Above the neck, just depends how bad it feels but never 100% effort. Below the neck, 100% stop.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Rest for two reasons:
1. My body needs it from time to time, so resting while I'm sick just moves it from a scheduled day to sick day.
2. I usually enjoy my workouts. Yes, some of them hurt, but the majority are fun and are the reason I still do this. Exercising while sick is always miserable, and it's just not worth it.

I did do. Having two kids under 4 we nearly always had bugs coming into the house. Combine that with massive lack of sleep and a stubborn personality. Ran myself so low I ended up with infective mononucleosis which knocked my haemoglobin right down, impaired my liver function, enlarged my spleen and basically put me on my arse. 8 weeks and counting off training. Season is over before my first race.

So now I don't...

 
Sometimes its better to be lazy and wait till you are over whatever ails you. I got a cold on a Thursday a few weeks ago, took it easy all week and was feeling better. Went for a spirited group ride the following Wed, woke up the next day feeling like hell again, set me back another 3-4 days.

above the neck and feeling up to it yes
below the neck usually not though 2 years in a row have broken that rule training for spring marathons but in both cases I felt ok even though I was hawking up disgusting stuff

I rest.

Rest

I've always heard the below the neck restriction to training. Recently went for a cycling holiday in Spain and caught a cold on the flight over. Wasn't going to interrupt my holiday so I rode unabated every day and took a couple of Tylenol to sleep at night. Rode about 20 hrs in 7 days, including >10,000m of elevation with a few all out 20min efforts. Power was down a little and I hacked and coughed a bit but didn't feel bad while riding. I didn't have anything else to do other than ride and eat. When I got home I continued commuting 2 hrs/day and hacked and coughed a lot while riding but it was basically gone in two weeks so I'm not sure I'd do anything different next time. This was my first cold in 6 yrs so it's not a big deal one way or the other for me.

This is a good general rule.

I'll add that sometimes even with below the neck, if after a few days of rest things are stable I'll do a "warm" workout - easy running, or riding a bike on a trainer or in warm weather outdoors that is short and easy, to get a bit of a sweat going and elevate my metabolism. Sometimes this will seem to speed up the recovery - or at least make me feel better.

This is NOT training - it's not going hard enough or long enough to get a training benefit.

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If you do it right, by the time that you get sick you probably need a rest.

If it's 1-2 days into the build up for a race, maybe do some lighter stuff, but if you get to the point where you go "man this is stupid" then stop.

And of course the "above the neck" rule applies. Anything below that and it's a marathon on Netflix of whatever show sounds good.

I follow the neck rule. I find that when I'm congested and otherwise feel okay, a good swim tends to clear out the sinuses. ;)

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri