I’ve been having my best season resetting many of my PR’s already this year and believe if things went well I’d have a legit shot of going under 5 for Timberman next weekend. I’ve trained just about every day for the past 7 months only taking a couple days off per month as my body felt like it needed it. After competing in the New York City Tri last weekend the Hudson River gave me a brutal upper respiratory track infection. I have not been able to anything Monday thru today and don’t think I’ll be able to any workouts until at least Sunday. I am being treated for this but the antibiotics are taking their time to kick in and it got fairly bad very quickly. Assuming I’m good to go on Sunday what should my approach be to training for next week with the race on the following Sunday. Is there a way to quantify fitness lost to redo my planned pacing?
You won’t really lose any fitness in a week. Do everything possible to get healthy, then I’d use next week to wake up the legs.
There isn’t any real fitness to be gained in a week or two, anyway, so don’t stress about it.
We were just in NYC for the tri and my wife came back with a bug (she didn’t race, though). Rest up!
My PR at the Olympic distance was set under similar circumstances. Both the week I was sick and the week before the race I foam rolled a lot and did some dry land swimming drills. Did some intervals to wake the legs up the week of the race.
Maybe you gain fitness from that week of no training as your body gets stronger from the rest.
Pretty much none.
You might need a few days to knock off some rust, but you likely will have minimal to no impact on fitness.
Pretty much none.
You might need a few days to knock off some rust, but you likely will have minimal to no impact on fitness.
At half IM distance, the first 15 min of the swim is for knocking off the rust :-). At IM distance you get until mile 16 of the run to scrape that off! Maybe I just need to take my own advice…now why would I do that?
My PR at the Olympic distance was set under similar circumstances. Both the week I was sick and the week before the race I foam rolled a lot and did some dry land swimming drills. Did some intervals to wake the legs up the week of the race.
What are dry land swimming drills?
wait until you are 100% to train again, you wont lose anything
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It’s a beautiful day and my wife just took off on her bike. I’m sitting here watching Iggy Azalea on the today show, this is terrible on so many levels.
As others have said…you’re so close to your race, that it won’t be a big deal…even if it was, there is nothing you can do about it. Just focus on getting better…that’s all you can do.
I wouldn’t think you would lose any fitness in a week. I would think this would effect you more in shorter races where you need to be “sharp” and able to put out high output right off the get go. For longer races you wont even notice. Getting sick during tapers is somewhat common. You may have pushed yourself too hard in your build, and the week off might be really needed rest.
In my IM build I was having a nagging leg injury that I consulted with a sports med doctor on. He said “at the very worst, just stop running until race day”. I was a month out. He said I would only lose around 10% of my running gains by completely stopping a month out. So I think you would be fine with a week!
You swam in the Hudson and didn’t expect to get sick? There are sewage treatment plants that have cleaner water then that.
I assume if you have been given antibiotics it is a bacterial infection and not a virus, but be it a virus or bacterial infection, competing in a triathlon only a day or two after you first feel well and have no symptoms is frankly bloody daft.
I have seen countless episodes of people training hard or competing too soon after an infection. It can cause the infection to take hold again and then you could waste weeks, possibly months fighting of an infection which reoccurs whenever you train hard or compete.
Anyone who advises you to chance competing is bloody stupid.
Please don’t risk it.
Rest up until you have no symptoms, train very easy for a few days. Only train hard or race when you are completely free of any symptoms and have felt 100% well for several days.
You lose very little fitness in a week but a virus or bacterial infection can really knock the stuffing out of you and performance may be affected for several weeks. Antibiotics tend to suppress performance as well.
Err on the side of caution.
It’s not fitness you lose. It’s the fatigue you “gain” from the infection that will hurt you. Get as much sleep as possible.
Oh, and it’s respiratory TRACT, not track. 
Just set a huge PR at the 70.3 distance after losing the two weeks before a one week taper to bronchitis and an URI. I had let it go on too long so doc had me on five drugs. Did a couple of short (1:00/:20), easy with harder spurt bricks during that taper week and crushed the race. Whatever you do, make sure you better before you get back at it. You won’t lose fitness by waiting another day or two more than you think you need. It will do you some good.