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Bronchitis wrecked my marathon training
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Here's my situation: I haven't raced a marathon in 5 years (3:45 PR at my last race) and because I did not have a very spectacular 2017 with triathlon racing, I chose to revisit the marathon in the hopes of at least getting a PR to end my year on a high note. Things were going well until 2 weeks ago when my lungs quit on me basically shelving my training for the last 11 days. Finally got back on the bike today with hopes of slowly getting back to longer runs by next week.

This is my question: I was targeting the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 6 weeks with a goal of 3:15-3:20. I have consistently put in 40-45 kms per week since May which is higher mileage than what I trained for my previous marathons (30-40 kms and only towards then end of training). I was planning on hitting 50-55 kms in the next 3 weeks but I will have to now scale that back. All of my easy runs are at 5:00-5:15 per km.

Should I consider running the half marathon instead? Re-evaluate my marathon goal time to account for 2-3 missed big weeks of training? Or say screw it and stick to the plan and see what happens?

I'm counting on the wisdom of random strangers on the internet to help me out
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Re: Bronchitis wrecked my marathon training [Hackweight] [ In reply to ]
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Do you still have symptoms? Having had bronchitis several times in the past, the danger is to push through and then prolong it. If there are no symptoms, I would think you'd still have that built-up fitness lingering around. Personally I would avoid any speed/tempo work and just focus on building back easy mileage--maybe with some strides at the end. Do this for 4 weeks and build back to your 40-45 km before starting a bit of a taper. If you're feeling good, maybe in the 3rd & 4th weeks do a tempo workout.
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Re: Bronchitis wrecked my marathon training [Hackweight] [ In reply to ]
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Do the marathon, it's been 5 years & you'll likely get a PR even if you don't go as fast as originally hoped for.

I got really ill (fever/shivering) 3 weeks before a marathon this year & still got a PR out of it.
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Re: Bronchitis wrecked my marathon training [Hackweight] [ In reply to ]
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Hackweight wrote:
Here's my situation: I haven't raced a marathon in 5 years (3:45 PR at my last race) and because I did not have a very spectacular 2017 with triathlon racing, I chose to revisit the marathon in the hopes of at least getting a PR to end my year on a high note. Things were going well until 2 weeks ago when my lungs quit on me basically shelving my training for the last 11 days. Finally got back on the bike today with hopes of slowly getting back to longer runs by next week.

This is my question: I was targeting the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 6 weeks with a goal of 3:15-3:20. I have consistently put in 40-45 kms per week since May which is higher mileage than what I trained for my previous marathons (30-40 kms and only towards then end of training). I was planning on hitting 50-55 kms in the next 3 weeks but I will have to now scale that back. All of my easy runs are at 5:00-5:15 per km.

Should I consider running the half marathon instead? Re-evaluate my marathon goal time to account for 2-3 missed big weeks of training? Or say screw it and stick to the plan and see what happens?

I'm counting on the wisdom of random strangers on the internet to help me out

Your mileage is too low. The km's should be in miles for those numbers, even then still low. I get bronchitis once a year. Still jog through it to maintain aerobic. Sometimes yes it did prolong it
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Re: Bronchitis wrecked my marathon training [Kentucky Mac] [ In reply to ]
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Kentucky Mac wrote:
Do you still have symptoms? Having had bronchitis several times in the past, the danger is to push through and then prolong it. If there are no symptoms, I would think you'd still have that built-up fitness lingering around. Personally I would avoid any speed/tempo work and just focus on building back easy mileage--maybe with some strides at the end. Do this for 4 weeks and build back to your 40-45 km before starting a bit of a taper. If you're feeling good, maybe in the 3rd & 4th weeks do a tempo workout.


I agree with Kentucky Mac here. One time, I thought I was almost done with bronchitis. Did a half marathon (out and back). The first half, I took it really easy. Since I felt so good on the first half, I thought "hmmm, I must be done with this bronchitis crap so I'm gonna run the last half a lot faster". Ended up with about three more weeks of bronchitis as it worsened the next day. Most cases of bronchitis are viral related and simply need time to let your body clear it up. If you push it too much, your body's immunity cannot keep up and you will regress
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