rough lungs; 2 miles in Satellite Beach

This 2.25 miles was super rough to do. I guess the change from cold and dry to warm and humid all at once was too much for my lungs to handle? Or maybe it is that this roughness that is in my chest, and which has been a growing thing for many weeks now, causes coughing fits to go on and on even after they aren't productive? I don't know.

I do know the first mile took 16 minutes - I probably could have done it faster had I NOT run any part of it. :( The second mile was better, about 14 minutes. Slightly less coughing, a lot less walking for sure. My last quarter mile was much closer to the pace I'd like to be at all the time, almost a ten-minute-per-mile pace.

The environment is interesting. I hope Florida gets much nicer than what I'm experiencing, because despite the mild weather, this just isn't my cup of tea. The lawns are uniformly bad, even the good ones are filled with a rough kind of grass that looks more like a home protection system than a place to play. The sidewalks are a joke, where they exist at all. (I understand this problem is endemic through most of America these days, but still.) And right now the weather is calm and humid. It'd be suffocating if it were ten degrees warmer - and it's not yet 70 degrees! I was not built for this kind of tropical "paradise", I don't think.

Still, the drivers are mostly sane, the people are friendly, and their lazy eyes aren't overly creepy. Everyone says hi and smiles at you and most of them even have most of their teeth still. I was even passed by a pretty girl on a bike with a leashed dog trotting beside her - she would not have been out of place in Prospect Park.

The roughness of my cough - the little irritation in my chest that is not phlegm, but isn't going away - is beginning to get annoying. It extends my coughing fits so much that it begins to seem it would be more productive to walk and not get my breathing to the point where I cough so much. But that would actually be counter-productive for me, wouldn't it?

I am here visiting my dad. I'd be visiting both parents, but Mom is off in St Louis doing her parenting thing, so I guess I'll have to wait for June to see her. Dad seems OK, but I am getting a lesson in the mechancis and logistics of being on oxygen. Interesting preview of my future, I'm sure. He cooked us pot roast last night and I loved it. I can't for the life of me figure out why I don't do this myself at home. I even have a crockpot!

Last thing: American Airlines, your pilots are the best, on par with United's. But if you guys think I'm paying you more money, beyond the price of my ticket, to check a bag, you're nuts. Think I can't pack clothes and medicines and therapy equipment enough for four days into one Hammacher Schlemmer hard-sided rolly carry-on? Think again, hosers!