Everyone has a different experience but it took me 6 weeks post quarantine (quarantine ended 11/15, I had Delta), to get back to feeling "normal". My run is still not back (never really had it to begin with), but 5 days man.......plan on a few weeks if not months till you feel 100% back to pre covid levels.

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Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do.

Delta, 🤕 ouch

Yeh I know 5 days isn’t a lot. I think just compounding it with the off-season I have already taken makes it worse.

So, the quick-and-dirty question is vax or no-vax. If vax, then you are probably 4 weeks max. If no-vax, then probably 8 weeks.

This is based on multiple athlete friends who have had Covid on both sides of the vax. Just chill and enjoy the much needed rest.

Everyone has the own experience. I think since it’s your off-season (was mine too in November) you’re better off. Much better that than if you had a race a few weeks or a month out. Be patient with it, you’ll get back into race shape, take this time to do easier things like walks and mindless trainer/bike rides.

Get well soon.

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Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do.

Triple vaxxed but also type 1.

That bigly sucks. My athlete friend who was double-vaxed and had natural immunity from a pre-vax infection very conservatively took 4 weeks on round 2. He probably could have been back in the saddle after 2 weeks, but he was playing it safe. I vote you will be back on game in 2 weeks.

I’d take it !

I was glowing red positive for ten days. Two more days of weak positives. Quarantined the whole time - was flat on my back for seven days with fever, chills, the whole thing. Three weeks in all symptoms are gone but really tired (no working out at all). 6 weeks now and I feel really normal, but I didn't do a single workout or anything strenuous (it was too taxing) for five weeks. Now I am just digging out of the hole that five weeks off at age 50 creates.

I'd recommend not doing any training at all until 10 days no symptoms. There was a thread I posted on this a while back with links to guidance on return to exercise after COVID. I'm type 1 too. Since recovering from COVID, I've gotten sick around a further 2 times, but with a cold type thing. I had gotten back to around 30 minutes of running, 1.5kms of swimming and 1.5 hours of riding before latest illness. Be very patient.

I've basically barely trained at all since the end of January when I got sick the day after a half marathon (a race where I actually walked parts of it! sickness must have hit me then, although not many symptoms until following day). Have tried to come back a few times, only to get sick again, then getting COVID start of March, then another 2 bouts or so of colds.

I think having lockdowns has affected my immunity, plus daughter has returned to day care, which is basically like a petri-dish. My wife never gets sick and she has been sick twice since I got diagnosed with COVID.

Petrie dish hahah accurate

My bs numbers aren’t used to fk all movement and I’m hitting insulin like a junkie

Fortunately I never got fever or chills or temps. Just the heart rate refusing to normalise is driving me nuts

I actually found my levels got better as was doing same thing every day so less variables to adjust my insulin for. Getting back into exercise f’ed them up as different routine every day in terms of exercise.

You’re not alone. Wife and I got hit Monday. She’s feeling a bit better than I. Most likely omicron for us especially with a wet cough. Last night was mix of chills, feeling hot (no fever though) mild headache and feeling super lethargic.
Not planning on attempting a workout before at least 10 days.

You gonna be alright. Just rest up.

Having gone through COVID in early April and still dealing with the consequences, I'll say that if I could do it all over again I would err more on the side of caution in terms of getting back into training. I started easing (and I mean easing...30 min zone 1 type stuff) back in 7 days after my symptoms started improving, though I still had a bit of a cough and didn't test negative until the day before (10 days of positive tests). Started out okay but two days later developed heart symptoms. Since then I've been on and off physical activity, on and off with doctors appointments and various tests, and on and off with heart symptoms. So far the doctor hasn't found any evidence of myocarditis (finally getting an echocardiogram next week) and says if I go a couple of days without symptoms I should resume physical activity. Each time I do the first couple of days are fine and then the symptoms return. I'm not sure it would have made a difference but if I could travel back in time I'd have told myself to give it at least a week after all symptoms were gone completely before easing back in (which would have been more than a week after my first negative test). 30 min @ zone 1 doesn't seem like much of a workout but I think it's enough to cause problems when you may not be sufficiently recovered.

FLCCC.

I'm 4 weeks past initial infection and, like others, have found the transition back to exercise much harder than I though it would be. My runs are slower but my heart rate much higher; it spikes very early in the run and I am unable to bring it down by slowing down; any kind of hill or pace later in my run will put me near race-pace HR and it feels very difficult as well. Hoping I can eventually shake this virus and have my runs feel good again soon!

I had COVID (Delta) last July. I was double vaxxed at that point so it was like three days of feeling like hell and a few more days recovering until I felt normal. My issues was breathing and heart rate post COVID. I couldn’t run more than a few minutes without feeling like I had just run a 10K at race pace. This lasted until just a couple of months ago. So like 8-9 months until I felt breathing and HR had normalized.

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Don't worry -- this sounds completely normal. I had COVID in mid-January & took 5 days completely off. I was disappointed because I was into the early weeks of my base building & my running had been on fire. I felt horrible the first couple days of COVID, but felt ok enough the last couple to try a light bike on day 6. Noticed a higher heart rate so listened to my body, tried light workouts every other day. Started with just biking on the indoor trainer since that's by far where I'll have the lowest HR. Added in swimming after that. Then running.

I also tried my best to research how athletes should come back & found nothing but mixed opinions. Settled on 50% of volume, 30%, 20%, 10%. I still wasn't at 50% so I repeated that week before moving on. So I got COVID halfway through a training week & just did a couple light activities the next week after the 5 days off. 2 weeks of almost nothing. Then 2 at 50%. So 1 month of 0/0/50/50. Then 3 weeks of 30/20/10. I ran a 5k at the end of the 20% week & was ~30s off of my PB. I went by effort, ran even, & did what I could on the day.

4 weeks after the 5k I ran a half marathon PB. 4 weeks after that I ran a 5k PB. 2 weeks later I opened my triathlon season with a strong Olympic-distanced race. Hard to claim PBs because distances vary but this was a well known race with an accurately measured course. I've done races with shorter legs faster but that was, by far, my best effort over that distance & a PR for a 1500/40k/10k race.

Be patient. Take your time coming back. Do your workouts by effort, knowing that you shouldn't be able to hold peak fitness paces. You'll get back. Most should have a similar path back. I would say you or anyone needs to reach out to doctors if what you described is still happening after a month. Long haul COVID is a thing. But after 5 days? Sounds completely normal to me.

I had the typical omicron symptoms back on NYE (triple vaxxed and a hermit and I still got it somehow). I had 3 days of awfulness where my throat got so swollen that I couldn't even speak by the end of the day. Then I had about 7 additional days where I just felt generally tired and "off" mentally and physically. I didn't run at all during that time...at most, I soft pedaled on a bike for 30-60 minutes.

After 10 days, I was almost back to normal. However, my heart rate kept skyrocketing while exercising for another 2ish weeks. In all, it took about 3 full weeks for my HR to settle and for me to return to 100%. My doctor friends said that my timeline and experience was about right on with what they had been hearing re: omicron.

Just be prepared to have to take easy for longer than expected. My fitness personally came back just fine. And once my HR settled, I had no problems ramping up the training. I just wish it wouldn't have taken so long.

Responding with a similar history. Omicron first of April and hit with pretty significant symptoms. Took 4 days before I could walk not crawl to the bathroom. Pretty decent training winter after a few year hiatus, Zwift 6 times a week in my dark Canadian basement and 2-3 runs per week. Fitness was building nicely and had hopes of best summer training block in years. Took 4 weeks before I could climb a set of stairs without stopping because of peaked heart rate. Went for easy 1 hour flat ride last weekend because the spring weather was screaming. Heart rate was still about 25-30 bpm above where it should have been but I didn’t die. I have hope this will get better because rhr is slowly returning to Normal. At its current pace it’ll be 3 months post Covid before I return to semi serious training. 49y male, triple vaxxed and haven’t been in a building other than my house without an n95 since this started. Crazy virus that doesn’t really seem to care how fit you might be. On the other side most of my sloth friends wouldn’t notice an elevated heart rate and they simply felt like crap for a few days. We as obsessed athletes are more in tune with our bodies are telling us. Take it easy and have patience there are a lot of us on the same recovery path.

Thanks for everyone’s replies and experiences. Scary seeing hr symptoms ongoing for many months ! Mentally that would be hard to cope .

I’m hoping I track like the Normal of a few weeks of elevated hr and back to normal. I find that mentally challenging enough

Similar experience here to some of the above. Mild cold/symptoms for 4 days, worst being a sore throat, but tested hard positive for ~7 days, and light positive right to day 10.

Started with super light exercise (Recess/Lazy Mountain) and saw an elevated HR of 20-30 bpm but figured just needed to let the junk shake out. Running proved to be a disaster (HR 175 at jogging pace) and then started getting chest discomfort, palpitations, etc.. Shut it all down for 2 more weeks, and after a battery of testing cleared to restart "light exercise" again (my definition and theirs may differ here).

Finally, after 7 weeks since starting to test negative, starting to feel closer to "normal", but have reset FTP down ~20% and am waiting on echocardiogram results before hitting anything remotely intense. I'm optimistic at this point that it's just a question of rebuilding that lost fitness but it trashed the excitement of unleashing 2 years of no social life on my "A" race in late June. Just glad I expect to be able to participate at this point.

I don't know if waiting an extra week or two would have prevented losing the additional 4-5 weeks of detraining, but if I could do it again I'd take a more cautious approach to returning to exercise. Also agree that most of my friends that have had COVID and recovered quickly would have no reasonable data to compare against and don't do anything more strenuous than walking around, so I think this perception that it hits athletes harder is one of observation bias.

I had it and could have probably kept running, which I did once while waiting for my PCR test. Once I popped positive I kept it easy and had a headache for a few days but got back to it in a controlled sense. Riding at the house with a heart rate monitor since that seems to be what a lot of people seem to notice.

Everyone in my house ended up getting it (at the same time) and my wife being the most recently vaccinated had it the worst with the longest recovery. I was back at it in a week and not vaccinated.

Anyway there is a spectrum of patient reactions to the virus... you're going to live but listen to your body and heart. The heart especially, if you're still experiencing fatigue and irregular heart stuff, see your primary care or even better a cardiologist.

Reply to Fulla but could have been to almost any on this thread.

Many many thanks to all that have posted. I've just gone down with it and so this is a really helpful thread. I'm 47, triple vaxed with mild asthma and almost certainly down with an omicron variant (dominant in NZ). I was pretty conservative over last years to avoid, but then this week had some work events and the inevitable happened. As I was travelling I need to isolate in the hotel, which in some ways will help as it takes away the temptation to jump on the trainer before day 9, or to go walking up the hills. At best midweek I can go for a 30min flat walk around a nearby park.
I actually tested positive 10mins after I got back from an early morning run - was supposed to be routine test before a visit to an at risk destination, and so was a bit surprised. But then noticed a bit of a sore throat, and perhaps the runny nose wasn't from the pool chlorine. Last night was awful, splitting headache and Ox Sat was down to 85% this AM. Panadol/paracetamol has helped and the leg aches also eased but will be doing nothing other than making a dent in the hotel bed today and tomorrow.
Yesterday was really not fancying food, but this morning had some toast and straight away felt a lot better. Oh and the brain fog too. That was scary yesterday when I was trying to talk on the phone to sort some logistics out and couldn't find my words.

Can't believe no one has recommended Paxlovid.

I'm vaccinated and booster'd and acquired the variant recently from my wife who was the first to test positive in our house. I felt lethargic and had a fever on day 1, promptly started the Paxlovid that evening and when I woke up on day 2 feeling like a new person. I still had the URI symptoms (congestion, mild cough) but the fever/lethargy/systemic symptoms were gone. Oh and it's quite possible you will experience a bitter or metallic taste after starting Paxlovid. GL.

I was actually coming to this thread to recommend the same thing (if you can get a prescription). Sister woke up with a fever and tests positive; I test positive a few hours later with only the slightest inkling of symptoms; I get a paxlovid prescription a few hours later due to being somewhat immunocompromised right now and have been taking it for 3 days now. No fever, no cough, no fatigue, only a tiny bit of a sore throat in the morning. Honestly amazing and refreshing after being sick so much recently and having a bad first bout of covid in 2021. Going to try a light workout tomorrow and will closely monitor my heart rate, but I'm very thankful I was able to get the antivirals so early into my infection.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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Damn I’d never heard of this. It’s just been listed on our pbs in aus for use by those immunocompromised. Being type 1 id fall into that category. Well this is helpful if I get it again.

Fwiw I’m day 8. No symptoms as in headache fever etc etc. weakest of weak positive on a rat test yesterday.
Daily life I wouldn’t feel a thing and know any different ……But again the training hr has been the only issue. I did a zone 1 easy pootle today. Sun was shining and I did an hour at snails pace. That was enough for the ticker to bump to 155 on the odd occasion (I’m 42 fwiw). Less than a month ago that was my half iron heart rate pace. I’m not being silly with it though. I have reached out to fellow club members who have said it has taken them 2-3 weeks and basically overnight their Heart rate returned to normal rule of function for the intensity of exercise. It’s these stories of months and months that are scary.

Day 3 post +ve RAT. So seems like it was 6 days since I was exposed and possibly I was infectious from the day after, with those people starting to be positive or show symptoms today. Yesterday I was a complete mess. Horrendous headache, everything sore and pulseox through the floor. Today feeling more alert but have a worsening cough (I'm a mild asthmatic).

Interesting that my Garmin 'stress' score has been really high the last two days. RHR elevated about 20 bpm from normal.

Not attempted to leave my room (I'm isolating in a hotel as I was away with work when I tested positive), but did do a few rounds of heel raises from my physio for my achilles issues. Not completely sure but may be losing my sense of smell - still have some but think it's 'muted'. And also getting waves of hunger, albeit that goes after a glass of water. Can see things would get very bad for long term health if I was at home with access to the comfort food shelf.

I been good on the tooth too. Put the biccies down you will regret 🤣

Welcome to the jacked hr club. Running is now your enemy for that.

w/r to Paxlovid, just curious, how did you get a prescription? Isn't it restricted to folks with certain medical conditions? Over here we have a similar registration for Paxlovid. My wife's a doctor in a hospital and she was really surprised to hear that "athletic" folks would get a prescription.

Day 5 with symptoms for me. Tested positive. Its like I have a moderate cold but with terrible fatigue and a terrible headache that won't go away. Yesterday I tried to run, got in 30 minutes before the fatigue just overwhelmed me so I shut it down. Today I went for a 1 hour long run, nice and slow. Got it done but had to walk a couple of times towards the end. Slowly my strength is coming back but I am going to take it easy for a while and not push it.

Tested positive yesterday but have had a dry cough since monday night. My journey started with my losing my voice last Saturday. Never had that happen before. I felt fine otherwise, raced an Olympic Sunday, felt good, Monday night the coughing started. No other symptoms. I was resting post race anyway and thought it was related to the voice thing. Continued more and more coughing as the week went on. Took a home test that come up negative but after a hard night coughing Friday tested with a clinic that came back positive.

This is the weirdest illness I ever had. I never really get sick, 3xs vaxxed, not stuffy, no chest congestion, no sore throat, but persistent dry cough (especially at night) and slight fatigue. I don't think I have ever coughed this much in an illness. I can't imagine how bad I'd be without the vaccinations...I can see how this could send you to an emergency room. Thank you science.

I'm going to try a gentle run today and see how that goes.

I just explained how hard covid hit me before and that I've been sick four separate times since January which is abnormal for me so I likely have a somewhat compromised immune system since my first time with covid. Provider wasn't going to give it to me with at least one official qualifying condition but that was enough for them.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

I caught it a week ago Thursday, 2x fax and 2x boosted. Positive test on Friday a week ago, felt horrible (stuffy head, fever, tired) for two days, then fever ended Sunday morning and I got more energy/less symptoms each day after that. Went for easy 30 min bike on Weds, 40 min run on Thursday. Pretty much felt totally normal a week out from the positive test, and was able to do a 2 hour ride yesterday and 2 hour run today.

In the midst of the worst symptoms I was actively reviewing my bucket list to see if I had any regrets of things I hadn’t done. By a week later I’m optimistic I can build back up for a couple weeks and still do the marathon I was training for in mid June.

Side story- my wife caught it the same time, probably a day ahead of me, got anti-virals immediately because she is immunocompromised, and felt basically normal within 24 hours of starting the anti-virals. So wish I had some underlying condition to get them too, but no luck. I think being vaxxed and boosted definitely helped me get through it quickly.

Anyone else finding that since having COVID it seems to be much harder to beat other colds etc?

I'm tripled vaxxed and had flu jab a bit over a week ago.

I got diagnosed omicron start of March and started training again start of April. Just really short easy stuff.

Began with 25 minute bike and 25 min run with 1 min walk, 1 min run. I did the 10 day no symptom protocol prior to starting. Then got sick again a few days after resuming training so took more time off until 25 April or so and started really easy, then started feel sick again, took more days off, then started training again 4 May and managed to build to 1.20 on the bike and 25 minutes of straight running.

Then got sick again mid-May and have not trained since. My sickness symptoms are very mild - like running/blocked nose, feeling stuff down back of my throat, but I know if I resume training it is likely to get worse so I haven't. I've now had 4 months where I've managed to string together a maximum of around 4-5 days only without feeling sick again. Got sick end of January but didn't test positive for COVID until March.

Should I just give up on training until I am entirely symptom free? I'm a type 1 diabetic so have somewhat compromised immunity already, but I don't think I've been this 'mildly' sick for so long. When I got like this in the past, it would usually take me 7 to 10 days and I'd then recover.

Should I just give up on training until I am entirely symptom free? //

Short answer, Yes.. You just described the classic Type A athlete when they get sick or injured with anything. All you have to do is reread your story here as if it was someone else. Then you would see that a few more days, perhaps weeks in the beginning, would have shortened the total time sick in the end. Problem is that when it is us in the middle of this stuff, we just cannot seem to recognize our best path out of it. We just have to test it when we shouldn't, or just say fuck it and go for it when we get frustrated and tired of being sick.


I know this because I was this guy several times in my career, taking a 2 month sickness and turning it into 6 to 12 months. But I did eventually learn my lesson, so now I do nothing with a new runny nose or scratchy throat. I just assume everything that feels like a sickness is one, and any training(even sub 100HR stufff) just makes my expiration date that much longer....

Back to where we were.

Now Tuesday (I tested positive before symptoms Friday AM). Woke up this AM mentally feeling 100%. Really sharp. Physically, I'm in isolation in a hotel room, so in reality hard to know but would describe it as how I feel on a saturday afteroon after a normal 100km club ride. Wouldn't want to go out and do it again, but kinda normal problem free physical fatigue.

Worked all day yesterday, and a bit fuzzy, today was a full on 7am to 7pm (and a bit) of meetings via teams. Did feel a bit dizzy/spacey mid afternoon, headache mostly gone and down to single paracetamol every 5 hours or so. Not off my food, but equally hunger pangs have gone. Now at level matching my energy expenditure.

Cough is still there sometimes, but better than it was. Resting Heart rate last 2 days been at 53, which is down from 67 over the weekend, but still above my 4 week average trend of 48. These are garmin RHR figures, the low is back to 41 today which is back to typical for a normal day min.

Planning a walk in the AM. Big challenge will be to not overdo it as the walk will finish with climbing 3 flights of stairs back to my room.....

Looks like ur hr is returning to normal

I’m day 11 since first positive test. Very weak positive on day 7 but none since. Back at work since day 7 and feel fine generally speaking. Maybe slightly lethargic. But that higher hr lingers still when I look at a treadmill sideways. I don’t expect that to let up anytime soon. I assume this is similar to what an asthmatic feels. Like a slight squeeze on the lungs, like they aren’t fully open. Anyway. Dead of winter here and off-season. I take ownership of a new trek speed concept early July. I really don’t want to be that guy who has a new toy but half his ftp for many months still.

3x vaxxed, 3rd one mid December, flu vaxxed last November.

Went for the last two weeks to the Nordics and adjusted to local habits of not wearing masks, no precautions etc.

• Last Saturday evening very minor cold-like symptoms in the throat.
• Last Sunday my last activity (12 km run, had been running on daily basis in my vacations and was actually starting to notice some fatigue). Symptoms on and off, a bit worse in the afternoon. End of vacation, travelled home.
• Monday stronger symptoms, like a heavy cold. Very tired in the evening. Took home test with positive result.
• Now, Tuesday, feeling much better after a 10hr sleep. Climbing stairs no problem. RHR (Garmin) has been 10 bpm higher than usual the last two days.
• Let‘s see how this continues.

I read that rest is paramount. Like no activities for at least 7 days after symptoms are gone. Hard to accept.

Having gone through COVID in early April and still dealing with the consequences, I'll say that if I could do it all over again I would err more on the side of caution in terms of getting back into training.


I'm glad this is starting to come up in discussion - at least in places like this. This is NOT "Just a cold", as so many have blown covid-19 off. NO ONE knows exactly how contracting the virus will impact them. For some it will pass through with few symptoms if any. For others, it will feel just like a garden variety of head cold. For others the actual illness from the virus will be quite severe - some will bounce back reasonably quickly from this while others will suffer Long Covid ( some people I know who are reasonably athletic who have Long Covid - have NEVER been able to return to training yet - almost 2 years on!). While for a small group it will be fatal. This is WHY avoiding getting sick from it initially, however you do that, is important - because again, you have NO IDEA exactly how you may be impacted.

20 years ago - caught full-on viral pneumonia. At the time I was VERY physically fit. Had left triathlon, but was still in 1:15ish half-marathon fitness. I was bed-ridden for almost 2 weeks. Had to take almost a full month off work. It was the sickest I have ever been in my life! Some permanent damage via scaring was done to my lungs. Told that my lung capacity was about 75% of what it was before! It took me the better part of a YEAR to get back close to the level of fitness I was at. I was told I was just unlucky to catch that particular virus, and it do that too me. That was NOT covid-19, but I just want to share this story to let folks know that these things CAN BE very serious. Just blowing them off as "nothing" is a mistake!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Thanks Fleck, interesting to read.

Day 6: Plan was to walk this AM but realised that when I checked in it was for just one night until last friday, so whilst extended my room key hasn't been swapped. Thankfully checked before nipping out and then discovering I was locked out of the room. I've taken this as the training gods keeping an eye on me and protecting me from myself ;-)

So still coughing indeed in shower this AM think that it's all loosening and so hopefully clearing via the medium of some grim coloured lung snot. Did about a quarter of a pilates set and really feeling that - same sort of feeling as day after ironman where all your limbs are suddenly triple their weight even as you sit there. And 45 mins later spent sitting at desk HR is still holding steady at 87bpm. Hmmm, may skip the bike FTP test on Sunday.... (To be clear, joking. Coach isn't even letting me do swim squad at weekend).

@Duncan74 this sound almost exactly like me. I'm 48, seasonally-severe asthma that I control really well with Cingulair, but I always have low blood o2. Tested positive on Saturday afternoon - interestingly, that was an antigen test, and I did a PCR test less than 24 hours prior in order to fly from Vancouver to Las Vegas and it was negative. I woke up feeling "pressure" in my throat/ears and overly tired even for the early morning flight, then got home and just didn't feel right.

Sunday most of the day my "face" hurt - jaw, gums, cheekbones, eyes - but no nasal drip at that point. Headache was mild, like 1/10 at most, but I was pretty acny, no fever but I felt like I had one, and pulse ox down to 92 ish.

Monday the face stuff was gone, cough had arrived, and mild nasal drip too. Overnight last night the cough got way worse, and I can definitely feel something similar to asthma pressure in my lungs.

I got on Now Clinic for a virtual visit and was able to get a prescription to Paxlovid - for anyone interested, the guy who wrote the Rx said Sam's Club has it and they're "never out" - don't know if that's just a Vegas thing or what, but worth checking around.

Even more similar - I've been on Singulair for last 20 years. I'd forgotten the way even my teeth felt sore on day 1....;-)

Good points. Only thing I'd add is that many/most (but certainly not all) covid long-haulers experience a mild acute phase of the illness. Count me in the 2+ year camp. At this point, I've thrown in the towel on any exercise beyond simply walking. The symptom relapse / post-exertional malaise that eventually comes along from trying to do anything more just isn't worth it.

There is some evidence, retrospective studies, that Singulair helps reduce the severity of COVID. I think they are starting a clinical trial now.

This topic is depressing me. I just tested positive and feeling better a couple of days after initial symptoms and positive test. But reading through this forum regarding long term affects is depressing. Trying to also err on the side of caution I cancelled a planned Half Ironman in June so that I do not over do it. Now the question will be how/when to start my routine up again and once started how to ramp it up. I think I will half all my typical day to day distances and relax the pace for those shorter distances and see how I react.

But reading through this forum regarding long term affects is depressing. //

Yes it is, but it is also enlightening, and someone in your position is in a perfect spot to take advantage of all the stories and information here. Should not even be a thing to decide on any silly short term gain, vs the long term horrible affects that could and are happening to many athletes...

Yes. Got covid in Feb. Bad cold like symptoms for two days, took a full 10 days off and then two weeks easy training until HR back down. Was testing positive for the full 10 days. Then had an awesome for me March and April, very consistent training and fittest I've been in years in prep for HIM June A race. 42 this year and triple jabbed.

Picked up a respiratory infection from my 9 year old two weeks ago, which had forced 10 of her 30 classmates off sick, and that has been way worse than covid. Because it wasn't covid I did my usual of a few days off then getting back to it, expecting the training to help clear it, but it's still lingering. Sinuses blocked and then forcing mucus on to the chest. HR up just like covid. Probably even more fatigue. To top it off my wife then brought home some Norovirus, which hit my 5 year old. Then my recovered daughter picked up what must have been a different norovirus. I've managed to swerve both, but the disrupted sleep holding sick bowls and bleaching toilets certainly hasn't helped my recovery. Everything just seems rampant at the moment and I think from a training and racing perspective it could have more of an individual impact than covid. And then you read the news about Monkeypox...

As someone coming off 2 full years of injury and just getting back to consistent training (still with limited running) in the last month, the posts here have made me stay totally sedentary for the 7 days since I tested positive. OK, first 3 days covid made that a non question, but the posts here and the comments of my coach and colleagues all mean I'm doing nothing at all until late next week (day 14) at least.

Possibly too conservative? Maybe.
Possibly too aggressive, no.
So worse case I'm 1 week down on where I could have been, best case I'm 6 months + ahead. And at 47 then 1 week behind is laughably insignificant, but 2 more years off possibly/probably means I've run my last race.

That's my dilemma now. Tested positive on Sunday, feeling better now but have done zero activities since then. I did cancel my HIM for June so that I dont feel pressured to training and pushing too hard. But when to get back to exercising? Even though I feel that I can go out for an easy run or bike this weekend I think I will hold off and tri a group bike ride on Monday. It feels so weird for to think of no exercise for an entire weekend though. and in my case its all mental or from reading this, otherwise I wouldn't have thought twice about going for a run tomorrow.

I tested positive on Tuesday, saw symptoms on Sunday. Rode fairly strong on the track on Thursday to Saturday. I've notified all the people I rode with and they've all tested negative.

All I've had is a moderate cough that I can control with cough drops. No fever over 99°

If the rain clears up today I'm going for an easy ride. (By myself)

hmm...well only thing I have now is a slight runny nose and a bit of post-nasal drip. I should probably still do no training I'm thinking.

Yep, I was dead set I was going to be going for a walk at 5am during my isolation.

On day 5 I tried half a dozen leg extensions of a pilates set and an hour later of sitting at my desk my HR was 87 compared to normal sitting rest rate of 46bpm. I could feel my heart beating away.

And so I'm day 7 today, released from Iso in the morning but haven't had any inclination to leave this single hotel room in the last week. It's been the perfect situation to 'force' me to not feel guilty about letting my body recover.

Now I'm not going to lecture you or tell you how to live your life*, but the thread here has made me give enough thought to my choices, and when backed up by the discussion with my GP, my physio and my coach, I'll be doing nothing until day 14 aside from some walks to do daily tasks if I'm feeling up to that.

*I'll leave that to the 25 year old in your house/office that lectures you on the environment as they are the expert because they go to a eco-advocacy retreat in phuket each year. She also tells me I don't understand negative stereotyping as I'm a male boomer.

Military special operators have been instructed to not exceed Z2 for several months secondary to weakened heart post COVID

What evidence is there of a weakened heart post covid ? Not being a smart ass, I’m aware of potential issues, but they aren’t the norm was my understanding?

Anyway - day 7 post negative tests, 2 weeks from infection beginning.
2 days ago a light jog almost felt normal. HR wasn’t exceeding 163bpm for 8km at previous covid easy pace of 4;50-5min kms.
Today an 8km run and hr worked harder for similar pace so had to back off. Didn’t like seeing race pace HR for 5min kms.

One step forward one back.

Still have that feeling of a weight on the chest. Night coughs that are dry. Like an asthmatic without being an asthmatic

Being winter and off-season I haven’t swim in a month since last race and I want to start again but it’s so damn cold and it does not entice my lungs at all.

Day 7 9evening) I did a test tonight and still strong positive. Cough is better most of the time, then will get a cough that is bad for random 2 minutes and then be gone for a bit.

Did have a massive dizzy fit when I was cooking tea - lasted 3 mins or so, so not my normal 30s. Hope that's not something that's going to stay. I suspect my sense of smell is coming back to full function. The worry is if the smell I can now pick up is me, my clothes or the bin in the hotel room that's not been emptied since last Thursday with all my cooking waste. I suspect a bit of all 3.......

I escape tomorrow, and get to fly home. So was overjoyed by the text from Air New Zealand telling me my flight tomorrow may be cancelled as there may be fog. I may have sworn, and that raising of blood pressure the cause of the dizzy spell.

Tomorrow I'm planning nothing at all other than getting home - reckon that will be enough after not having left the room at all since testing positive last week. Sunday I may try a walk if things go well tomorrow. Or not.

Shit isn’t it lol

I mean... be flexible. Yeah, cancelling the race makes sense. But get back into it and you'll struggle or you won't, just don't push too hard.
I was pretty out of it for 5-6 days but, with zero races on the horizon and only wanting to get out to get out, it only felt like it took a week or so to recover. (3x vaxxed). Other people, obviously, are down longer. That said, I assumed that having covid would magically heal my arthritic hip and that turns out not to be the case.

Day 9. Still got the covid cough, but went for a 45 min walk this morning. HR was a bit high for the first 15mins, but then settled for second half and once home. Breathing seemed ok whilst walking too, did loosen a bit of the cough I think.

Will see how I go this afternoon, as yesterday after flying home in the AM I was falling asleep by mid afternoon, then slept 11 hours straight which is 4 hours longer than normal for me - I very very rarely manage more than 8 even in a hard training block.

So, it would be safe to say that one could just come back and do easy Z1/2 workouts...that's the space I'm in anyway. Coming off a long layoff, needing to drop weight, reduce cholesterol, and generally change my life at this point! Most of my workouts were planned to be low aerobic anyway, so I will probably just cut out all the higher-intensity work for a few weeks and then ease back into that.

Today is day 7 for me, and I am finishing a 5-day course of Paxlovid tomorrow morning as well. I can't say it did or didn't make a difference but at this point I have ver-to-pretty mild chest congestion, no nasal drip, very infrequent cough, no headache, just a bit brain-foggy and generally tired feeling. i also have a gross metallic taste in the back of my mouth that won't really go away.

