I’ve been sick for about a week and a half and it will probably be a full two weeks before I can ease back into training. How much will the time off hurt my fitness?
Before I was sick, I was running about 40 - 45 miles a week and getting my cycling hours back up a bit to 5 - 6 per week. I was hoping to jack up the miles and hours in January, plus add back swimming, but now it looks like it will be a very slow build over the next few weeks. It’s just frustrating since I was really starting to run well and get some cycling legs back.
Hey —been there and also worried about this. 2 weeks is fine. You can also get in some light workouts with striders if you have no symptoms below the neck. Take zinc lozenges.
I had one of my best races ever after being sick for about a week and a half. Good luck----are you a nordic skier? Otherwise this is the offseason dude try not to worry about it.
I predict that the first few workouts, you’ll feel a little out of shape - after that, it won’t feel like you’ve lost anything at all.
Look at it this way: if you’re resting, you’re not stressing your body except for fighting off the illness. As long as it’s nothing too serious, you ought to come back all fresh and rested!
You’d be surprised at how many PRs and even WRs happen after a layoff due to injury or illness. Most of us are mildly to severely overtrained… chronically. So “missing” a few workouts just lets your body catch up.
I had a really bad year with little or no running and then had knee surgery in late Sept. I’m just getting back out for long runs again and yes I’m slow and my leg muscles are not in good running shape, but that’s after almost a year of minimal and then no training. Two weeks? Bah…
I was originally training for an endurance xc-ski race this fall but due to sickness and burnout I decided not to do the race. So for a month I trained much less than normal with no long workouts. After one month I decided I was going to do the race so I went out for my first ‘long’ workout in about a month and I felt like I was skiing on air…it was so easy. A very good feeling. So maybe I was kind of tapered or rested, but the point is that after one month on less-than-normal training I had no problems ‘going long.’
Depends. If you tend to lose fitness fast or recovery is fast then you may feel like you’ve lost fitness. Take a week off and try easing back into it. Take vitamins, supplements to get your immune system to fight off whatever you got.
After two weeks, the impact will be minimal. You will FEEL, less fit but this is due more to a weakening of the system from the cold and the change of routine. If you were to actually measure certain key fitness parameters, my guess is that very little would have changed.
Heck, I’m a coach and I don’t allow myself enough recovery.
When I trained in HS, we used to get one month off every year (which I used to spend water skiing, biking, running and - guess what? - swimming at altitude at Lake Tahoe) with no formal workouts. Even though I probably swam upwards of 50,000 yards during that month that represented a significant reduction and it was all for fun, with very little hammering. After that I would always nail a major PR at the annual Labor Day weekend meet.
Back then no one knew anything about periodization (heck, back then we were still using stone tools…)
I’ve come to believe that one of the reasons for my success in those days was that I was a goof-off. I didn’t beat myself into the ground like everyone else was doing and I trained easy one or two days a week.
So when I started training seriously for triathlons the first thing I did was heap on the miles and hours (swim 20-25000 yards, bike 350 miles, run 30 miles+ each week, all at fairly high intensity) until I was so overtrained my legs hurt when I put my underwear on!!
Listen to your body and start checking your RHR first thing every morning before you get up. Any indications that you’re tired or run down should be cause to downgrade or cancel the day’s training.
I’m currently entrenched in my annual holiday overtraining festival. I just stepped of the trainer after three hours to check e-mail and make two phone calls, and then I’m back to it for several more hours. Trying to get another 200 point day to see if I can stay in the running until Saturday, when I plan to ring up 500+ and blow away the field!!
After that, you can find me curled up in a ball in the corner of my closet, drooling and sucking my thumb…