1 week to Wildflower, and I just got a darn sore throat. Apparently it’s going around like wildfire around here in Norcal as half my workmates have it or are hacking something up. (This happened despite meticulous attention to surface and hand hygeine at works - I use saniwipes, purell and wash regularly.)
Was still able to get in my last long ride on Sat but I’m guessing there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll do the Wildflower now given that I’ll probably be feeling peak miserableness about Thursday given how I feel today. =(
Anyone else get nailed with illnesses a week out? And how did it affect your race (if at all - I know somebody’s going to say that I may have a huge PR due to all the rest, but I doubt it.)
If it’s a week out and all you have is a garden variety cold( not flu, not pneumonia, not bronchitis etc . .), you should be OK. The trick, I have found from experience, is to just shut everything down, now! Get as much rest, preferably bed rest as you can. Garden vareity colds tend to run their course when well taken care of in 5 - 7 days, so you should be OK. The mistake that many make is not shutting things down, forcing the training, and then extending things or, the cold morphing into something more serious.
I recall having some great races after getting colds a week out - it forces a bit of a more dramatic taper - so there really should be no surprise with this.
I have raced a week after getting a cold. I don’t think it made too much difference but who can tell how I would have done without. The good thing is that i ‘think’ I did well and I enjoyed the fact that I was able to race. I certainly felt better than the proceeding week. Rest, recover and don’t panic.
If it’s a week out and all you have is a garden variety cold( not flu, not pneumonia, not bronchitis etc . .), you should be OK. The trick, I have found from experience, is to just shut everything down, now! Get as much rest, preferably bed rest as you can. Garden vareity colds tend to run their course when well taken care of in 5 - 7 days, so you should be OK. The mistake that many make is not shutting things down, forcing the training, and then extending things or, the cold morphing into something more serious.
I recall having some great races after getting colds a week out - it forces a bit of a more dramatic taper - so there really should be no surprise with this.
I hear you - I’m going to do exactly as you recommend - just shut it all down.
I am usually a training ‘nut’, and worry too much about losing fitness, although granted, I definitely lose a ton of fitness if I take more than 10 days off, which I rarely do. The bummer is that I was in solid run condition for Wildflower with weekly 2.5+hr long runs with big-time climbing on trails, and was hoping to really show my stuff on WF, but then due to a broken wife’s car last week, I ended up bike commuting and missing my final runs so I’ll have run a grand total of 5 miles in the 13 days before race day. (Add more cycling than usual, though.) It’s my first WF, so if I’m lucky enough to be ok enough to race, I’m going to primarily just enjoy the experience and only turn on the jets if I’m having an “A” day.
It will be weird, however, for me to not maintain any SBR this week - I had pretty normal training vol last week aside from the bike/run balance. Even swam more than usual by a bit.
I just ran the Boston Marathon with a head and chest cold that started to bloom 3 days before the race. No fever but I felt like crap and was pretty concerned it would wreak havoc on my race. Got some strange looks at the start line when I ripped off a few of those congestion-filled coughs to clear out the lungs. End result: Ran my fastest Boston ever (by 3secs but it still counts). Of course, the cold kicked my ass the next four days and I ended up on an antibiotic to finally kick it out of me. The moral of the story though is I had put in all the work in the weeks and months previous and nothing I did right before the race was going to alter that. All I could do those last few days was rest alot, eat and hydrate right, keep the stress to a minimum, take some meds to keep the cold at bay and show up to kick some butt.
Sleep sleep sleep, green tea, vitamin C, more sleep. Target 60 hours of sleep this week. Replace training time with sleep time. During taper weeks, we need to flip our emphasis to recovery and getting stronger anyway. This just lifts it up a notch.
Sleep sleep sleep, green tea, vitamin C, more sleep. Target 60 hours of sleep this week. Replace training time with sleep time. During taper weeks, we need to flip our emphasis to recovery and getting stronger anyway. This just lifts it up a notch.
Let it rip on race day!!! Training is in the bag.
Gonna do that. No more 4:30AM wakeups to bike and run - going to force the sleep. And will supplement VitC - have that in my wife’s cupboard but haven’t been taking it.
Funny, not ha ha funny, but ironic. I had a cold last week (thanks to my sneezing 11 year old!). And was in your neck of the woods on business at the tail end of the cold.
Ripped up Kings and down then up 84 and down Kings again. Felt good because I was semi-recovered (for once). Roads were probably slick behind me (from, umm… nasal discharge - aka snot!!!).
I was feeling quite studly, until some guy (kid, he must have been around 30) went by me up Kings like nobody’s business - I’ve ridden that hill a zillion times and have never seen anything like it. On Wednesday morning no less.
I had a cold for the whole week leading up to my first oly. Felt terrible up until the night before. Didn’t train after tuesday, got as much sleep as I could, including about 10 hours the night before the race. Woke up race day feeling great, and crushed it.
Be sensible, rest, you should do fine.
Crap. On the trainer yesterday I thought I felt off. This morning throat sore a little and my coffee didn’t taste like coffee. I race on SUNDAY!
Airfare not refundable (airline credit which was about to expire in a couple of weeks). Hotel and rental car booked. I will go anyway and tough it out. But not expecting good results.
Crap. On the trainer yesterday I thought I felt off. This morning throat sore a little and my coffee didn’t taste like coffee. I race on SUNDAY!
Airfare not refundable (airline credit which was about to expire in a couple of weeks). Hotel and rental car booked. I will go anyway and tough it out. But not expecting good results.
I was worried about Wildflower HIM mainly because the run is so tough and it’s going to be near-record heat apparently. Not a pleasant place for me to be if I’m feeling really bad and having to walk big stretches of the run. In a sprint/oly though, I think I’d just suck it up and do it even if it’s an ugly day since the whole thing will be over pretty soon even if you walk the whole 10k (unlikely).
I caught something on one of my business trips last fall just as I was transitioning to full time marathon training. It wreaked havoc on my winter training. I kept trying to push through it, but it reappeared after every hard training week. End result was my worst marathon ever. I’ve been sidelined since the race.
I’m finally headed to the doctor later this week to see what the heck it is. My guess is that I got a viral infection last fall that turned into some kind of middle or inner ear infection. (Did I say that I now have a case of tinnitus, which sucks too).
Moral of the story, if it persists, go see somebody.
I’ll commiserate with you. Got my last longish ride in on Sunday morning, sore throat Sunday night, felt crap all day yesterday. But today I feel I’m starting on the mend and with any luck I’ll be lining up with you Saturday morning! So now all I have to deal with is heat, hills and pollen!
I’ll commiserate with you. Got my last longish ride in on Sunday morning, sore throat Sunday night, felt crap all day yesterday. But today I feel I’m starting on the mend and with any luck I’ll be lining up with you Saturday morning! So now all I have to deal with is heat, hills and pollen!
Hah hah - we should make a separate competitive wave so that there’s elite/pro, AG, and ‘virally infected AGers!’ so we can blame our bad results on something!
