Thanks for sharing that! It’s helpful just to read other experiences. As you know, it’s a mental battle… seems like a lot of the breakthrough infection folks did the sensible thing and took two weeks off before easing back in, basically what I plan on doing.
After almost three days of feeling mostly normal, and nine days since initial symptom onset, I did 15ish minutes of Z1, low Z2, HR up just under 130 (max is 187+). I didn’t really notice any abnormal HR stuff at that range. Did my quick foundation workout for the third day in a row (bodyweight, yoga-style exercises for the posterior chain) and haven’t seen any issues with that. I did have some fatigue yesterday doing light housework for about an hour… napped for 90 min afterward.
Hard to tell sometimes if fatigue is illness or actually being tired or if I’m just tired from sitting around all day. So, that’s why I jumped on the trainer very easy, and I feel much more energized now than before. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Planning to follow the protocol when I get back from the holidays, starting at 45 min or less in zone 1 the first day and progressing from there.
I reckon its a full 4 weeks from initial symptoms to being back at full tilt on the bike, for me. 2 weeks to getting back on the bike, but initially riding like I was injured.
I saw a post on Linkedin where some guy who was massively overweight and out of shape has now lost his job, after a year in hospital, and his employer giving up on him (he was a contractor so no obligation for the company to keep on paying him). From this perspective, I think a couple of weeks no riding is a trivial inconvenience.
Trainerroad is not exactly set up on the training plans for coming back to riding post Covid: I completely ignored the request to do a ramp test by Trainerroad, after taking a couple of weeks out. I think the TR team need to have a Covid toggle button, so folks can provide feedback to the adaptive training. Even just an “ill” flag would make sense.
Here’s an article in the British Medical Journal. About a year old now, and repeats a lot of the advice above, but maybe also worth reading:
I’m on day 8 from start of symptoms, and plan to take it VERY easy. I too have heard anecdotes of people getting back to training too hard / fast and going backwards. I can almost hear Coach Chad saying “What’s the rush? Think big picture son!”
It depends in which training phase you get it.
I had it in peak week.
did one week doing nothing , then started easy things keeping HR in zone 1.
Once that you feel okish do a ramp test and take it from there with a base training block.
It took me 3 months to get back to the same FTP pre Covid.
My exact scenario. Boosted on Monday. Felt perfectly fine going in having ridden both Sat and Sun before. Felt bad a couple of days which I attributed to the booster. On Thurs still didn’t feel right so I took a Covid test which was Negative. Felt pretty good on Friday but woke up today not feeling right and decided to take another test before seeing family and this time it was Positive. Symptoms are very mild - more like allergies than a cold.
I’m on day 3 of the GRTP protocol and so far have done 3 days of 12 minutes with AP very definitely below HR. One more day then I’m increasing the duration very slightly but keeping the intensity low.
I was off the bike from November 24th to December 23rd.
TBH I still don’t feel totally normal, smell and taste is virtually non existent but I’m taking things real easy.
We recently moved house and did the removals ourselves and I know for sure I expended way more energy from doing that than any ride I’ll be doing in the next month.
Thanks for sharing that experience, you’ve described my symptoms fully and I just hope they only improve from here. Im fully vaccinated with Pfizer, but no booster (yet). I was feeling a little run down for maybe almost a couple of days then went on two back-to-back epic days on the MTB, (really poor decision). Those rides were 12/16, 12/17 but I didn’t exhibit full Covid symptoms until last night before bed, slept really poorly and woke up with a mild fever today. Family is all isolating and testing lined up. Today riding is the last thing on my mind and I’ve purposefully planned a longer than usual hiatus from a training plan, and have a work break until next week.
I’ll stay off the bike until Im feeling closer to 100% as there’s no sense in rushing back no any way. This experience has made me realize I have to tighten it up more!
Haven’t ridden, but played some backyard soccer with my nephews and felt pretty good. Gives me good hope for starting back when we get home after almost two weeks off.
I took it easy and came back stronger than ever. Sometimes I think a 4 week off-season relieved all the training stress of the past year, allowing for quick rebound and large gains.
Yep, it’ll end up being about 17 days of no real work on the bike after I was getting ready to wrap up my base phase. Planning to build my sustained efforts back up in January and press on from there if I’m able to hit my desired sessions next month. About a one month setback, but the extra rest might prove beneficial… we’ll see!
Oh, look, an unfortunately relevant thread for me…
Like a growing number of folks out there this holiday season, my training was derailed by COVID a few days ago.
I’ve experienced a swath of symptoms, albeit mild, but quite a cocktail.
