Sick during recovery week? Is it still a recovery week?

Training
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I haven’t been feeling top notch for a 5 or 6 days just assumed it was residual fatigue. Turns out I was incubating some sort of virus/cold. Weds/Thurs I was sneezing a lot, figured it was allergies. But by Thursday night I was getting a headache, runny nose, etc. Woke up at 2am Friday morning to muscle aches, raging headache and stuffed up nose.

Didn’t do anything on the bike Friday. Yesterday I did 30 mins of z1/z2 just to get some blood moving, glad I did it, it also helped my head a bit. Today I’m not really very achy anymore but definitely still sinus headache, etc. I did 1hr of low end z2 today, that helped clear my head and relieve some of the sinus pressure.

This was a recovery week to begin with starting Thursday so I’m not missing a lot. My original plan for tomorrow since it’s warm was to knock out 60 miles on the road. I’m canning that idea coming off recovery to not overdo it. Instead I’m thinking 60-90 mins of more z1/z2. If tomorrow improves like I did today, then maybe hit the road Tuesday morning for a quick 25-30 mile road ride. More low intensity weds. Planning to be off completely thurs with z2 on Friday and longer 60 mile road ride next week on Saturday.

Since I’ve been sick my body has been working in other areas, not necessary recovery from riding. Should I take a little more time off this week than I originally anticipated as I start to feel better? I’m assuming tomorrow I’ll be feeling pretty good overall given how much better I am today vs yesterday but not back to 100%.

I’ve got to really ramp up distance/volume over the next little bit and I don’t want to jump in too early and prolong my recovery from illness if all I really need to do is take it easy an extra couple days.

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Recovery week… Not really, no.

This happened to me recently. My heart rate was higher than SST or once even Threshold intervals, some days just walking or doing a Z1 sessions cut short (so it wasn’t really Z1.)

Anyway, following this back on a normal ‘on’ week I cracked on, as I had recovered in the last few days of the recovery week, or so I though.

First few sessions were really easy, as my deload week (recovery week) was so light, felt like I was flying without much effort. However then a relapse kicked in and I had two weeks of broken training, boom and bust. Third week I finally manged to shake the sickness.

So after one week of training properly if I followed something like plan builder I would be on a recovery week next week.

It is one of the reasons planning weeks and months in advance make little sense. I dont do that, I know the overall plan but only plan the next 5 - 10 days based on the overall idea and adjust as needed.

My personal experience aside if you are sick for most of a recovery week it is not a recovery week, depending on the severity it could be more stress on the body than a full on training week.

PS take a touch more rest than too little.

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My HR yesterday and today were fine thankfully. I did notice early/mid last week it was a touch higher than normal during intervals…we know why now. Yesterday my HR didn’t exceed 130, today I didn’t exceed 135 avg was 124 today.

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If you’ve been sick you need some recovery time after symptoms go, regardless of what your plan says. A plan that doesn’t remain flexible and adapt to circumstances is no plan at all.