I've read a bunch of pieces about colds and training, none of which have hit the proverbial mark, of actually dealing with and or killing a bastard virus.
The popular, and probably current medical wisdom is, during an infection from a cold virus, flu, or bronchitis, the athlete is to simply not train---otherwise, your recovery will be longer. Not surprisingly, when this topic comes up here, you can read posters, who try to buck this wisdom, nonetheless, with horror stories: "had a cold...much to my dismay, I kept running when I had the flu, and eventually had to go to the ER room, after I got bilateral pneumonia, and that's why I'm on an iron lung right now as I type this post"....or "sure, I had 103 degree fever, but that didn't stop me from my usual 45 100s on 1:20 at the pool. I did take a shower before I jumped in to throw off the other swimmers who heard me cough a lot in the locker room..." or "...I was sick with a cold when I ran 14 miles this morning, blowing snot rockets all over the place, I'm not sure if that was sweat from the fever or from the exercise, but the doctors putting the IVs in my arm right now, said that whole idea was bunk."
I don't know about you, but when I get a cold, it lasts for 1 to 2 weeks bare minimum, completely wiping out any "aerobic" build up or endurance gains you made, and, if you take NyQuil, your fitness actually regresses to the worst point in your life span. Get on Nyquil or some of that Thera Flu stuff for three or four days, and I'm telling you, some of those fatasses on Dr. Phil's show, would kick your ass on a treadmill. Poof. Whatever you've been building up to, swimming, running or biking....gone...poof...gone. Start over from scratch, from rock bottom, that's you.
Given this background and horror stories of people training during a cold, one would think that the athlete should respect a cold. The problem I've found is that a cold or flu simply doesn't respect you. It's not afraid of you, one bit. That's when I brainstormed my cure out. I'm telling you, the only way to kill a cold, is to scare it away. Here's my recipe, and it's not for the feint of heart.
Try to find a powerful, delayed reacting decongestant: 120 to 200 mgs, of pseudephedrine (sp?). Take 2 of those. Wait for one hour for em to start kicking in. When your nose starts running like the Mississippi river, you are set. Get ready to go do one of your threshold "runs." I recommend using a gym and find a treadmill, because you will want to be near other people in case you die, or have a stroke or need an ambulance. Don't bring your heat monitor, you don't even want to look at the numbers, okay...just leave it at home. What you don't know, well, you don't want to know. If you always doubted your MHR, bring it, however. We'll get that number this session, for sure.
Here's what you want to do. You want to run as fast as you can, hold nothing back, imagine someone is chasing you down in a car, with a gun and you are running for your life. Bring a towel because we are going to tax the mucus membranes to death, too. I would, if there is another runner on a treadmill next to you, tell them, "hey, this could get ugly over here in a minute, FYI. Stuff could be inadvertantly flying your way."
The proper speed, whether out on mother earth on a treadmill, is what I call "break neck": for me, that's like setting the machine at 9.5 miles an hour. Do this for 20 minutes or until the small, silver stars start appearing in your view, until you are right at the verge of passing out.
There. You've done it. Hobble back out to your car. Wake up in the morning. Notice. You can breath like a Buddhist master. No snotty, hucky feeling. You are fixed. It's gone. You scared the heck out of that cold or flu, and it's gone. The cold respected you. And has left.
Show the cold who it's messing with.
The popular, and probably current medical wisdom is, during an infection from a cold virus, flu, or bronchitis, the athlete is to simply not train---otherwise, your recovery will be longer. Not surprisingly, when this topic comes up here, you can read posters, who try to buck this wisdom, nonetheless, with horror stories: "had a cold...much to my dismay, I kept running when I had the flu, and eventually had to go to the ER room, after I got bilateral pneumonia, and that's why I'm on an iron lung right now as I type this post"....or "sure, I had 103 degree fever, but that didn't stop me from my usual 45 100s on 1:20 at the pool. I did take a shower before I jumped in to throw off the other swimmers who heard me cough a lot in the locker room..." or "...I was sick with a cold when I ran 14 miles this morning, blowing snot rockets all over the place, I'm not sure if that was sweat from the fever or from the exercise, but the doctors putting the IVs in my arm right now, said that whole idea was bunk."
I don't know about you, but when I get a cold, it lasts for 1 to 2 weeks bare minimum, completely wiping out any "aerobic" build up or endurance gains you made, and, if you take NyQuil, your fitness actually regresses to the worst point in your life span. Get on Nyquil or some of that Thera Flu stuff for three or four days, and I'm telling you, some of those fatasses on Dr. Phil's show, would kick your ass on a treadmill. Poof. Whatever you've been building up to, swimming, running or biking....gone...poof...gone. Start over from scratch, from rock bottom, that's you.
Given this background and horror stories of people training during a cold, one would think that the athlete should respect a cold. The problem I've found is that a cold or flu simply doesn't respect you. It's not afraid of you, one bit. That's when I brainstormed my cure out. I'm telling you, the only way to kill a cold, is to scare it away. Here's my recipe, and it's not for the feint of heart.
Try to find a powerful, delayed reacting decongestant: 120 to 200 mgs, of pseudephedrine (sp?). Take 2 of those. Wait for one hour for em to start kicking in. When your nose starts running like the Mississippi river, you are set. Get ready to go do one of your threshold "runs." I recommend using a gym and find a treadmill, because you will want to be near other people in case you die, or have a stroke or need an ambulance. Don't bring your heat monitor, you don't even want to look at the numbers, okay...just leave it at home. What you don't know, well, you don't want to know. If you always doubted your MHR, bring it, however. We'll get that number this session, for sure.
Here's what you want to do. You want to run as fast as you can, hold nothing back, imagine someone is chasing you down in a car, with a gun and you are running for your life. Bring a towel because we are going to tax the mucus membranes to death, too. I would, if there is another runner on a treadmill next to you, tell them, "hey, this could get ugly over here in a minute, FYI. Stuff could be inadvertantly flying your way."
The proper speed, whether out on mother earth on a treadmill, is what I call "break neck": for me, that's like setting the machine at 9.5 miles an hour. Do this for 20 minutes or until the small, silver stars start appearing in your view, until you are right at the verge of passing out.
There. You've done it. Hobble back out to your car. Wake up in the morning. Notice. You can breath like a Buddhist master. No snotty, hucky feeling. You are fixed. It's gone. You scared the heck out of that cold or flu, and it's gone. The cold respected you. And has left.
Show the cold who it's messing with.