I haven't contemplated taking anti-virals. You might want to look into side effects.

What I do leading up to any race is amp up the general precautions:
1) Wear a surgical mask on the flight, airport, and other crowded germy places (public transit, etc.). On the plane, wipe down all surfaces with lysol wipes.
2) Use liquid hand sanitizer constantly -- I get the little bottle and clip it to a belt loop so it's handy.
3) Turn my house into a sterile zone (basically go around the house with lysol wipes and wipe down all doornobs, light switches, etc.) and make anyone who comes into the house wash hands immediately. Do the same to your hotel room.
4) Avoid sick people, if a colleague is sick and in the office, work from home if you can
5) Cook my own food the day or two before a race

I've never been taken out with a cold/flu before an A race, though I once got food poisoning the night before an Ironman and still managed to finish, but it hurt my time. This is why I cook my own meals the day before now.

I can’t tell if your response should be pink or not. Surgical mask? For real?

Surgical masks apparently help. Why not?
(At the medical clinic I work in they are stationed right at the entrance.)

Dude -- absolutely serious. I actually wear a mask on every flight, regardless of whether it's to a race or not. You feel kind of like a nut job the first few times, but then it becomes second nature. Kind of like shaving your legs (or so I hope, having just done that for the first time last night).

As a physician I know they help. As a human I’m not sure I could bring myself to wear one in public. To each his own!

Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer does not kill the norovirus, which is something that definitely can take you out of a race (and anything else) in a matter of hours.

"Research suggests that noroviruses can survive on surfaces for as long as 42 days, and it takes only about 20 viral particles to make a person sick. Yet one tablespoon of vomit contains a whopping 15 million viruses, and the same amount of stool contains up to 75 billion of the buggers."



https://www.nytimes.com/...mach-flu-winter.html

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

It's odd, the only ones on a plane I ever seen wear one are all Asian. Not sure how to interpret that. More cautious, paranoid, educated about air...hmmm. Seems like a good idea.

I think that's purely a result of high density living in cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bejing....
I think the masks also became socially acceptable and normalised in cities with smog problems.

It’s not that uncommon on an airplane.

I would not think taking a anti viral without having a virus would be a good idea but maybe there are no side effects.

The #1 way to not get sick is to be healthy and low stress to allow your immune system to function correctly. Set a plan before race day including meals and just relax as much as you can.

I'd consider it poor form. At least take the full course so you're less likely to contribute to the development of drug-resistant strains of a virus.