients in a quote proprietary blend.

Use code tread lightly or the link in the show notes for 40% off a single order plus an additional 10% off and free shipping if you set up a subscription.

There is also, you know, we think about exercise usually as something that promotes immune function that there is a J shape curved to that where no exercise is not great for your immune health.

And a desirable amount of moderate exercise is beneficial for immune, your immune system function.

However, lots of long high-intensity efforts and especially if you don't have adequate carbon take.

During those sessions will begin to actually suppress your immune system more than if you were not exercising at all.

It's a combination of multiple factors, so intense and prolonged exercises actually decreases the circulating levels of white blood cells temporarily.

You increase your stress hormones, including cortisol and you increase the levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines.

And those are especially pronounced if you do not adequately intake carbs during training sessions longer than 90 minutes or intense training sessions longer than 60 minutes, which a lot of marathoners don't do that.

And they're doing a lot of intense training sessions over 60 minutes.

And also it increases free radical production that's a side effect of oxidation, which can impair immune cell function.

So your body can be hit from all these sides during especially marathon training or ultimate marathon training.

It's important to really think holistically about your sleep and your nutrition and your rest days to help stave off illness.

100% and I know we have talked about this many many times now on the show.

So we won't continue to beat it on you here, but yes, it's more than just your training.

However, say you get to rest or you get to taper week, I called it rest week, because I'm already thinking if you're really sick, that's what I want you to do.

But you get into taper, you're sick, you're still feeling sick the day before a race.

Now it's time to really have a hard conversation with yourself about whether you should race or whether it's actually better for you to do not start or DNS.

And I will say the motto that I have shared years now is one body many races.

And I do think that puts it into perspective.

I know how hard you have worked to get to race day, but if you go out there and had compromised state, knowing that another 26.2 miles is going to further push you away from getting healthy.

And you create some much bigger issue.

I just I think the majority of folks regret it.

So let's talk through some of the like go, no go ways to kind of figure out, okay, I'm going to go do this race and I'm probably not going to make anything worse or no, this is really not in my best interest.

Yeah, so in the no category, stomach virus, especially if it's an acute, you don't want to be like vomiting or having diarrhea on the course.

And also, please think beyond yourself, neurovirus is heavily contagious and you don't want to be transmitting it to some people.

So think about others in yourself.

So if it's something that's acute and contagious, stay home.

Another absolute no go.

So no go is neurovirus highly contagious things and then a fever, you have a risk of having heart damage myocarditis or pericarditis when you exercise with a fever.

And that's just general exercise.

That's not thinking about the intense prolonged duration of a marathon.

And I've worked with athletes who have myocarditis, it is a long, scary road back and you sometimes don't ever fully get back to normal.

So that's something else worth thinking about.

Yeah, and like you said, if you're in the point where you're dealing with some sinus stuff and you turn it into bronchitis, which I can say I did in my 20s, I ran right through it until I yes had bronchitis, which is not fun and a much harder thing to recover from.

So really and truly taking an honest look at your symptoms, knowing that oftentimes we're traveling for races means you may be a little more dehydrated, a little more fatigued already.

So really, really try to stay on top of those things as you're kind of going into that race, if you're trying to boost yourself back up, but if you're getting there and it's still not great.

I think that's the point of starting to think, is there maybe something else in four weeks, so that gives me a little more recovery time, gives me like just a little bit of come back time and then ready to race.

But yeah, I would say most of the time, unless you're 100% willing to go out and be like, I'm going to take it easy, I'm going to have fun, I'm going to walk when I need to walk.

And I do not have the symptoms that we have just talked about, then like go have some fun.

And it does like even, you know, even if you apply the above the neck rule where you're like, oh, my symptoms are all just in my head, but I have pounding my green and I can't breathe through my nose, that's not a fun marathon.

So I think it's really worth thinking that through and I know it's easier for us to sit here and tell you to not run when you paid money for a race and they're hard to get into.

But really think both about the experience that you will actually have a funding message and about your long term health and your long term training.

And if you are finding that this is a consistent pattern, you get sick before every big race or you get sick after every big race, that is something to look at too.

So that kind of goes back to what Laura was mentioning about well, okay, during training, am I hydrating, am I taking in a fuel consistently. So am I really taking care of my body so that my immune system can be functioning the way it should post race.

Same thing. Did I maybe take care of myself during that race or did I go into the well so deep that then my body had nothing left to take care of itself.

Frequent illness is a clinical marker of relative energy deficiency in sport and overtraining syndrome, which it's debated whether those are actually just the same thing, but either way like you shouldn't be sick every single marathon build.

I know sometimes there are times in life you will be sick often like when you have a preschooler.

But if this is like years and years and years and there's not another reason is really worth maybe visiting a sports dietitian and getting a good look up is my diet intentionally or unintentionally leading to repeated illness.

I'll mention one other interesting thing that I thought was I'm seeing more of this out there. So if you're someone dealing with allergies and it's really driving you crazy. There is this new sublingual immunotherapy and it's probably not even that new. It's just that it's gaining attention.

But so this will involve taking a small dose of an allergen under the tongue to gradually build the body's tolerance. So the idea is that you're desensitizing the body over time so that you can maybe stop taking medicine for those allergies over time.

This was kind of an interesting one to me. I think for the folks who are like, man, this is really becoming like annoying really driving me crazy really like getting in the way.

So something to to research if you're in that camp.

Aller just are amazing. And if that's not available in your area, you probably can still have an allergist who can do allergy shots for you, which will take longer hold.

I know a few years ago there was some research that was like H1 blockers. So your anti histamine allergen drugs impair performance. And I think that study got overblown and I think it is still worth thinking about.

Do I need these drugs because my performance will actually be worse if I'm sick all season or feeling my allergies all season versus a possible minor impact that might not even be the case if it genuinely helps you.

Yeah, I think those are always interesting because you're kind of weighing up the, well, I can't sleep because I can't breathe out of my nose. And even while I'm running like I'm constantly needing to wipe something away or I'm itching my eyes. So I'm distracted versus the 0.01 possible potential of the medication.

Yeah, and I always wonder if those studies like are they looking at this for people who actually need it or is it just they're looking at it because some people do casually take these things over the counter.

But again, like if it really is an issue, take the medication you need you don't need to suffer.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Okay, do you have any specific questions for us around getting to race day, making the decision on whether to go or no go.

Feel free to drop a note on Spotify or wherever you're listening. We'd love to hear from you. And as always, please take a second to rate review and subscribe.