I’m erring on the side of caution. The links above on graduated return are very helpful. I’m going to do my best to subscribe more to that than not, even while listening to others who’ve had/have COVID and are a bit more bullish.
I’m a creature of freshness, so hoping a full week off to recover, then a week of recovery → easy endurance is ample time to begin looking at training in earnest again. I nuked my plan and recalibrated starting two weeks from today.
Stay safe and focused, friends. Marathon, not a sprint (from someone racing only crits, this is a hard thing to remind myself of).
Felt pretty good today (two days after positive test). Symptoms are VERY mild much like mild allergies. Did a 1.5 hour TR endurance ride to see how things would go and all was well. Felt really strong after a week of rest and way more sleep than I normally get. Assuming I still feel good tomorrow I will pick up on my training plan.
Thanks for posting that link @WindWarrior. I had COVID during Thanksgiving, had a fever for a couple days and fatigued for about a week.
4 weeks later, my HR is still about 10% elevated over what it was pre-COVID, especially resting HR and HR at threshold.
I talked with a cardiologist recently who he said it can take weeks to months for heart rate and blood pressure to return to pre-covid baseline. The bottomline is to take your recovery seriously no matter how mild the case was, this is not a “normal” illness.
The last post was really sad to read, but I understand it. Cycling is such a selfish sport, I sort of broke down to my wife last night after realizing the fitness I gained in the last year and a half was all but gone due to Covid. It’s really made me question if I want to keep training or if I should just bike for fun.
Same here. Was out with Covid from 30November till 11 December. Mostly fatigue and lots of back pain (no other symptoms). Was in top shape end of November but it seems that I lost a lot of fitness. I am not doing crazy things for the moment. My HR is 10beats higher then before and I lost 30W compared to pre-covid. I don’t feel that bad on the bike but I have the feeling I will need another month to be back on track.
But I feel the same. Work hard for a year to get a really good fitness level and within 10 days it seems all is lost. Never happened to me before after sickness…
Great to find this post & just what I was looking for.
I had my booster Friday 17 Dec went to work after it as normal the following day my scheduled workout was Warlow+1 which was the last workout of LVbuild first block I completed that with no problems & went to work on the evening I felt a bit off through my nightshift & the next day after my sleep I did a lateral flow test which came back negative I still wasn’t feeling right that night at work so again following my sleep I did another lateral flow test which this time was positive & was then backed up by a PCR test the next day confirming I had COVID.
My symptom’s never got any worse than a 2 day spell which felt like a really bad flu. My Whoop band had my respiratory rate elevated on 19th which was the day after Warlow+1 & a 12 nightshift then again 22nd 23rd 24th which is when the virus was at its worse
Im now on Day 8 since my first positive test & have tested negative on 2 consecutive days. My dilemma was the week I missed was a recovery week I used the annotation feature on my calendar stating Illness but that still had me doing a ramp test on my return which would of been this coming Saturday I then put a annotation in for the Saturday & it has now moved my Ramp test to next Tuesday which is technically 2 weeks after I had the virus. Im a 54yr old recreational bike rider who just likes structure & training so its no biggy having to put things back but reading the info above has me wandering if I should continue with the ramp test as scheduled or could this be to hard a workout with this in mind I did Petit yesterday & compared it to previous rides & my HR was more or less in the same ball park as my previous petitit rides from last year & this morning my Whoop stats are all within their normal range
This is certainly not an opinion based on data because there is probably no good data, so take it with a grain of salt. But, to me, not having symptoms or having mild symptoms is seeming to be significantly different than having moderate to severe symptoms. I’m wondering, curiously so, why someone without symptoms would ease back into exercise the same as someone who had symptoms. That doesn’t make sense to me. I know there is an abundance of caution here, but I think we are learning some things recently, like asymptomatic people may not be spreaders leading to healthcare workers only getting tested when they show symptoms and the CDC letting people leave quarantine earlier when symptoms aren’t present that makes me think we should be handling a lack of symptoms differently than someone who has actual heart and possibly lung related symptoms. My question is really about the sustainability of this. Assuming milder symptoms related to Omicron persist and the strategy shifts from prevention to treatment, which seems to me the only realistic path, I think we can all expect to get it and who knows, perhaps get it multiple times a year. If that is so, taking a month of the bike each time you get a mild or asymptomatic case seems kind of like a training deal-breaker.
I’m really not sure you should be training at all so soon after a positive test. It’s still a virus which affects the cardio respiratory systems, you could be doing untold damage.
