Those Damn Geese

As you can assume, training is hard on your body.  It's hard on your mind (a lot of this is all a mental game).  It's hard on your hair from all the shampooing.  It's hard on your crotch (if I get the guts, then I'll blog about that some day).  It's hard on your family/friends/loved ones because you essentially disappear for a year.  It's hard on your work/life balance.  And, it's also hard on your skin from all the sun exposure, the chlorine, the salt water, and the duck/goose poop.  Yep.  Poop!

Geese hanging out on the shore

Yesterday was another Tri for Fun in Pleasanton.  Shadow Cliffs is known for "growing things" in the hot summer months.  When I/my teammates swim there, we rinse off immediately and never have any issues.  However, yesterday, I did Tri for Fun with my dad and stepmom (I'll write about that later, too).  There's no time to rinse in a tri so on the bike I went.   

The ducks and geese poop in the water.  The snails eat the poop.  And, there is a microscopic parasite that lives off the snail.  When you swim in water with lots of duck poop, that snail parasite can burrow in to your skin.  If the water evaporates from you before rinsing, those parasites can remain on your skin.  But, humans aren't a good host so they die pretty quickly.  And, when they do, they leave bumps like this:

Well hot diggity damn.  I've got Swimmer's Itch (sometimes called duck itch, or lake itch, or officially cercarial dermatitis).  I started itching around 10pm last night.  They say it takes 12 hours for the symptoms to appear and it will last about a week.  I pretty much knew what it was as soon as it started happening.  Mine look like hives or flea bites.  I have sensitive skin so any allergic reaction pretty much always forms welts on me.  And, they are everywhere.  Eventually they will turn in to blisters.  Gee, great.  Zyrtec is helping keep the itching at bay.  But there is really nothing that can be done other than OTC medine and home remedies like baking soda paste, Aveeno (the oatmeal), and calamine lotion.  In severe cases, you can take prednisone, but prednisone keeps me up until 3am every night. Unless this gets worse, I'll just stick with the home remedies and hope I can handle it for another week.