Entering the ninth day (seventh since my first positive result). Still tested positive this morning (Sunday), bummer.

The last days I had a running nose and congestions in my nose, forehead, ear. Was generally tired. No running nose today, still feel some congestions, but I clearly feel improvements.

Resting heart rate has resumed to pre-sickness levels in the last days. No respiratory symptoms of any kind, seems to be limited to the head.

Will patiently continue waiting for a negative result to finally get out a little bit and even if only for a walk.

I’d kill for hr to return to normal during training. I am perfectly fine not tired, mild cough at cold nights at worst. 16 days post first positive test now, and still zone 2 riding or running puts me 10-15 beats higher. Today as an example I’m
Sitting on 5:10km pace and my hr is 165 when it should be about 150.
Encouragingly though I’m not tired after or feel like I need extra recovery for it.

How long since your symptoms are gone?

Day 7 was still testing very slightly positive - prob the next 5 days or so was more fatigue and malaise. Tired. Only last few days have I felt that the brick on my chest has been lifted. That was a thing for a while as well. Cough lingers infrequently but nothing drastic. If it wasn’t for training HR trending high, I’d say I’m near 100% day to day. A bit of motivation has returned last couple of days, a bit of vigour.
It’s hard when u have tri buddies who are shit for 5 days with covid but basically pick up where they left off on weekend group rides without ill effects. While some of us are still stuck in second gear

 

Everyone's case is different, but this thread seems to have become pretty well-established. Thought I'd share my experience -

35 yo male triathlete.
Moderna immunized in 2020 and booster 12/2021.
Caught COVID in late April early into my training season.
Mild URI symptoms, no fever. Sick with cold symptoms for a couple days, ~10 days total of lingering runny nose which was mostly just an annoyance.

No interruption in training by power or heart rate in cycling or min/mi and perceived exertion running.

Be safe out there all. Take it easy in recovery and chat with your physician if you get sick and are an athlete (I'm a physician - pediatric cardiologist - but this post is non-medical just to share my personal experience).

Would recommend everyone get vaccinated and boosted or if you have questions talk with a health care professional that's well trained that you trust (In my admittedly somewhat biased opinion, with a physician, given all of the information and misinformation out there).

I’m triple vaxed and also had covid in December.

For the last 2 weeks I’ve been completely floored by some other respiratory infection though. Tested negative for covid twice and it was far worse than when I had covid. It was like flu but with horrendous coughing which triggered migraines.

Hope I’m better soon as in just over a week I’m supposed to be off on a swim camp for a week 😱

Day 10: First day back in office and woke up feeling really dizzy. Was pissing with rain outside so didn't do my planned 30min walk, just sat for an hour had had breakfast. 3 hours later and I'm in the office but still feeling slightly dizzy and feel a pressure on the top of my skull. Today is not going to be a good day I fear.

On the plus side, my RHR is still dropping towards baseline, down to 51 now so about +5 from couple of weeks back. Cough it mostly gone, although still had a few bouts to scare colleagues.

Just be patient. I was two weeks out of training in February. After that it took me another three weeks to get back to serious training. Now I am back doing 70.3s and am really happy to report I am close to peak shape again. But it took almost three months to get there.

Well, I am most definitely sick again. Seem to have caught something from my 3 year old, who is also sick. But it is cold and flu season here in NZ. Just hope my flu vaccine starts providing me protection soon...

Still no exercise. It's now just over 4 months with little to no training, and since the beginning of March since I had covid. My goal now is to try and get back into some form of exercise by July, but will be listening to my body.

I feel your pain. Today was planing on an easy zone 1/2 ride but didn’t feel up to it. Helped my wife in the garden and hit 192 bbm while weeding the garden and planting some new plants. Unbelievable really. Trying really hard to be positive but the elevated heart rate is very troubling. Taking it easy till things improve but am desperate to go for a run.

How far out from the acute infection are you? Is this tachycardia a persistent high heart rate that you get with any degree of exertion (or even while resting), or is it more postural, happening more when you stand or straighten after crouching, sitting or bending down? If the latter, have you investigated POTS at all?

Reading all of this is depressing.

I tested positive a week ago, and was able to get a prescription for Paxlovid right away. The initial illness was nothing more than 2 days of mild cold symptoms. No fever or aches or anything. That went away quickly but I am left with a level of fatigue I have never felt before. I took the dog for a walk just now, 10 days from my positive test, and had to lay down for a while. As much as I want to be training, the thought of even an easy bike ride on the trainer is just too much.

I have Eagleman coming up in a couple of weeks, and IMLP after that. And I am in absolutely no shape whatsoever to be able to train. I have no idea if I'll be capable of even completing either of those events.

I was similar - but it passes and my hr is returning to normal finally. Maybe 5-10 beats higher during exercises but I have had time off so could be fitness too.
I was worried myself but this does pass. As strange as it is to feel such fatigue. I would cancel your first ironman though tbh.

Day 15. Urgh, so recovery was going well until midweek when I went down with a different chest infection. RHR now back up 10BPM and feeling totally wiped out. Nasty cough that alternates between chesty cough and dry one. Either way, I'm back to feeling drained, body aches and generally a bit run over.

Done a bit of walking, but nothing else. Was planning on a 30min ride but that's going to be tomorrow as after 15mins of walking I was 'done' today, sadly had 15mins of walking to get back to home....

Hope others are doing better.

I just tested positive on Wednesday evening. My only problem was a scratchy throat that was a bit more than usual from all the pollen so I figured I would use one of the tests we had around. I got a big bright positive line almost immediately.

The next day I had a moderate sore throat and a stuffy nose. I got a prescription for Plaxovid and today (Friday) I am already feeling better. The sore throat is gone and my nose is almost clear.

I have been taking it easy, and I am only slightly more tired than usual. Hopefully I will continue to get better. Sadly I will be a DNS on the MTB race I had planned this weekend but I feel it is smarter to take it easy for a few more days. I have been doing errands and might go for a mellow bike ride tomorrow but plan to avoid the max efforts.

This about when I got the cough too. Maybe it was a few days earlier. It faded a week or so after that. That is until I started back to training. Now I get the cough, a headache, foggy brain, chest constriction, and pretty extreme fatigue if I ride too long, and/or too hard. I'm six and half weeks out from my first positive test. Called a long covid clinic at my local university today to get in for treatment. Not sure what they can do for me but here's to hoping.

Day 7 for me today. Was sick (fever, headaches, nose congestion) for 5 days. The last two days have been much better. Now only some lingering cough. Haven't tried any exercise yet though (will wait a few more days), although today I did do the lawn mowing (45 minutes pushing the mower around) and felt fine.

From someone that's over two years in and probably never returning to pre-covid health, stop trying to exercise until you are symptom free for an extended period. If you reach that point, be very, very careful as you re-introduce activity back to your life. It can seem to be going well, but meanwhile the negative effects accumulate. When you start to realize that you've overdone it, it's already too late and then you crash back down again. These symptoms after exercise are called post-exertional malaise. It's early for you still, but what you do now can potentially make the difference between recovering fully or becoming a long-hauler w/ ME-CFS types of symptoms. If you can tolerate it, low-level activity such as casual walking, and even small amounts of very easy swimming (think cool down pace or less) are the ticket to having some physical activity in your life. Join some long-hauler groups if you haven't already, and start learning there. You'll get much more out of that in all likelihood than you will from the medical establishment, but hopefully they can check you for things like EBV re-activation. Clean up your diet, focus on restoring gut health -- research leaky gut. Intermittent fasting and periodically inducing autophagy with longer water fasts have been helpful for some. Be kind to your body and treat it gently, because it's not close to being ready to resume your pre-covid lifestyle of exercise -- and probably won't be for quite some time to come.

Thanks for that. If you have any links for recommended long hauler groups I'd appreciate it. I feel like my diet's pretty clean. Alcohol consumption is a beer once or twice a month. I eat lots of vegetables (usually a huge salad for dinners). My weakness is sweets. Can't eat much before feeling them though.

More background on me. I'm 50 (51 next month). I'm a cyclist (just about everything but track), not a triathlete. Won a local 1/2 road race the month before getting covid. Previous double top 10 at Unbound (when it was still DK). Age group podium at 'cross nats. Like others, have (sounds like it'll be had now) some bigger events on the calendar this summer and fall so this is, has been, and will be hard to take. Appreciate the comradery here though.

Good luck to you all! I hope for a speedy recover and relatively quick return to training and racing for you!

Cheers!

Best suggestion is go to groups in FB and search on long covid, you should see quite a few. When you join one, see what you can get in terms of information and links posted. If the signal to noise ratio is bad, then drop that group.

Here are links to a few youtube videos and other links I've run across recently. Honestly, there's so much material out there you could make a full-time job of watching and reading this stuff and making heads and tails of it. Best of luck, I hope you are able to kick the long-haul symptoms and eventually return to an active lifestyle. If not, embrace it and make the most of your situation whatever it is.

Leaky gut and gut health:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hZdwP8rp8U
https://www.healthrising.org/...-stanford-gut-study/
https://www.healthline.com/...ome-what-to-know-now

Long Covid research update:


If you are experiencing POTS symptoms:
http://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/page.php?ID=44

I am just over 3 weeks since positive. At the time I was on antibiotics for dental surgery.
I am back to normal except really don’t have any sprint in me and tempo etc is the most I can do going by my heart rate. I can train but not much more than zone 2-3.

Before I rush out and buy some probiotics, just wondering if you have had, or know of anyone, who has reported positive effects from supplementation ?

Probiotics have helped me some, but daily 16-oz of kombucha and some kefir helped me w/ gut issues and lung inflammation more -- quite a bit at first but eventually things backslid some, which seems to be the case with anything that helps me w/ long covid symptoms. Some say that a prebiotic is just as important to help the probiotics establish in the gut. One person swore by this particular pro-biotic, but I haven't tried it and can't offer my own anecdotal feedback. I take a single probiotic capsule daily about 30 minutes before my first food, and I alternate between a couple different brands. I also tried a whole apple in a smoothie a few times because supposedly the seeds / core / stem have some probiotics (and probably a small amount of cyanide, so don't go crazy downing them).

Thanks for the reply ! I’m going to look into pre and probiotics. Not averse to kombucha either so may give this a try. Kefir is a new one I’ll look into that too. Thanks again

I'll admit my experiments with fermented grape juice hasn't been the most successful over the last couple of weeks. ;-)

After my walk and gentle trainer ride yesterday afternoon, I go a mild dizzy feeling from 8pm through to about noon today. Good news - breathing is fine. Bad - that the low alcohol tolerance and periodic dizziness is not abating yet.

Also sleeping crazy long. 11 hours a night on weekends when I don't set the alarm, 9-10 hours on weekday compared to my default 7 hours.

Tested positive 7 days after initial test.

Two weeks after testing positive (first time) I've now tested negative with a home rapid test.

I was really tired for the first 5 days but not really sick other than a mild cough.

2 weeks since my positive test. It's been 10 days since I noticed any symptoms I might call an "illness". But the fatigue remains. I spent the last week doing nothing but easy walks.

I am going to try to ride easy on my trainer later today and see how that goes.

I am far from 100% though. I feel so sluggish and exhausted from the simplest of tasks.

2 weeks since my positive test. It's been 10 days since I noticed any symptoms I might call an "illness"//

I think you answered and counterdicted your original statement here all in one post..


I feel so sluggish and exhausted from the simplest of tasks.

This could be the biggest symptom of long covid, best to pay careful attention to it. Heed your bodies advice, what's the hurry??

Well flu season is rampant here in NZ and I think I got it plus a secondary infection. Been prescribed antibiotics and just started a course. Got sick weekend before last and spent all of last week at home but trying keep on top of some work. Been coughing up and blowing green snot and mucus since last Wednesday and last few days went back into office but woke up feeling shattered both days. Currently thinking I might take another sick day tomorrow if I still feel shattered. Was really blocked up and felt worse than I did after covid diagnosis.

Insulin requirements have also increased for me as a type 1 diabetic particularly once green stuff started.

No way am I ready get back to exercise .

Over the ditch here in west aus, while we have been through mask mandates and now on to the let it rip phase, we have hardly any colds or flu’s or anything. We have been fortunate in that regard.
I have been told after around 3 months you can get covid, even the same strain, again. Not sure how true that is, but as a fellow diabetic, I’m def hitting up that plax-watchyacallit drug should I test positive twice.
I have seen pro riders like gaviria have had it 3x.

Ha, I needed to check 3 times that wasn't one of my posts - seemed so similar until we got to insulin vs asthma at the bottom.

That non covid but that's going around here is awful, and so many of us catching that in the week after covid Iso finishes - I suspect in part down to low immunity in general and then with covid fatigue we're a wide open goal. Initially seemed to all stem from Wellington, but now seems pretty well established here in the BOP and also my JAFA colleagues.

Good news is that day to day life for me isn't too bad at 3 weeks post test, although HR on my 30min very easy spin was about 25bpm elevated today, RHR still +15 and simply walking is also about +20/30 above my baseline. So I'm just doing easy 30 to 45 mins of things as I feel like. And sleeping lots of sleeping.

I wasn’t sick once during lockdowns apart from first in 2020 when I had contact with sick client prior to lockdown. Within 1 to 2 weeks of my daughter going back to daycare I’ve gotten sick though. Latest flu thing I seemed to get off her too. Here in Auckland heaps of flu etc. doctors are flat out and pharmacy ran out of antibiotics on the day I first collected them

A pharmacy without antibiotics is like a pub without beer. You’ll be stuffed if they out of insulin too !

Oh I hear you. What I was trying to say was that I felt in no way "sick". No fever, aches or anything. Despite now being negative for 10 days now, what I feel is this lingering fatigue I can't get to go away.

I would love to be able to participate in my races this summer (racing is clearly not happening), but even that right now seems like a stretch. So here I sit, resting, because I can't do much else

This is about where I am--6.5 weeks from symptom onset. While I had acute symptoms I cut my training load by 75%, tried to do only z1/z2 stuff for very short periods. It seemed to work OK. Now I just have these persistent heart rate/fatigue issues. If I do even the mildest activity, my HR is elevated 10-15 bpm for the rest of the day and heart rate variability is greatly reduced (i.e. heart is "pounding"--I suspect blood pressure is elevated). Basically an "I ran a marathon" type of stress reaction to swimming 1000 yards in the pool at warm-up pace. It's actually *worse* than it was a couple of weeks ago, I think.

Having read through these posts and gone through my data I'm wondering if I should take a complete break from training for a week and then try and see if it's better, and if not break again. It just can't be good for the body to be feeling that much stress.

Dr.'s office says this is not yet "long COVID". The demarcation for that is 90 days from symptom onset, they say.

I am a 48 y.o. triathlete, 'cross racer and lifetime runner training 10-15 hours per week (before). Santa Cruz 70.3 was my goal race this year--I have a feeling it won't be happening...

So I'm now at 3 weeks post +ve. And today was the first time my HR on my east 30min zwift was back to normalish levels. And when I say normalish, I mean normal given my now untrained state, and not to the level they were before I took a month off.

Still have a bit of a cough. And totally randomly had 90 mins of left nostril spontaneously returning to hosepipe snotting on Thursday night. Not had dizziness for a week which is pleasing. Will try swim squad tomorrow morning and see how far I get (it's a 90min session and I've no intent to do the full thing). Perhaps an hour if feeling good.

Still not done anything that is 'intensive' and advice from my coach, physio and a GP friend is that's the gold standard recommendation. Where my physio tried doing intense stuff before that 2 weeks AFTER SYMPTOMS COMPLETE instead of the 2 weeks to build back up it took her over a month and she's still suffering a bit 6 weeks on. For me it was frustrating as I was coming back from an injury, but equally I've still got an achilles thing, it's our winter, and I've a trip back to the UK in July, so all up I'm not focussed on a race I 'need' to be back for, so that's helping me take it easy on recovery which I hope will pay off in long term.

Came here looking for this. I am in day two of covid in an isolation facility in Hong Kong

I had a scratchy throat and today I felt really tired and some minor muscle pain but I think that’s from lying around so much.

Scratchy throat is mostly gone, very little congestion and no coughing.

I had three doses of Pfizer - i have not lost my taste or smell.

I am hoping this for me may not be a big deal.

My question - if I’m not coughing 48 hours in am I unlikely to take a turn for the worse?

I had a great week of training last week in Sydney - now im sitting on my ass eating prison food. Bummer

I think what you really need to take into consideration is the possibility of long haul problems. I have no idea how severity correlates with the potential for problems later on. I only know that it isn’t uncommon for people to have a case with minor symptoms but to have fatigue and heart issues set in weeks or even months later.

I was listening to a podcast with one of the British cycling coaches. His recommendation, which I assume is somewhat informed by doctors and other coaches, is just resting for 10 days following your last positive test. Then starting a very slow build from pretty much ground zero. The other thing I think everyone would recommend is monitoring your resting heart rate. When it has dropped back to nearly your normal value, it is probably signaling that your body is mostly finishing fighting the infection. Heck, it took almost 2 weeks for my resting heart rate to drop back to normal after my last booster shot and the early clinical trial data suggested that people weren’t really building substantial immunity for at least a week post vaccination. No matter how you feel , realize that your body is still working very hard to clean up the mess. Invest the time now in proper rest to avoid bigger problems in the future.

Thanks for your post. I checked my Oura report (night 2). My RHR was 68 vs 58 normal. I will keep an eye on this as you suggest.

So, I picked up something from my daughter and then got really sick. All blocked up, blowing green stuff and coughing it up. Felt terrible and had a week off work sick but still doing a bit. Got prescribed antibiotics and got better. Last week i was back at work and on antibiotics and feeling much better. This week I was feeling really good. Today I thought I would give a 15 min bike ride a go this morning. Was feeling okay, had a slightly liquid nose where it isn't too runny but need to blow it every now and again.

Did 15 minutes on zwift, with HR under 100, and power under 100w. Easily the easiest ride I have ever done on my trainer.

Anyway, this afternoon, I have started to feel weak and run down, with a slight sore throat.

It's like I am allergic to exercise. I had 1 250ml can of 4% beer with dinner last night but haven't been drinking alcohol otherwise. Antibiotic course finishes Saturday but won't be drinking again until I finish it.

I went for an easy walk on Sunday also and felt okayish. It's just today that I have started to feel bad again.

This is so frustrating. It's been almost 6 months since I have been able to train properly.

Feels like I am never going to get back to any exercise apart from incidental exercise from walking places.

Sorry to hear this. You aren’t positive again by chance ?
Sounds like you may need to write the next season off, take an extended break, and let the body sort itself out

I haven't tested yet. I've just started to feel bad this afternoon. Yea, looks like I might have to write next season off. Am meant to be doing Taupo 70.3 in December due to it being cancelled cos of Covid in March. My diabetes has generally been okay though thankfully.

On using RHR as a reference point: My typical RHR is 40-44 bpm. I'm on day 4 following a positive test, and after several days of a slightly elevated RHR (46-50bpm), things had started to settle back to normal in the past 24 hours. Then, this morning my HR shot to 120 bpm walking to the kitchen and 30 minutes later I started feeling a bit light-headed and found my HR floating around 31-34 bpm. It didn't last for too long, but it was enough of a wake-up call to know things are still off and I'm not returning to exercise just because the five-day isolation window has ended. Oof.

Day 29 post +ve. Not been posting as much as I've been travelling and flat out with work. But I've managed daily 40mins of walks and then today a 1hour at about 60%ftp without too much stress. RHR settled down, exercise HR is also about where I'd expect accounting for waning fitness. Cough pretty much gone and no massive ill effects from a 'few wines' at a dinner mid-week.

I took a hugely conservative/lazy? approach to recovery, in part because of pre-existing muscular-skeletal injuries, in part because work has been completely batshit crazy. But also because of the stories from coach and physio that made me think conservative was the best way for me with no imminent races. There was absolutely nothing to be gained but lots to be lost by pushing.

My dizzy spells almost completely gone, only occasional losses of words (that brain fog, was the think that freaked me out the most, having to do a form of charades in a work meeting when i couldn't 'find' the word I wanted to use).

So I'm just sharing here as a close out/catchup for those on similar or later timelines.

I thought I would follow up as well. I responded to you post because honestly I could have wrote it myself. I am 10 weeks out and my heart rate is now about where I would expect it to be given the loss of fitness. Alcohol has a bigger effect than previous. Just one beer sees an increase in rhr. We will see long term if that stabilizes. Have done a few good training rides but haven’t pushed myself on a run yet to see. Feel positive about the future but am taking it slow. No races for me this year. This definitely isn’t a cold!!!

Took me a couple weeks to get back to normal. Ease into it and trust your body

First attempted run today. Well plan was a walk with some running in it. So 15mins walk then 3x 1km with 5min rest. No specific pace in mind but ended up at what would normally be a relatively comfortable 5:00/km pace. Didn't feel too bad, but HR was 183 average for the run intervals and 192 max for each of the last 2. I am 47 so this wasn't ideal.

But on the positives, that was this morning straight after 90mins of swim squad, and this afternoon I'm feeling fine. So that's a bonus. I think it's rebuild from here.

First I've heard about a minor symptoms early on followed by fatigue later, but I seem to be experiencing it. If you have any more info or resources I'd be very interested to hear about/read them.

I tested positive on May 13th. I'd gone on a 10 mile trail run earlier in the day and only got tested after my wife and one of my daughters tested positive. I wouldn't have tested or known otherwise, I wasn't experiencing any symptoms (2x vax and boosted). I kept right on training just fine and had a couple weeks of very solid workouts: some long, some short, some intense, some easy - heart rate and RPE all normal.

Then somewhere around 3-4 weeks after testing positive I started feeling increasing fatigue and bit of a cough. I kept workouts easy for a few days until last Sunday when I was so tired I threw in the towel and rested all day. Saw the doctor Monday, got blood work (all came back negative; not mono, not Lyme, not anemic, etc.) and had a chest X-ray (all clear). He put me on an antibiotic that has helped with the cough but I'm still just really, really tired. My Dr thinks I might have come down with something else while my system was still working through COVID but I've been wondering more and more if it's actually the COVID itself.

I was too tired to do anything at all Sunday-Friday and have tried easing back into things yesterday and today with very slow jogging and easy trainer riding. They seemed to go ok but I'm still just really, abnormally tired. I've never been this knocked down by an infection before, and reading through this thread has me worried. I'm signed up for a sprint next Sunday, oly two weeks after that, then a half and a Sept full. They're my first races since 2019 and I'm starting to wonder if I'll be lining up for any of them.

I've never been this knocked down by an infection before, and reading through this thread has me worried///

As you should be. Sounds like you trained while the Covid was doing battle with your immune system, and the covid eventually won. This happens with a lot of viruses, you think and feel you are ok, then keep training, your body kills almost all of the buggers, but the strongest survive and they are the ones that then multiply and ravage you. It is why people like me who did what you did, suffered immensely by doing so, are warning everyone that feeling ok is not being ok...


As my parents and probably yours said too, better safe than sorry. You are back in the battle, only now you can feel it, are losing, and each workout gives the other side more ammunition in which to beat you with...

It's all over this thread and others on ST and TR. Just easy to ignore when wish casting a good outcome :) I had very mild symptoms, thought I did the right thing staying inactive for 10 days, and then gradual return, but 2-3 weeks into that got knocked out for 8 weeks with fatigue, but more worryingly all kinds of heart issues. Just finally rounding back into "almost normal" 3 months post infection. I do have friends that bounced back in 2 weeks, so it's no sure thing, but if I could do it again I would have been a lot more cautious.

Don't worry about those upcoming races any. Write them off now, rest, focus on restoring your health. Right now, any amount of training you do is only going to harm you and reduce your chances of full recovery and/or delay any recovery you might make. Generally, most doctors are clueless when it comes to dealing with post-viral chronic illness and long covid, but the awareness is slowly increasing given the vast numbers of covid long haulers that are now out there. Not a knock on them, but it seems to be something that isn't much of a focus of training in western medicine. So, the most likely treatment you might get would be directed at addressing specific symptoms. It's unlikely any doc (primary care or specialist) is going to guide you through all aspects of shifting your body back into some sort of balance. Some people find that functional medicine is better geared towards dealing with this sort of situation, so that's an avenue you might want to investigate. Long covid clinics have sprung up in many places, but the quality of care there varies significantly and isn't necessarily all that helpful from the accounts I've read. Best thing you can do is begin educating yourselves in long covid groups on FB.

It's probably a positive that the tests which were run came back normal (a very common finding for long haulers), but that's of little consolation when you can clearly sense that you are fairly ill. It just means that the right tests aren't available to reveal the underlying illness. When you're done with that antibiotic, focus on healing your gut, specifically leaky gut. There's some pretty good evidence coming in that fermented foods with probiotic benefits are quite helpful in establishing digestive health, which will impact inflammation elsewhere in your body and probably affects your immune health.

Clean up your diet, cut out processed sugar, reduce simple carbs and processed foods in general. Strive for healthful eating as best you can, looking at cutting possible sources of inflammation in your food depending on your sensitivity to them (gluten, dairy, etc.). Intermittent fasting and occasional longer water fasts to trigger autophagy are helpful for some and might improve your fatigue and other symptoms. General advice for the fatigue from the ME-CFS camp is to stay within your (currently diminished) energy envelope and implement the concept of pacing, which is to do small amounts of some activity you may need to accomplish, which might be as small as say taking a shower, and then resting to recover some, before doing anything else. Everything take some energy, even watching television. Thinking actually requires a fair bit of energy, which can make even a desk job very draining or even impossible for those with chronic fatigue. You've begun to discover the challenge of exercise, which can induce PEM, or post-exertional malaise. You may see some symptoms kick up quickly after exercise, or the malaise may be delayed by up to a day or two. Do too much cumulative exercise, and you can knock yourself into a deep and long-lasting malaise. Been there, done that. Spent six months sleeping 12 hours a night plus naps during the day after I went through a period where I felt I was recovering at 7-8 months in and was slowly increasing a very modest return to some exercise. So now I only walk.

Some people make good strides in their recovery at different points and are able to return to training. Others have improved but not enough to train. Some people are hit really hard and are bed bound for very long periods. Be good to your body, let it heal. Good luck.

What you wrote here is "exactly" what I have been saying, although many of it pieced out to other like threads. Thanks you for taking the time to spell out the real trial of long term virus infections. You were very succinct, and hit on just about everything one can do to combat it. Unfortunately the best weapon is just time, and how little you can force yourself to do in that time. From my earlier bouts with EBV, the intermittent fasting was a new weapon, one which I use daily now even when healthy..

Everyone here who clicks on and is interested in this topic, take a few minutes and read what Route 66 wrote, this is about as good of advice as you are going to get on the subject, including most doctors that you will seek out to for that magic bullet.


Don't worry about those upcoming races any. Write them off now, rest, focus on restoring your health. Right now, any amount of training you do is only going to harm you and reduce your chances of full recovery and/or delay any recovery you might make. Generally, most doctors are clueless when it comes to dealing with post-viral chronic illness and long covid, but the awareness is slowly increasing given the vast numbers of covid long haulers that are now out there. Not a knock on them, but it seems to be something that isn't much of a focus of training in western medicine. So, the most likely treatment you might get would be directed at addressing specific symptoms. It's unlikely any doc (primary care or specialist) is going to guide you through all aspects of shifting your body back into some sort of balance. Some people find that functional medicine is better geared towards dealing with this sort of situation, so that's an avenue you might want to investigate. Long covid clinics have sprung up in many places, but the quality of care there varies significantly and isn't necessarily all that helpful from the accounts I've read. Best thing you can do is begin educating yourselves in long covid groups on FB.

It's probably a positive that the tests which were run came back normal (a very common finding for long haulers), but that's of little consolation when you can clearly sense that you are fairly ill. It just means that the right tests aren't available to reveal the underlying illness. When you're done with that antibiotic, focus on healing your gut, specifically leaky gut. There's some pretty good evidence coming in that fermented foods with probiotic benefits are quite helpful in establishing digestive health, which will impact inflammation elsewhere in your body and probably affects your immune health.

Clean up your diet, cut out processed sugar, reduce simple carbs and processed foods in general. Strive for healthful eating as best you can, looking at cutting possible sources of inflammation in your food depending on your sensitivity to them (gluten, dairy, etc.). Intermittent fasting and occasional longer water fasts to trigger autophagy are helpful for some and might improve your fatigue and other symptoms. General advice for the fatigue from the ME-CFS camp is to stay within your (currently diminished) energy envelope and implement the concept of pacing, which is to do small amounts of some activity you may need to accomplish, which might be as small as say taking a shower, and then resting to recover some, before doing anything else. Everything take some energy, even watching television. Thinking actually requires a fair bit of energy, which can make even a desk job very draining or even impossible for those with chronic fatigue. You've begun to discover the challenge of exercise, which can induce PEM, or post-exertional malaise. You may see some symptoms kick up quickly after exercise, or the malaise may be delayed by up to a day or two. Do too much cumulative exercise, and you can knock yourself into a deep and long-lasting malaise. Been there, done that. Spent six months sleeping 12 hours a night plus naps during the day after I went through a period where I felt I was recovering at 7-8 months in and was slowly increasing a very modest return to some exercise. So now I only walk.

Some people make good strides in their recovery at different points and are able to return to training. Others have improved but not enough to train. Some people are hit really hard and are bed bound for very long periods. Be good to your body, let it heal. Good luc

One of the better videos I've seen to date which ties in some of the latest research and really gives a good overview of the virus, it's long-term impacts and some treatments and approaches for diagnosis. Highly recommended for any here suffering long-term impacts or who are still early on recovering from the acute phase -- to grasp the impacts you might be experiencing throughout different parts your body (lungs, heart, brain, etc.).

Can you expound on the heart issues

I thought in the interest of providing info I will give an update.

I am on day 11 of an omicron infection. The first 7 days I was stuck in an isolation hotel, on the third day they let my GF bring me food so I only ate prison food for 2 days.

I feel fine from a mental acuity standpoint. I am no longer sleepy like I was the first week. My RHR is still 10-15% higher than normal. I have some very slight nasal congestion, very slight morning cough. I never had chest congestion.

I just walked to work (in Hong Kong, down the escalator if you are familiar) so essentially a 15 minute walk all downhill. I was going to go to the gym and walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes but I don’t think I can manage it until the afternoon.

I am really surprised (although I shouldn’t be after having read this thread) - I am still feeling off after 11 days. When people say Covid is just the flu or a cold they are full of crap.

The absolute suck is that I am going to Whistler for 6 weeks on Thursday (at 14 days since infection) with my son and GF - it will be his first holiday since covid began 3 years ago. We were going to SBR every day and get ready for race season for me and swimming and cross country season for him. It will kill me if I can’t train.

I’m looking at my watch and my average calories for last week is 2549 - a 5 year low.

I will use all the weapons you guys have described, low alcohol, no packaged foods, less simple carbs etc and plenty of rest. Will report back in a week or two

Elevated RHR, arrhythmia, palpitations, wildly elevated HR under light exercise, chest discomfort.

Thanks

My symptoms now include weird dreams.

! example was where I was in a bike race but instead of being on a bike I was on one of those swivel type computer/office chairs which could power itself. The chair was able to go at 85 kph on the flat, but felt a bit out of control, particularly when I hit some loose gravel. Thankfully I didn't swivel around at the same time.

Assume this is symptomatic of me missing exercise and feeling like I am just stuck having to sit around...

I have started to do some very light strength work with thera bands for back and rotator cuff, body weight squats, calf raises and crunches. Only physical symptom I have on a day to day basis is just feeling like I have a bit of a slightly runny nose and that prickly feeling in my throat and a little post nasal drip. Almost like hayfever? (which I do get...)

Have also noticed a slight pain/discomfort in my lower left jaw from time to time.

Hit some probiotics too!

I don't know anything about that can you make a recommendation or some reading material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQAL5x0A7tM

Update: So it's taken me about 10 weeks for my heart function to return to normal.
Recap: 43 yo male, 2x vaxxed + boosted, acute phase relatively mild (2 days of painful cough/extreme fatigue) but tested glowing red positive for 10 days. After testing negative, early attempts at short/easy exercise resulted in chest pains and heart palpitations (afterwards, not during). Gave myself an extra week off and tried again, same result. Went to doc, doc was unconcerned and said there's no reason I shouldn't resume my regular physical activity, which unfortunately was exactly what I wanted to hear, but we ordered blood tests and an ECG. Attempts to resume activity resulted in symptoms so I stopped and waited for my test results. Results came back, doc says no concerns, so have at it. I try and symptoms return. Ordered more tests (Holter monitor and heart ultrasound). Tests come back, doc says no concerns, so have at it. At this point I'm glad the echo revealed no damage/scarring, but it's frustrating that no one can explain what's happening. It's looking like this is just one of those lingering COVID things, and people can complain about pains/palpitations for extended periods following the infection. So I gave myself 3 weeks off all activity in order to hopefully have things reset. Have been back at it (zone 2) for a few days now and no symptoms, so I'm optimistic.

My key takeaways:
- Give yourself more time that you think to recover - if I could do it again I'd wait 7-10 after testing negative to resume activity (I waited a week after my symptoms started improving, but I had only test negative the day before).
- There's so much that's still unknown about this virus and its effects, and unfortunately many doctors don't know very much about it
- The virus can impact your body in ways that can't be detected on tests, which compounds the problems with the previous point

Good luck everyone.

An update for my situation.

I arrived in Whistler on day 14. On day 11 I still felt like I couldn’t take a breath and was really worried.

On day 12 I woke up and felt better, no coughing at all. Yesterday I walked around all day and did a light bike ride. No issues. I am very relieved.

Today we will be doing a short ride around town maybe 30k relaxed and maybe a light swim at lunchtime.

My resting HR is still about ten percent too high but I’m sure that’s affected by Jet Lag somewhat.

One thing to note was I did ride my mountain bike home from the bike shop and that has a decent hill and my heart rate didnt seem out of the ordinary - I take that as a good sign.

I guess the point I was trying to make was that I felt dreadful and was sure I was out for a month but then felt better

Replying to you as the last one in the thread. Tested positive this morning.

Vaxxed / boosted once. 36. Brought my mother in law to the airport on Monday, turns out she was symptomatic but didn't really put two and two together until after she flew home. She tested positive yesterday. Started feeling a scratchy throat yesterday. Chalked it up to allergies and wanted to sleep it off.

Couldn't get going this morning. Still really just the throat, but noticed my HR was 20 BPM higher than normal at rest. Figured I'd be safe, took a test, and came up positive.

Symptoms: headache, fatigue, feeling feverish (no fever), sore/itchy throat, minor breathlessness, high HR, slight dry cough. Walling myself off in one part of the house and trying to lay low.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I'd go with a minimum of 14 days downtime. I mean on your back.

I am day 21 now and almost fully recovered. Started light workouts at day 14.

The only thing different is my resting heart rate according to my Oura is 10-15 percent higher than normal

Still keeping my form no tougher than negative 25 on TP

Good luck!

The current goal is to not get my wife and daughter sick and keep my own down time at a minimum, so I've pretty much shut myself down and am currently sprawled out on a couch.

Guess I'll work on the golf game for a few weeks again when I'm up and moving.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I got hit with COVID about 10 days ago while on vacation in Hawaii. The three adults with me all got it, but my daughter who was recently boosted about a month ago, was totally negative despite all her continuous exposure. We adults all had the full vaccine course with 2 boosters but still got it.

Was very similar to a flu for us, except didn't go quite as deep into the lungs, and had more of a nasty sore throat. I didn't get fevers but the two other adults did. I still have an annoying cough 10 days out, but I've been surprised out how functional I've been trainingwise, as the deep airways are clearly fine once I'm going hard.

I'd still do as everyone on this board recommends, and take it EASY until you're sure you can go hard. For me, that was pretty quick, luckily, although I'm still not 100%.

I admit I was very surprised how nasty the Omicron COVID was in terms of symptoms. A lot of comments on Fox news say stuff like "I didn't even notice I had it!" or "it's like a mild cold!" - for sure in no way would I say that about our infections, which were significant. We almost brought a 78 year old grandmother with us on the trip - for sure, that would have been a really tough time if she had gotten it.

Replying to you just because you're the last commenter.

I raced in Lubbock on Sunday, after waking up on Saturday with a mild headache and an 'off' feeling I dismissed as pre-race nerves. I had a great race, then was coughing (productively) post race, which I attributed to track hack after racing hard. Got back home on Monday, just felt tired... then woke up on Tuesday congested and with a runny nose, which finally prompted me to test - positive. Double vaccination and booster, but haven't had my second booster yet because I've had two canceled appointments (thanks Walgreens..). Had a few waves of fatigue on Wednesday (yesterday) and one side of congestion today, but otherwise feel totally normal, EXCEPT for steady GI upset since Tuesday. That's been the worst symptom so far :(

I feel pretty fortunate that this has been so mild FOR ME and that there's no obvious consequences to racing with it. I was planning on taking this week off/easy anyway, but I'll be adding another week of super light/easy before starting back with training to be extra cautious. I feel pretty dumb for not paying closer attention pre-race and possibly sharing germs with so many other people, so a preemptive apology to my fellow racers down in Texas. I had been sort of following this thread, but I'll be following it much more closely now.

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KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

Yeah. I noticed this bad boy. It wasn't terrible -- but it's definitely not nothing, either.

Got paxlovid. Hooray for having a history of traumatic brain injury.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Well, I've started doing some very light aerobic exercise.

Have managed:

• 3 swims from 1,000 to 1,400m. Very easy
• 2 bikes from 15 to 20 mins. Very easy
• 3 run/walk/hikes from around 17 to 21 minutes, just walking and hiking (2 of them had some steep trails) as I feel necessary.

Haven't gotten sick again, apart from after my 21 minute run today I've started to get quite a runny nose - I'm hoping it is just hayfever.

Running was weird today - felt quite easy to begin with, then just felt tired and like it was lots of effort, albeit with a low heart rate. Just walked for a bit when it started to feel like lots of effort.

rrheisler - be wary of brain fog etc with covid if you have had concussions before. I've had 4 concussions last 10 years and headaches and brain fog has been worse since I got covid.

To be honest I think that's why they got me on paxlovid so quickly -- I've had increasing neuro issues the last few years likely all tied to my really bad one in 2014.

Fatigue and a little bit of haze today, in addition to the symptoms I described above. That said, about 3 hours since I took my first dose of the anti-viral and it definitely has made a difference. HR has come down a bit and I don't feel *as* shitty.

Still going to take it very easy coming out of this. Walking / golf / swimming in the outdoor pool. Riding and running likely out just given the terrain here (we average about 200 feet of elevation per mile in every direction from my house).

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Day 3 here, second full day of paxlovid.

I'm wrecked. Exhaustion. HR seems to be leveling out about 15 BPM higher than normal. Throat is worst it's been and I have something I can't quite hack out of it stuck which is fun.

In all: 0/5 stars, do not recommend, would not do again

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I'm on Day 5 of symptoms, not eligible for Paxlovid because of the inhaler I'm on. My symptoms have been quite mild so far, likely because I've had five vaccine doses (2 AstraZeneca in a clinical trial, 2 Pfizer, 1 Moderna). Mostly just congestion and mild headache now, I did have a sore throat and fatigue earlier but those are gone. I'm feeling well enough that I'm now kind of bored at home. I'm extremely lucky, and also recognize that I don't know if I'll have long-term impacts for quite a while.

I 100% caught this at sprint worlds in Montreal, and definitely at the race venue outdoors. I wore a KN95 anytime I was indoors and drove to and from the race. Several on Team USA have tested positive since returning, and I would guess that many of them also got it at the venue although some may have gotten it dining out, flying, etc. The newer strains of omicron are extremely contagious and being outdoors isn't categorically safe anymore. I may consider wearing a KN95 before swim starts now, especially at big races like nationals and worlds. In Montreal, they didn't have a means for us to dispose of a mask at the start, so I guess I can shove it in my suit at the start. What a world we live in.

As far as training goes, on Days 1-2 my coach scheduled me to do nothing because these were directly after two big days of racing at worlds. Day 3 I felt OK-ish in the morning and went for a 30 min jog, but then felt pretty awful and nixed the scheduled afternoon swim even though I'd tested negative that morning. Day 4 I did an hour easy spin on my bike per coach instructions, then took a COVID test and saw the nice bright line on the test. Since then I have only gone for some short masked walks in areas/times with nobody else around, and done my mobility work because I don't need an injury on top of this. Today I'm probably going to do some muscle activation work and possibly 30 min of indoor biking at 30% of FTP just to facilitate blood flow. If I feel terrible, I'll stop, but my experience with other viruses, including full blown influenza, is that when symptoms start improving, I benefit from very light aerobic activity to help clear out my lungs and improve bloodflow.

Oof. Hope you get better soon, man.

Also - my resting heart rate was 2 bpm elevated on Day 1, which I attribute to post-race weekend. Since then it's been normal or low. I must be a mutant.

My resting heart rate hasn't changed - if anything, it's maybe been 1 bpm lower than normal. Felt 100% two days ago AND yesterday, but then I coached (masked) on the pool deck for ~1 hour yesterday and Garmin's body battery absolutely drained. That drain was confirmed (to me) by the nearly 12 hours of sleep I got last night... this is a weird one to recover from. I'd really like to be outside this long weekend but I think I may be forcing myself to stay prone and indoors just to be safe.

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KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

I finally got it after two years, so I rested for two weeks. My fitness was already shit because the world's governments decided the population should be sedentary, only buy from Amazon, and never leave the house.

Now, I'm back to my terrible fitness level, pre-covid, but I am 3 years older, so thankfully the standard has dropped significantly. I am finally working my way to being elite the more people get sick and pretend a cold hurts their fitness. I could never keep up physically or mentally with the Alpha-male Liberals and their fancy bikes, training plans, educations, and youtube channels.

Now...is my time.

Yeah I'm firmly on "team nap" for this one. Oddly, *my* Garmin says I am "peaking" - which doesn't surprise me and probably tells you how much stock I put in what it says.

LOL - my MO is "how do I feel" and judge whether Garmin is right or not based on if it is lining up with my feelings :) very scientific.

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KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

My resting HR curve on Garmin was what told me "oh, shit, better take a test" and found the positive.

Today has been weird -- I feel mostly better outside of my throat, which can be best described as feeling like I'm trying to swallow razor blades. I eagerly await what tonight's crazy-ass sleep cycle will bring.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

So an update from far into the future for those newer members of covid club.

I'm about 6 weeks from when I caught it. Only in last 10 days am I feeling that I've fully shaken the symptoms. I've done a few swim squads, cycling up to 2 hours (yesterday, biggest ride so far, fairly hilly and 250w NP). Some run walking today (runnign held back by an achilles thing anyway) and the HR for the run intervals has come back to normal in last week or so. I was still sleeping 11+ hours after 2 weeks (normally I wake up after 7 without an alarm).

Had a really odd day last wednesday of extreme fatigue, just like the initial weeks, but I'm putting that down to non-covid things.

I'm surprised to see that some coaches are still advocating training in early stages. Not sure globally but most of the NZ elite sports protocols are nada for the first couple of weeks, and then a very very very mild rehab 2 weeks+ before any actual training. This due to the link to early exertion and long covid. My physio was part of a trial and she was the 'test dummy' group who was asked to do some mild runnign in that first week. Took her 8 weeks before she was able to return to training as opposed to the 4/5 weeks of the 'rest' protocol.

Do you have access to that study? I'm in the fortunate position of having planned to take this past week (covid week) and next week as an "off season" anyways before building to 70.3 WC. I'm a little concerned about lingering symptoms for myself since I raced in the early days of it! But, I would also love to have that study as a resource for my athletes when the inevitable "I want to start training hard again" comes up. So much more concerned with longterm health than short term goals.

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KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

I'll see what I can get from my physio. Remind me in a couple of weeks as 1) I'll have forgotten and 2) she's not around next week as she's off doing some study for her postGrad degree.

I can also see if my coach has access to anything in public domain.

Infographic. Graduated return to play guidance following COVID-19 infection | British Journal of Sports Medicine (bmj.com)

"#Athletes should have had at least ten days of rest and be at least seven days symptom-free before starting any exercise."


Same thing in simplified form: - COVID-19 and athletes: returning to sport after illness (sportsperformancebulletin.com)

Thank you so much!!

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KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

Thanks for this -- it was basically what I was planning on doing for myself here.

Anybody else deal with a horrific sore throat through this? I don't think mine's been this bad since I had my tonsils removed.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I thought I’d chime in… I got CV the week before my Chattanooga race. I did not know it at the time, because I thought it was just a cold. Worst sore throat of my life. Congestion. Incredible headache. No elevated temperature. Significantly elevated heart rate during any kind of activity. Resting HR about the same, surprisingly. Took about a month to start to feel somewhat normal again, but I am pretty sure it is still slowing me down.

I’m finding the run is taking ages to get back however it’s prob a combo of down time and fitness loss.

As for sore throat my wife complained of that a lot. My second born had a nasty temp and vomited while my other son just coughed forever.
Random virus

I've seen the "graduated return to play" BJM article circulated a few times. I think it's worth pointing out that it's from May/June of 2020. That's first variant, pre-vaccine, pre-delta, pre-omicron, pre-paxlovid, etc.

I'm not saying that anyone has definitive answers at this point given that we're still in the midst of a pandemic that's continuing to evolve and impacts different people in very different ways. But I wouldn't hang my hat on studies that, within the context of COVID, do not reflect the current reality (though it might be more relevant if you're unvaccinated).

Northy - Agree. Challenge is the 'current' thinking is of course still being researched, written, reviewed and published. Interesting though (to me) that the UK study still seems to be what is being advocated in professional and elite amateur sport down here in the corner of the globe.

Re sore throat, I lost my voice (no soreness) the day before I tested positive (day-1) , then had an absolutely grim razor throat on evening of day 0 and through days 1 and 2. Wasn't too bad by day 3.

Responding to the last post in thread - not to a particular person.

My experience was that of a typical upper respiratory illness. Got sick 2 weeks ago after coming back from Vegas on 06/17. Had pretty bad muscle aches and low fever for 2 days, spent 2 days in bed, then went through a few days of low appetite/low energy/low spirits. I'd say that by day 10 I was back to normal more or less and started working out 14 days after showing symptoms. Had an obvious loss of fitness, higher HR, etc - all normal stuff, like after a bad cold or a minor flu.

A side note is that my 18 yo daughter got CV in May, and her illness progressed the same way. She was up and running after 10 days. Also she did not really quarantine inside the house and neither did I since it is just not practical due the house size and layout - and my wife did not get sick either time. Maybe she has some super immunity or something.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I got Covid for the 2nd time (last Dec) with general fatigue the day of IMDE, which I ended up cutting short. Just didn't feel right and the swim was very hard for some reason even though I felt I was in pretty good swim shape. The next day I had all the classic symptoms and tested positive. Though, for both my Covid bouts, it never went to my lungs. No real cough or congestion. Just the incredibly tough headache and first few days of fever/body aches. Anyone else just get the bad headache, super fatigue, and many hours of sleep (but nothing in the lungs)? If so, how long until you started training again?

Covid twice damn !!

Two different variants ?

I had a tight chest, but same - didn't feel like it got in the lungs. The chest tightness felt more like anxiety than an illness. I coughed infrequently (like, once an hour), by day 4 the infrequent cough would be productive and there were a handful that felt like I cleared out a lung but otherwise no breathing issues.

Currently on day 10 after the first symptom. Besides the shakeout run pre race, and a 70.3, I have done 1 easy ride (30 min) and 1 easy walk (1 hour). Both were harder than I thought they'd be. I'm planning to try another ride today, and a (light) masters swim tomorrow.

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KJ
Swim and Triathlon Coach
AllTerrainEndurance.com
KJ@allterrainendurance.com

Day 6 here. Last day on paxlovid. Let's see what the hell happens from here. Feeling a bit better but still low on energy and can't look at a computer for more than 15 mins or so at a time.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Day 6 here as well. My throat started to feel sore at the office on Wednesday so I went home and took a test which came back negative. Woke up early the next morning to go to my weekly track workout and still felt lousy so I tested again and it was immediately positive. I had two or three days of intense sinus pressure and congestion, headache, coughing, fatigue, and a constant feeling that I needed to sneeze. No fever and it never felt like a deep chest cold or flu. By Saturday afternoon I was feeling about 80%. I went for an easy 30-minute ride yesterday which felt fine, but otherwise haven't done much of anything. Planning to try an easy run this afternoon. Interestingly my resting HR was totally normal when I felt the worst, but has crept up 5-6 BPM the last couple days.

My wife and daughter went up to the family lake house for the week so I'm in isolation by default. Trying to determine when I can go back to the office as the guidance seems to vary. The CDC says after 5 days as long as you don't have a fever and continue to wear a mask through day 10. However I'm seeing lots of sources recommending isolation until you test negative with an antigen test, and as of this morning I'm still testing positive, so it seems like staying home for a few more days is the responsible thing to do.

Day 7 here. I feel mostly better today, although I also slept for almost 10 hours last night (normal for me is about 7).

Like you, debating on when to head back into the office -- I'm likely skipping it until next week just so that way we can get whatever viral loads I have in my system down to a minimum.

I'm still not doing much more than basic household tasks and walking for now. I figure it's easier for me to regain another week's worth of fitness by taking it easy now than trying too much, too soon and risking long COVID or anything else. This year was kind of a write off, anyways...really just looking at doing some fall cyclocross racing.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Yes, I've been pretty unlucky. December got Covid which was similar to now, but I lost my taste for like 2 months (maybe Delta). May was a very bad cold - no smell, taste, and bad cough -- but apparently it wasn't Covid. Then, right on IM race day I felt off and that evening I had fever/aches/headache. The positive test coincided with the very bad symptoms (but I could taste so maybe Omicron). I live in London UK where masks are pretty much gone and people don't seem to care. Not great for training with all the intermittent breaks.

I'm just starting Covid session #2.
3 months after the 1st bout.

Last time I was grotty for 3 or 4 days, then got sore throat/ cough. Went v steady biking and OW swimming about 11 days after getting the symptoms (was testing clear after 6 or 7). I was absolutely blowing out of my arse if I hit any hills or tried a swim sprint. The week after I was back to normal.

So - this time I'm probably going to give it a good couple of weeks before anything other than steady dog walks.

First Covid infection is pretty clear at this point, day 12 or so. Still have some thick mucus, but that’s about it.

Totally kicked my ass. Breakthrough case from two vaccines and a booster. Thought I was going to die for about 48 hours with a day or two of pretty bad flu on either side. Picked it up at a half IM unfortunately.

Going to start back with a real light day tomorrow and see what happens. Most I’ve done so far is some real short slow hikes.

Breakthrough here too. Same as you, 2 x moderna and a booster. Positive on Aprill 11. Tried to start back to training 9 days later. Thought I was ramping easy then I'd get slammed by headaches and wicked fatigue. I kept pushing as I had an event I was trying to prep for in mid-late June. Finally pulled the plug first week of June. Took a full month off with just some super easy walks in the neighborhood as I had a constant tickle in my throat that would quickly become a cough at this point. Back to riding pretty easy the last couple weeks. Can do up to an hour and a half or so with some mild fatigue if I ride back to back days or spike into tempo or higher for too long. Skipping days seems to work OK.

Just cancelled a trip to Toronto for my cousin's wedding. Not going to push my luck with BA.5 out there. I'd rather not go through this again. At least until I recover fully from round 1.

Today is Day 26.

Went up to LP for the race this weekend. Usually I do a bunch of training while up. This year? I rode down to the expo to grab my media pass, rode River Road, the Bears, etc. It was enough. Then yesterday's normal 16 hour day and I am smoked today.

Just going to ease back into things this week and fingers crossed stay healthy for a while.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

First dance with it for me and on Day 15

Symptoms came on very rapidly during the evening, woke up to 6 straight days of 103 and change fever, followed by chest pains. Now feels like a sinus infection plus fatigue - sleeping 10 to 12 hrs per day and still not enough....i don't see being back on the bike for at the earliest another week

Day 27 for me. Vaxxed and boosted x 1. Started off feeling some sinus congestion and nausea. Vomited twice on day 1. Had a fever from 100-101 for about 5-6 days until it finally broke. Finally tested neg after around 9-10 days. Back to work that next week, feeling slightly better. Did a couple of 15 min. easy spins on the road bike with some post exertional dyspnea. Took it easy for a few days and last week went out to mow the yard with a riding mower. Took about 30 min. in fairly hot conditions and my heart rate immediately spiked to around 100 and stayed there for 5-6 hours. Went to the Dr. and he placed me on an antibiotic as well a taking a chest x-ray. Next, i lost my voice and now i'm here 5 days later, resting again and hopefully getting better. I'm surprised at how long it's taking this virus to clear my system. My plan is to rest another week and if feeling okay, introduce slow cycling at low HR about 5 minutes at a time.

I managed 3 weeks of non interrupted training late June to mid July but then my daughter got sick from day care and now I’ve been sick again for last 10 days! Not COVID but some kinda virus. Had flu jab and despite this been sick twice this winter. Am meant be doing Taupo 70.3 in December but have basically only managed string together 3 weeks training only since February. I feel like I’ve been sick 85% of this year…

Day 6 here. Last day on paxlovid. Let's see what the hell happens from here. Feeling a bit better but still low on energy and can't look at a computer for more than 15 mins or so at a time.


My wife contracted Covid either at or just after the Canadian Master's Road Cycling Championships first week of July ( still not sure how/where) - where she won the Individual Time Trail for the 2nd year in a row and finished 3rd in the Road Race. There was also a bonus Open Road Race for women on Day 3, Gran Fondo Style that she won overall for the women. 3 great days of racing in a row - the best fitness all year. She then became very quickly sicker than she ever has in recent memory.

Over a week barely moving from bed. Positive RATs every day. Us isolating in the house. We don't have be a big house but we were able to do this thankfully. It was almost 2 full weeks since first symptoms until the first negative RAT. The initial brutal symptoms did subside after 2 weeks but she was left with extraordinary fatigue ( short walks absolutely wrecked her), severe nausea, and brain fog, and an inability to focus on anything for too long. It was almost like post concussion!

By three weeks she was feeling better and was out and about a bit. She needed to get healthy enough and strong enough to host her annual Training Camp for her athletes that she Coaches that are doing IM Mont Tremblant - but riding or doing anything physical was out of the question - she just drove the car around. That was last weekend.

She fears that the rest of her competitive bike racing season has been wiped out. She did jump on the indoor trainer today, and could barely push out any kind of power - HR sky rocketing! So here we are barely 4 weeks on from being at her best fitness all year, and one of the best Master's Women Road Racers in Canada, and she's not back at ground zero, but perhaps lower than that! It's not officially "Long Covid" until you get a few months down the road!

Those that are brushing this off as, "Just the cold/flu" are WRONG! This impacts every person a bit differently. If it infects 10 people - all 10 will be impacted in a different way! You simply do not know its going to hit and impact you until you get it. So . . it might be best and prudent to avoid getting it at all! That would be the wise approach.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Everyone should get vaccinated and their 4th booster...

Sorry to hear about the Mrs and her experience.

As I noted above, I was at least able to work and put together an 18 hour day on the feet running around LP. Also rode ~40 minutes which, in retrospect, I went way harder than I thought I was going (at least what my Strava segments are telling me).

I think it's smart to turn the wick down for a bit. The well built by years of endurance fitness isn't going to suddenly evaporate overnight. Easing back in and building up from there.

I am KN95ing when I show up to the office for in-person stuff. I don't need to test and see whether I had BA5 or not by playing stupid roulette. (although, based on my symptoms, it's very likely I had an Omicron variant).

That all being said, I'm convinced that the combination of vaccination and Paxlovid kept me from progressing to a more severe case. There were two absolutely horrid nights in the midst of things. Can see why the death rate is something like 6x higher for unvaccinated individuals, even with these "minor" versions of COVID lying around.

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It's nice that your Dr. prescribed Paxlovid for you. I specifically inquired about Paxlovid with my Dr. and he refused to prescribe for me. Not sure why, but i'm a little pissed about it since I've been sick for a month now.

My history of traumatic brain injury finally paid off for something somewhat useful.

Sorry to hear that you are dealing with this.

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A little scary that "COVID heart" which was a thing, then had some pushback about being overblown, is now a thing again.

We already knew this, but another reason to be very careful resuming training.

Same for me. Just tested positive over weekend. Went to doctor, was told I'm not at risk for developing pneumonia or being admitted to hospital so refused to prescribe it.

First 48 hours were brutal. Felt like 80% the intensity of the vaccine side effects, but 6x as long. Fever has finally broken, so I'm optimistic the worse is behind me. Thankfully I haven't lost my taste/smell, so I can at least still enjoy a morning coffee. Though appetite is minimal at best.

Hi Flek, (and any MDs out there)
Do you think the 3 days of intense activity primed your wife to be more susceptible to a more severe infection? Can a person be at an apparent peak in overall racing shape, but have an immune system that is somehow not in prime condition to resist and respond to a viral infection? There is literature on overtraining syndrome and upper respiratory infections, but I didn't see anything specifically covid-related. Can the inflammation response to high intensity exercise add to the infection response?

None of these questions have definitive answers. Every case can be different. I am just speculating here, and wondering what future studies will reveal.

Welp my 4.5 year old brought it home, gave it to our 20 month old and wife Monday and finally me yesterday. So far I’ve only had a headache and sore throat but wife has been fatigued and flu like. The 20 month is having a tough time. Bad cough and fever but I think if she was older it would be more manageable. 4.5 year old is back to normal thankfully.

Hoping my symptoms stay mild but planning on taking 5 days off then a week of easier runs because so far I am only having above the neck symptoms with no HR issues so far. Fingers crossed!

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I know this wasn't directed at me, but my wife and I contracted covid very early on when there wasn't much understanding of how to treat this and obviously no vaccines. We both had pretty severe symptoms. At the time we were both highly trained, lean and in the middle of a big block before some bigger targets. I absolutely know and believe that there is a huge difference between being extremely fit and being healthy. While blood indicators and biometrics would show a primed athlete for us both, I have a few times in my life where I've picked up a virus whilst extremely lean and under high workloads and they have all been among the most rotten in my life. I have never been that lean again and I've allowed myself to stay around 70 kgs for a few years. I am so much healthier and my immune system is more resilient even under high workloads. So for me, it is the best of both worlds. My form is as good as ever and I am healthy too.

There is limited supply of Paxlovid (in my province and in many other jurisdictions I assume) so they are using it only for the patients that are immucompromised. Sucks that you have been sick for a month but I applaud your Dr. for doing so (assuming you are healthy).

I suspect that intense efforts during the incubation phase or early days of an infection can put some people at higher risk for long covid (my guess is viral persistence). I was in a TR build phase and hammering some pretty good workouts around the time I was likely exposed. It wasn't unusual for me to feel a bit ragged after a harder TR effort, and sometimes I would sub out a recovery ride in place of a planned ride or even move up a recovery week if I was starting to feel a bit run down. First two symptomatic days of covid, which I didn't initially recognize as such, were on the weekend -- Saturday long run and Sunday longer trainer session. Both days I felt unusual fatigue after workouts and took an uncharacteristically long daytime nap (2 hours). Initial symptom other than that was Sunday night and the weird covid "puff" cough. Monday I awakened to intense burning lungs and a dry cough and stopped exercise at that point. Although my acute infection was on the mild side, I did experience at least a half dozen different symptoms over the next couple weeks and have never been well again (28+ months now).

I think the TdF was interesting because all of those guys are chronically underweight. COVID is a real setback for some (Adam Yates said he was really sick during his latest bout) while guys like Majka and Bob Jungels are riding well when they are still PCR positive. It makes me think that your outcome is determined to a large part by genetics.

I guess time will tell if some of the pros are permanently damaged. Guys like Sagan and Uran have had COVID two or three times and their performances were underwhelming.

It makes me think that your outcome is determined to a large part by genetics.


Yes - I'm not a doctor or a scientist, but already they are starting t look into this. As I said in a previous post, NO ONE knows how hard this will hit them and what the impact will be on them short term or long term (Long COVID). So to blow it off as "Just a cold", you are really flirting with Russian roulette. If it infects 10 people - how it impacts each of those 10 will be different!

That's why the best course of action is to NOT contract COVID in the first place. There are some basic things one can do to NOT make this happen, but that's where things get all political, and many don't like to take advice, even when it's in their own best interest!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Just replying to last...

My doctor just referred me to a "post-covid" study at one of the local hospitals. She says she is hearing more and more stories like mine where the initial illness wasn't really all that bad, but the after-effects are significant and lingering.

10 weeks since testing positive and I think this is the first week I feel like I can do something that resembles "training". I've been able to do a few super easy workouts, but nothing consistent or anything better than "recovery pace".

I'll give a shot to a more "full week" next week, still all SUPER easy stuff, but I think I can handle a session every day at this point.

10 weeks... it's been 10 weeks... My entire race season is shot because of this.

Sorry to hear. I'm curious as to what, if anything that you've done recently to get your condition to improve. I'm still feeling the effects 4.5 weeks post diagnosis and just scratching my head wondering if I should be doing something other than resting. Cheers, Steve

I haven't done anything really. Just rested. Occasionally attempted a workout when I felt like I could. But always kept it easy. Most of the time I would do something like a 45 minutes super light spin on the bike, and that was enough to make me fatigued even the next day. Lately I have been able to do a few days of easy workouts in a row. But I didn't do anything other than wait it out

It's still very initial, but there's interesting new research indicating how COVID might attack the heart muscle directly. Really good reason to be very conservative in resuming training. (which you are since you said you waited 10 weeks, just pointing out the new information justifying it).

Indeed. I just want to point out that I didn’t “wait” 10 weeks. I was more like forced into rest. I was basically unable to do more than walk for a few minutes up until maybe 2 weeks ago. Walking the dog for 15 minutes required a lay down afterwards. So my body forced me into this rest period. I plan to just gently resume basic exercise this week and see where that leads me.

You experiencing other symptoms still besides the fatigue and exercise intolerance?

No. The only symptom of the illness I had was a tightness in my chest. That took a few weeks to resolve (and a chest X-ray showed nothing whatsoever). All covid did to me was make my chest tight for a couple weeks and leave me fatigued. I was never “sick”.

That said I’m on my bike as we speak and I feel pretty good here. I’m hoping this means I’m coming out of this mess.

With that extended post-exertional malaise you've described, I'd suggest that you strongly consider keeping recovery days between any bike days for quite a while longer, limit intensity to the low end (like low z2 at the most), and don't worry about adding duration. What you risk by doing more is crashing back down. Sometimes recovery from those fatigue crashes becomes more and more difficult.

I think I’m about two weeks past that post-exertional malaise. I purposely didn’t push for workouts during a time I knew I was fragile. I am carefully listening to what my body is telling me. I want to get back to training but I also am fully aware of the consequences of going back in too soon. I *think* I’m at a safe place to start easing back in. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jumping back into 100mi rides. But I think I rested properly and can get back to a full week of 45ish minute sessions.

It’s baby steps for now.

 https://apple.news/AN-RlGo19Qpu-WS-jhZXNyw[/url]

I am dealing with a similar issue, In April I was pretty fit (60yo 144lbs FTP 348) had to travel to Florida for work for a week. After getting home I came down with a gnarly sore throat...few days later massive fatigue and cough to go along with it. I took a rapid test and it was neg so I assumed it was just a cold (never developed a fever). After about 10 days I started to feel normal again, just a little chest congestion. Two days later I relapsed and this time it hit me like a ton of bricks this time same symptoms but with the addition of a massive headache, it's gotta be COVID right? Another rapid test still neg I waited it out...it didn't improve then my GF got it. She took a rapid test and it was also neg. It's now late May and neither one of us is getting better so we go get PCR tests also neg. I end up going to the doc and she put me on some antibiotics and Prednisone and administered another PCR test, again neg. After a week on the meds I feel better (GF gets on the same meds also feels better). I go out for an easy flat Z1 ride and I can't breathe. I wait a week try again same result. Wait another week and it still feels like I'm breathing through a straw. I went out yesterday another attempt and same results. I call this COVID not COVID because I had just about every symptom but 6 total neg tests, the doc just tells me to rest and wait it out but this feels more like my new normal and I'm scared I may not be able to ride anymore.

I'm on that baby step train myself. Went for a ride yesterday. Felt like I was doing ZR watts, breathing rate fine...HR through the roof. Frustrating as hell.

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Just went through this in a series of unfortunate events.

First symptoms were in my 8 and 13-year-olds about July 10th, then my 11-year-old, followed by me (65-year-old), my wife (age unknown ;-), 15, 21, and finally 20 year old. I hadn't left the house unmasked since the beginning of covid until 4th of July, where we probably got it. (Stupid me.)

Currently only the 20-year-old, my wife and I are showing symptoms. My main issue is (and has been) a lot of coughing, elevated pulse, and general weakness: I feel like a 65-year old! For months I've been taking vitamin D supplements when I haven't been in the sun (and over the winter), and I think this has been instrumental to my not suffering due to this too much. (On the other hand, the 110mph windstorm resulting in the 2-1/2 day power outage just before my symptoms started (what freezer?); all our uprooted trees, although we were lucky nothing hit the house; the A/C breaking down immediately after the power outage resulting in 90 degrees in the house; and the need to get a car to replace the one totaled by an unlicensed driver.)

Anyway, this is a rambling post partly to emotionally purge all the crap that's been going on lately, as I've been so isolated. Thanks for being patient. (At least the A/C got fixed today, although for a little over $7K.)

My main advice (maybe I was just lucky), but I think taking the vitamin D (over 60% of Americans are deficient, and sunscreens block the frequencies needed to generate it), was tremendously helpful. I think back to the nursing home at the beginning of covid where the residents who had had vitamin D supplementation had a much lower death rate (25%?) than those who hadn't (60%).

My racing season is probably done, but I just have to deal with it. I'm alive to fight another day.

Best of luck to all.

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Tri or tri not; this is no du. (--- with apologies to Yoda.) Slow triathlete who survived Huntsville, Lelystadt, Colmar, Fontanil, and
Szekesfehervar/Lake Velence. Arbor hydration specialist in a kid's park in Monterrey 4 times in the 1990s (and in the pits in 1994).

Took me a solid 4 weeks to see the HR come down and even then it was like 5 beats above what it normally is. It does improve though, it’s just a slow ramp back up to fitness

That's really helpful. Thanks.

HR was climbing a fair bit during today's lawn work session, even before I had to run inside for my EpiPen post finding a yellow jackets' nest. (Second time I've had to do that this month, too. Fuck July 2022 with a rusty nail.)

I'll just keep slowly building and let HR guide stuff. I know where I can find fitness, and it doesn't come from beating the shit out of myself now.

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I’m 66 years old, One J&J vax. I came down with Covid on June 18th. Three days of a fever (101 degrees), quite a bad headache, general fatigue and an elevated RHR. RHR returned to normal after the three days, but any exercise caused it to rise rapidly.

I’ve been doing easy spinning and walking with a little jogging thrown in while keeping my HR in zone 1. I’m a poor swimmer so, I was only able to swim 50-100 yards with stopping at the wall for 30 seconds to get my HR back down. It’s only been for the last week that I’ve been able to increase intensity with my HR staying in a normal range.

My fitness is shot, or I still have some lingering fatigue, or a combination of both. At least it seems like the end is in sight and I can start rebuilding my fitness, which at my age is always a challenge.

I wonder what % of athletes that have CoVID have these elevated HR issues. From this thread it seems like a very common problem - I wonder if that’s just cause it’s those folks that post?

This thread scares me :)

When’s it good to get back to training? When HR drops to normal levels?

I waited until 7 days post end of symptoms to resume training beyond my daily household chores (which involves a bit with where I live).

I’m now basically trying to stick with ZR/Z1 base stuff. HR still elevates very quickly relative to effort suggesting some lingering irritation or inflammation.

I wrote off 2022 for racing a long time ago so I figure I’ll just do base level stuff and watch the HR for a while before I attempt to give it the beans again.

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My resting heart rate actually dropped while I had an active infection. Never saw it go up during movement/exercise. I might be the outlier.

I'm on it with you. Covid+ early July, HR skyrockets when I look at my running shoes. Swimming easy feels good, as does conditioning work and riding the trainer in Z1, but if I'm on it too long I've got some big time cardiac drift.

I've waved off the rest of this season and will rebuild slowly and methodically for next year. It's left me feeling blah, but I'd rather be healthy and have a future season to look forward to than the alternative.

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Level II USAT Coach | Level 3 USAC Coach | NASM-CPT
Team Zoot | Tailwind Trailblazer
I can tell you why you're sick, I just can't write you an Rx

It's super frustrating. I know the fitness itself is in there (heck, I set some Strava segment PRs when I was up in LP without really trying to go hard). But the massive decoupling between breath rate and HR is really something else.

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I’ll be able up update more tomorrow when I try to go for an easy run but if you didn’t read my post here it is. 4.5 year old daughter tested positive Sunday, gave it to wife/20 month old Monday, I finally got it Tuesday. 20 month old and wife were by far the worst. 4-5 days sick and wife still is off. I was lucky to only have headache and sore throat and now a bit of a cough but woke up today with no sore throat at all!

My HR/O2 levels have stayed normal and I haven’t had any body fatigue or fever or anything below the neck. So tomorrow I’m going to try to run after 5 days off. But even with my mild symptoms I still would not want to get thing thing again and for sure would not want a young kid to get it since they’re not really good at dealing with any sickness. To me the worst part about this is hearing how random it seems to be on how severe symptoms are. Anyone who has been asymptomatic you are lucky!

I have read a few things on when to try to return to training and it seems it depends on if your symptoms are only above the neck or below. I think this article has been posted here but this is what I am going to try to follow.

https://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/?p=10084

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I DNF'd Lake Placid on Sunday 9 miles into the Run. Within minutes of getting back to my condo I fell asleep. The day before my throat was dry and scratchy, but no other symptoms. I tested positive for Covid on Wednesday morning via rapid and PCR. Only had a dry cough for less than 2 days. Resting HR has only be slightly elevated 4 or 5 beats from AVG RHR 40 to 45.

I went for a short 4-mile Jog yesterday. HR stayed reasonably low despite the heat. But today I'm wiped out. After reading this thread I'm just going to take it easy. Day 5 of quarantine today. Hope everyone else is coming along. I had both Pfizer shots in April 2021. I didn't get boosted because last Pfizer shot my lymph nodes in my arm pit blew up like a water balloon.

Just to update my experience:

Today is Day 8 since testing positive. Symptoms nearly completely gone. On Day 6 I developed a very mild chest tightness that feels like the early onset of an EIB. Still persisting as I write this. Cough is all gone as well. However, zero issues getting enough air and don't feel out of breath ever. Even going up and down the stairs it's a non issue.

RHR is completely normal and moving around the house doesn't cause any spiking. I also don't feel fatigued or winded moving about.

Still resting and not taking any chances with the chest tightness still lingering. If it wasn't for the chest tightness I would never have guessed I'd had COVID.

Going to continue to sit and do nothing for a few more days. If the tightness still persists I'll probably ring my HCP just to be double sure nothing more sinister lurking underneath.

Great add to the thread.

I'd estimate I'm in stage 3 on this chart -- and figure there's no reason to really fuck around with entering higher HR zones until we can better match up effort / breath rate to heart rate. I'm exactly 31 days since testing positive.

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It does...but it's SLOW and variable. My wife and I both had COVID last April/May. Took me about 2 weeks to get over the initial effects (tired, brain fog, etc.). She had the whole coughing bit MUCH worse than me. We started training for races again 2 weeks after that and both of us got easily winded (TBH, we weren't in the best shape to begin with). By the end of June I was FINALLY able to ride/run again...and ended up completing a Sprint (more of a death march, but I finished!) in early September. We I in better shape (though I *was* riding about 10 hours/week prior to COVID) I think it might have been different? But even my doc said my story wasn't uncommon.

Now, just over a year later it's all just a bad memory.

Hope you get well soon...and recover quickly!

First easy run went well today! HR stayed within the normal range and so far my body is not fatigued from it so hopefully I can continue with the easy runs until the weekend then see how adding some pace feels. But this cough is super annoying! Hopefully it doesn’t stick too long because I can see that being an issue when running at faster paces.

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I have been told by a doctor that Paxlovid is designed to keep people out of the hospital but there is no evidence it helps patients with less severe symptoms.

I think this is a really good question as I picked up covid during the peak of my training for a marathon. It was the first time I got covid, and I had been wondering if I became more vulnerable because of my intense training. I'm also one of those people who will get sick right after a race if I keep training intensively afterwards.

My experience with covid was a couple of days of really bad flu symptoms, then fatigue, congestion and cough for the next month. I do not say congestion and cough lightly - I could feel it ripping through my lungs so had chest pain and tightness the whole time. For a few days, I really didn't know if my body could fight it. I did nothing for a month. After waiting a week without symptoms, I started slowly training again keeping a close eye on my heart rate. After a couple of weeks of light training, I was pretty much back to normal fortunately.

I'd disagree with that -- it definitely kept symptoms at a manageable level here. I was still pretty sick, but it never got any worse, which I think was the point.

Granted, I'm considered "high risk" due to my brain injury history.

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I've seen some results of some very small, non-reviewed as well as some anecdotal observations that Paxlovid is an effective therapy against long covid as well. I think the theory is that although contained, there is still virus living in the digestive tract for several months post infection that contributes to long covid in some cases.

I feel the same. I was eligible for Paxlovid because I take an immunosuppressant drug to treat a severe case of an autoimmune disease, and that puts me in the “high risk” category eligible for Paxlovid even though I’m otherwise healthy in terms of BMI and other criteria. My doctor discouraged me from taking Paxlovid because of the side effects, put I pushed for a prescription.
I started taking it day one, while bedridden with awful body aches and the worst headache of my life. I’m now on day 16 and did a 1:20 masters swim workout this morning, followed by 1:15 of tempo work on the bike. Two weeks ago at this time I was still bedridden and now I’m back to swimming and biking at 100% (running is another story - that’s taking a lot longer to come back). I don’t know for sure that the Paxlovid was a factor in my speedy recovery, but I’m very glad I took it and will push for it again if I get Covid again. I don’t have any lingering symptoms other than a HR that jumps into Zone 4 after just a few minutes of easy jogging. I feel VERY lucky.

This is my 2nd round with Covid since April (I'm lucky!).

The first time, I got infected mid-April (was trapped in work meetings with someone who tested positive the day after the meeting). I had ALL the symptoms but never tested positive. Because I never tested negative, I wasn't eligible for Paxlovid. My asthma flared so bad I almost went to the ER (Day 4) and I ended up needing to carry my rescue inhaler with me everywhere and I had to go on a steroid inhaler for a month. I also developed a sinus infection and went on a Z-pak at week 5. All in, I was sick for 6 weeks, mostly with angry lungs, crushing fatigue, HR drift, and brain fog.

The second time, I'm 99% sure I got infected while at the Oregon 70.3 race (I stayed in a house with 6 others who all were fine, I was in a different swim time than the housemates, otherwise we were together for the WHOLE weekend). Got a positive test Wed after the race, got Paxlovid that afternoon. I still had a mild fever, aches, chills, headache but felt substantively better at day 4-5. Asthma has only been minorly affected. No HR drift - I've been able to ride my bike at a low Z2 and keep my HR <65% max. I'm at 3 weeks in and feel about 90% better.

My n+1 experience with Paxlovid has been substantially better than without it.

I'll chime in for the first time. My RHR is pretty much normal but any exercise shoots it right up.

Male, 31. 3x Moderna with the last one 6 months ago.

Last Tuesday felt completely normal, had a good swim and bike ride. Had an achilles/calf issue which prevented me from runnnung for 3 weeks. Feeling healed, I was so excited about putting my running shoes out before bed again... of course woke up the following morning feeling sick.

Day 1: massive headache, sore body, fatigue, chills/sweats. Went to get tested and confirmed positive. RHR was elevated 10-15 bmp.
Day 2: complete change in symptoms. No chills, soreness, or headache. But got a mild fever, cough, and congestion.
Day 3: feeling better. RHR coming down but still elevated.
Days 4-5: continuing to get better and RHR back to normal. When going about my day, feeling nearly 100%. Still testing positive but feeling like I could work out if I wanted to.
Days 6-8: feeling good and RHR normal. Feeling restless and ready to start exercising. Jogged 700m super slow to the test facility and HR jumped like I was doing a tempo run!
Day 9: easy bike ride to test the waters. 70% FTP for 1hr. Had some serious HR drift, +25bpm. Dropped power but HR didn't drop, so I stopped at that point.
Day 10 (today): first negative test. RHR elevated by 10-15bpm again, maybe because of the bike ride.

If it wasn't for a HRM, I honestly wouldn't know something is wrong and I'd probably be pushing my workouts again. I'm definitely more fatigued and sore from the easy bike than normally, but I also haven't done any exercise in 10 days, so I would've assumed that's the reason.

The lack of exercise is is killing me inside :(

3 days in...what a pain.

My own fault. Have been taking public transport (because it was easier) to visit a friend in hospital. Got caught in rush hour and on a full bus with hardly anyone wearing a mask, where the 7 minute ride, to the subway, took half an hour.

I now know what life will be like when I'm 80. Going up (and down) stairs one at a time and panting at the top. HR all over the place. Ballet practice is out.,,lol
Oh and living in the basement, isn't that where all old people end up.

If it goes too long my one and only A race is done for.

The good news, still losing weight.

 Just to further update my experience. I'm now 3 weeks from first positive test and feel great.

Had some minor chest pains around Day 10 that I went to the doctor for. They did a litany of heart tests and imaging to make sure it wasn't myocarditis or something else. Everything was perfect. Was told it's probably costochondritis. So took NSAIDs for several days and it went away.

Finally back exercising "normally". What would have been an easy recovery pace/power feels like a solid Z2+ effort. HR higher for effort than it was preCOVID. Longest effort was 1hr, but I started out with 15 minutes and worked my way up day by day.

I also chalk that up to being sick for several days, and not doing any physical activity vs long term effects at this point.

Even without COVID, going 2 weeks sitting on the couch would have been a rough time getting back at things.

My recommendation is to listen to your body and not be a hero. It was tough, I went a full 2 weeks w/o any activity and last several days of that I felt like I could have. Glad I didn't and took it slow and gradual.

I’ll update my experience as well. Took 5 days totally off, then 5 days easy. Then Saturday on day 11 I did a 5k and felt good. I had very mild symptoms and no elevated hr, tracked from day one of covid to track progress.

After 10 days started my normal training plan but had a lingering super annoying cough. Didn’t really impact much but was not fun at all. Messaged my doc and he prescribed me albuterol (90 mcg every 4 hours which I don’t use every 4), qvar (?) 2x a day, and a steroid pack for 6 days. Started yesterday and it has been amazing. No coughing which has been great.

Even with my symptoms I would not want to get this again because of the lingering cough. 8 weeks until the Chicago marathon so will be playing it super safe until then. But I also don’t live that fun of a life anyway, ha.

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Update from me, as well.

About 5 days after the first negative test, I am feeling 100%, aside from the fitness lost from time off.

I've been reluctant to post but think it might benefit others so here goes:

I had a splitting headache, runny nose, chills with a low fever on Sunday 7/31 that developed while I was traveling. I tested positive and holed up. My symptoms abated and tested negative on Friday 8/5. I did IMAK on Sunday, 8/7 coming in under 10 hours. I was bradycardic for the entire race but otherwise felt decent. I was still able to do a 7 mile hike to the Mendenhall Glacier the day after the race.

Since then, I've had neck-up congestion come and go and periodic waves of feeling fatigued and just generally off. Symptoms have never developed below the neck.

I'm thrice vaccinated FWIW. Covid's such an odd illness. I have no regrets about having raced and just feel really grateful and fortunate to have been able to do so.

Replying to last post, as general reply.

Last week I searched this forum for "crud", which is the term used often for respiratory infections here. I found threads from 2017, 2018, 2019, and Jan 2020 that discussed members' experiences with severe respiratory infections and lingering symptoms that affected training. Some mentioned up to month long recovery times. I didn't go back any further in time.

I have had colds and flu with varying recovery times. For most colds I've always given myself about 2 weeks before trying to do normal training. One week for the illness, then one week for just getting back to daily life activities. Then I would start training gradually. I had one bout of flu back in 2009-2010 era where it was a longer recovery, about 4 weeks as I recall.

I'm not trying to minimize COVID or claim it is "just another virus", as I have had immediate family members and co-workers die from it. And I am doing all I can to preserve my own and family's health.

I think it is interesting to see that this forum has "documented" informally the effects of respiratory infections from year to year, and that each year there has been something that affects triathletes enough to significantly disrupt training.

I don't think any of the previous threads had near the number of responses as this thread, though. And in the previous years, I didn't recall people writing about scrapping their entire season.

2 days into the start of the school year and my son brought his new friend COVID home to meet the family.
He ended up vomiting that night, but the rest of the time just having a slight fever for a day and mild/moderate cough and slight sore throat the rest of the time. He is now back at school, and only tires in the early evening. Said he wants to wait till next week before starting Ultimate practice.

Wife got it a day and a half later. Bad sore throat and bad cough. Body aches one day and one instance of vomiting. She's 6 days past and still has a sore throat, but thinks she may get back running by Thursday.

I got my last ride in this past Thursday and started showing symptoms Friday afternoon, slight nasal drainage. Tested positive Saturday morning and had body aches all day, but just drainage. Body aches caused me to sleep wrong Saturday night and I woke up with a pinched nerve feeling in my lower back, which made Sunday miserable. But still just drainage and low energy.
Day 4 - and either I'm so stopped up I can't smell or I finally lost my sense of smell. But I can still taste. No sore throat, no cough. But just a general lack of energy. I start to crash at the end of each day and I'm in bed by 8:30 to 9pm.
Now on Day 5 - and it's tracking the same as Day 4.
Resting HR has only been 3-4 bpm above avg the whole time, except for that first day when it was about 6 bpm above avg.
Probably the oddest thing has been the nasal blockage/drainage. I'm prone to allergy infections in the early spring and this started out feeling like that. But it never progressed to moving to a sore throat and chest congestion. It has all stayed in my head, but with a minimal amount of chest tightness.
We were planning to head up to the Mtns this weekend and get some hiking in, but we will see how everyone feels before we making that decision.

https://www.science.org/...nd-people-long-covid

Blood abnormalities found in people with Long Covid
Study implicates lack of key hormone, battle-weary immune cells, and reawakened viruses

That's an impressive turn around. I assume it isn't advised to do an IM the day after first testing negative, but I'm pleased it's worked out for you.

To share my recent experience this month:
- Took 5 days off exercise to try and fully recover, including missing a tune up 70.3
- Main symptoms were shortness of breath, slight tiredness, sore throat
- After 5 days felt normal again
- Day 6 easy 50km on the bike to check everything was normal, very closely monitoring HR
- Day 7 higher intensity 50km as a little stress test
- Day 8 back to normal IM training

Update 6 days in. Most symptoms gone, sleeping HR back to near normal, had a careful bike ride no HR hiccups, all seemed normal. Lucky me.

Wife, however, is now on Paxlovid after testing positive on Tuesday. Not having an easy go. Fingers crossed.

Responding to the latest reply on the thread. Not exactly sure why, maybe venting here is just cathartic.

I first tested positive 26 days ago. My first time having COVID after all this time. Had the first two vaccinations (Pfizer). Primary complaints were severe headaches, fatigue, moderately high fever, and extreme aches throughout my body. Also had mild congestion and mild cough but neither were a real problem. This lasted about 8-10 days. Tested negative 11 days ago and began extremely short spins on the bike last week (think 15-50 minutes).

I'm really just still having trouble getting myself out of bed in the morning and going through the motions of daily life. Brain fog, malaise. Of course I wonder if lack of activity is a contributor to this from a mental health standpoint too. For some of these short workouts I've begun I truly do feel ok, but other times it's clear the energy level simply is not there and I have to bail completely. I have started with a couple of short, easy runs this week - HR was pretty high for very easy effort level which I did expect.

I'm normally a 2x a day, almost every day exerciser and while getting up between 5am and 5:30am to do workout #1 can feel what I'd call 'annoying' in my normal state, my current level of fatigue is something different altogether. There's no way I have it in me to get out of bed and knock out even an easy effort at that hour.

So I guess my question is - have others had this level of fatigue and did you just shut everything down until it leveled off? I'm trying to follow the 'listen to your body' mantra but I'm in unknown territory here.

OP here…. And yes I can relate. It took over 4 weeks to start to return to fitness. And I mean start: because the heart rate and breathing thing was a killer. I couldn’t also find much energy either to do much of it. For a several weeks after a return it was all zone 1 basically, although the hr was more z3. Looking back at Trainerroad I see I did an 30 min free ride, In which I actually hit the pause button a few times, with a heart rate of around 155 and 130 watts! That’s warm up power. That was after 4 weeks covid free. This correlated with my off-season so I could afford to take it slow.

Anyway, Over time u will be able to increase effort and hr will return to normal, or as fitness accumulates, will fall back into line pre-covid times. So what you’re going through is very normal. Some fall back into pre covid routine quicker than others. Many can take time as you have prob read. Just be gentle and build slowly it will come around.

Had forgotten about this thread until someone responded to the last post from Aug 17th (2022).

December 1st, ran for an hour yesterday on the treadmill ( hill setting at min). Average HR was just above 140 bpm at 12 min mile pace (with a max at 160). In my last IM race, before the Covid shutdown and the later infection in Aug this year, my average at 10 min mile pace was 120bpm over 10k (outdoors), my Z3 level then . I have been riding and running and lifting (no swimming) throughout the time.

Of course I am also 3 years (****'ing) older.

I took 2 weeks completely off with covid-- exercising was out of the question. my body was too f'd up and i could feel it. I took another 2-3 weeks of z1/z2 very easy~ 30-45' a day but fatigue was quite strong.

Only about 5 weeks post positive did my energy start to return at all. And at about week 5/ week 6 did I go from feeling the post-viral fatigue (basically not feeling like myself) to a place where I recognized myself again and my body responded to training and exertion in predicable ways.

7/8 weeks on, I now feel like myself again, just myself who is very out of shape. The previous period of time post-covid, it wasn't that out-of-shape-feeling, it was something entirely different. Things werent responding the way they should have been. fatigue was higher, cardiac drift was higher, energy levels were different. It was not my body as I recognized it over the previous decade+ of training.

Give it time, be patient, and embrace the fact that there isnt meaningful racing for a while and let yourself get back to normal.

I'm now officially 5 months from my first battle with it.

My daughter brought it home from school earlier this fall and we all wound up positive. I had nothing but a stuffy nose for a couple of days (hooray, hybrid immunity), and the kiddo felt fine shortly afterwards. But my wife is now dealing with the same lengthy fatigue that I had the first time around.

I'm finally in a place where I can train a bit and not feel like death. It's not a whole hell of a lot, but it's just laying some groundwork for doing some dumb stuff next summer.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Just starting to come back to working out. My Covid positive test was October 12. I was as sick as I have ever been for 6-10 days. HR and HRV were clearly destroyed and only now starting to recover. HRV finally moving into my historic averages. My morning resting HR remains 20-25 beats higher.

Fatigue? Yeah, I've gone through numerous long-running bouts of fatigue over the past almost 3 years (32 months now) since my acute (mild symptom) infection with covid. Some fatigue crashes went for 6+ months at a stretch -- 11-12 hours of sleep at night with naps during the day. Things that help when that's going on? Rest (no exercise other than maybe some walking), pacing, intermittent fasting, clean diet and small meals, focus on gut health, NAC, cooler temps. Not everyone recovers from covid back to pre-covid state of health, so go easy on yourself, don't push the return to exercise, and let your body take all the time it needs to recover. When your fatigue breaks, don't go right out and start exercising again right away. That can backfire, and in a permanent kind of way.

Thanks for the responses.

The impact on the body from the virus is truly bizarre.

I have shed some of the fatigue I mentioned from my previous post, which I am extremely thankful for. But my heart rate is all over the map. Run pace 45-90 seconds slower per mile than normal on a given day, just to keep the heart rate even close to the right range for an 'easy' run. Paces that are so slow that I've never experienced, even at my all-time worst fitness levels or after extended breaks, and my HR is climbing to zone 3. Tough to know if these efforts are doing more harm than good. HR spikes on the bike are less pronounced, but definitely still higher than normal.

And I just feel like my heart is beating out of my chest at random times throughout the day at rest. Moving our Christmas tree about 15 feet had me feeling like I was going to pass out and I swear my HR must have been at threshold level or higher. My MD did not seem all that concerned about this but I am going tomorrow to see her anyway...

How long has this been a thing for ? The hr stuff ? Mine lasted 4 weeks since a neg test so about 5 total but have heard of many others going longer. It’s a waiting game- your hr will return to normal, it’s crap but it wont last. Keep the low zone stuff and do t worry about the slower pace. I think I mentioned it earlier I was doing 120 watts with hr around 150 it was crazy. Are you In ur off-season ? Think of it as forced rest and just tick over basic fitness. Doesn’t take much to get it back. I just did a half on the weekend and had a great race (for me), so you will get it all back

It's been ~5 months since my initial bout? And it's only been in the last month or so where my HR for "easy" seems to be back in the correct range.

We're back to masking a bit up here, especially with the kiddo at school and the combo of COVID, RSV, and flu making the rounds through it.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

About 2.5 weeks of this so far. Coming up on 5 weeks after initial positive test here. My first week back I only biked very short workouts and started doing short runs last week. Obviously there is some pure fitness loss component as well but clearly there is certainly more to it than just that. Crossing my fingers and hoping like you said that it's just a matter of a few weeks of transitioning back to normalcy. Yes, I am not training for anything specific at the moment thankfully.

I hadn't really looked at this thread until recently.

Tested positive about 4 weeks ago, and it was pretty bad. Sick for about 10 days. I had Covid in March 2020 right at the start and it was worse, though.

But the last 4 weeks have been awful. I still have a dry cough, taste blood when I cough, occasional random fever, and brutal fatigue. By the end of the day I'm just exhausted. I picked up my daughter and had to get groceries, but I was tired so my daughter offered to grab them (first time she's shopped on her own!) She was gone for about 20 minutes and I actually fell asleep in the car.

I ran once in the last 4 weeks for 60 minutes when I was starting to feel better.

Dr. appt on Monday to see what to do about it, if anything. I anticipate a chest x ray and "wait and see".

Sounds like some palpitations (PACs, PVCs, etc.) and maybe the onset of POTS / dysautonomia symptoms. I had a lot of that for quite a while, and still get some occasionally now as I approach 3 years. The flare-ups seem to hit more if I overdo things or allow myself to get too dehydrated. The pre-syncope symptoms on exertion / postural change are more pronounced in warmer temps. Stay well-hydrated with electrolytes, better if you find options w/o sugar. Move more slowly, especially when coming up from bending over or rising from a crouching or sitting position.

Check out a lengthy post I made to this thread back on page 5 if you haven't seen it already.

@Route66 are you exercising again? i'm 1 year and 10 months in and I still can't. I go through phases....on good days i feel pretty good, on bad days i'm not so bad i have to lie down, but i feel like garbage - almost hungover-like. When i try to exercise i feel like hell for a week or so about 48 hours later.

You guys (or girls) are warriors and make me feel like a big softy complaining about my current state which has only lasted a few weeks here. I'm so sorry to hear you've been fighting these problems for so long.

It's those good days that get you. You have that hope that you are recovering and then you go do something dumb. So to answer your question, nope, I pretty much only walk. That's my new exercise. When the pool is warmer, I'll do a bit of light swimming. That's it. It took me a while to get to a place where I was good with the new limits, but I accept it now and have moved on from the swim-bike-run lifestyle. You go through enough post-exertional malaise trying to do some anemic amount of an activity that used to bring you joy, and you eventually realize that it's not worth the price that you pay. My lungs have felt better since I switched to only walking and not trying anything more, less of the chronic burn and coughing, fewer fatigue crashes.

I went back and gave it a re-read in light of how I've been feeling. Very helpful, thank you!

Tested positive about 4 weeks ago, and it was pretty bad. Sick for about 10 days. I had Covid in March 2020 right at the start and it was worse, though.


Sorry to hear.

The cavalier attitude that many/most are taking to all of this is surprising. No one, than means zero people know how Covid will impact them personally. In almost every person it infects it manifests itself slightly differently. However, we have collectively decided to just roll the dice on this, take it as it comes and see how it goes.

For some Covid the lucky ones is a relatively minor thing. For others it's moderately severe, and for the truly unfortunate it means hospitalization and the possibilities of Long Covid as an outcome.

Ironic because I was for the longest time holding off on getting my 4th shot - but decided to get it, and just got that done yesterday. Got a flu vax at the same time.

Somehow, I have managed to evade Covid through all of this - despite moderate amount of travel for work, and my wife coming down with one of those moderately severe cases mid summer. For her it happened just after she had won the Canadian Women's Masters ITT Championships and finished 3rd in the Road Race. In other words - she was at the peak of physical fitness. She was bedridden for 2+ weeks and off the bike for almost a month. The back half of her competitive cycling season totally wiped out. According to her, it was 3 - 4 months before she could ride and train "normally"! We still don't know where or how she picked it up!

I'm saying all this because, coming back to what I said at the outset - now one knows how it will impact them. So that ounce of prevention saying is pretty important here - Mask, social distance, avoid crowded indoor situations if you can and get vaxed. But VERY FEW seem to be heeding this advice! Even I have been letting my guard down of late!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog