I’m steering well clear of any intensity for a while yet, positive on 25th November, didn’t ride again until 23rd December. I’m strictly following the GRTP protocol just to be as safe as I can be.
I can’t speak to training post Covid, but I can share some input for those concerned about losing a “year’s worth of training” after being off the bike for a period of 4-6 weeks. the month of August in both 2020 and 2021 were horrific (I’m skipping it in 2022!). I crashed in 2020 and broke four ribs in back of rib cage and tore connective tissue in front from impact. Off bike for 5 weeks, another 3 weeks (for total of 8) before I could actually ride with a purpose. Within 3 months I was back at same FTP. This past August I was diagnosed with a heart condition. This resulted in two months of Z1/Z2 followed by the past 4 weeks being laid up with carpal tunnel procedures on BOTH wrists, my power is now down about 40W since August 1. I’m beginning to see strength and endurance come back quickly. Despite the challenges the past four months, I have been able to put in 380 hours on the bike. For those of you concerned, I think if you have a good base, you will see the fitness come back if you train as you had before. This of course would be contingent upon the severity of your bout with Covid. I would say stay positive and follow the plans. Eat right, sleep, and you’ll be back at it.
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Hi @russell.r.sage, you ask some good questions that I’ve been wondering about as well.
From what I’ve gathered as a layman, an asymptomatic infection of COVID can still result in damage to the cardiovascular and respiratory system. I don’t think any longterm damage has been associated with mild/asymptomatic cases, but it still damages those systems.
On a personal note, I’ve had pretty bad flus/colds that lasted a couple weeks and put me in worse shape than my recent COVID infection. But my heart rate was never elevated for more than a week after a flu/cold infections and I never lost my sense of taste/smell until COVID (still don’t have them back after over a month). Even though I had a very mild case of COVID, it seems to hit different than the standard flu/cold infection, it’s why I went to see a cardiologist this past week to see if there are any issues with going HAM on the bike again, still waiting for his analysis.
Overall I agree with you that there’s still a lot of unknowns with COVID. Depending on your goals, training status, and how often you get COVID, it’s really a risk analysis on each individual’s part to decide if they want to take it easy or not.
Off the bike for anything meaningful now for a little under two weeks - two aborted workouts and a 15 min one about six days ago…
Dialed up 30+ min this morning at around 0.6 IF, HR was too high. Also dealing with travel and daughter’s illness that may have jumped over to me (head cold, most likley). So kept it easy, but definitely noticed a downside to this first ride “back”. Will see how I feel in the morning and go again.
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Pettit today, but dialed the 70% interval to 65% to keep HR down. HR was still very high (about 10-12bpm higher than normal) for the effort. RPE was easy, but definitely felt a bit more fatigued after than I should have… so, easy hour again tomorrow!
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Progress is progress! On Tuesday my wife and (adult) daughters came down with what we used to call a cold, some sneezing and runny noses. Wife had a touch of fever for half a day (100F and only for 8 hours), so she called docs office and took a PCR test. Came back positive on Friday early morning. Both kids were planning on leaving and going out for New Years Eve, so we opened a Binax Now kit and daughter #2 tested positive. She is hanging out with us now for another week, versus going back to her apartment in Reno and potentially passing it on to her roommate. I’ve had some mild headaches, whatever, IMHO we’ve gone from pandemic to endemic. Still seeing fitness increases, rode Friday and Garmin estimated FTP bumped up plus PWR-HR data highest of 2021.
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Here’s my Covid story for reference.
I was essentially untrained/off the couch at the start of November and my tested FTP was the lowest I’ve ever seen. I started with SSBLVI and completed every workout comfortably.
I had a cough, sore throat and headache for the first time on Monday 13th Dec, which was the start of my recovery week. LFT negative
Tuesday 14th rode Pettit which was ok.
Wednesday LFT positive so decided to ditch the rest of recovery week after reading some info on the forum and having some tightness in my chest.
PCR confirmation on Thursday 16th.
10 day isolation finished on Christmas Eve.
Christmas week was already blocked out in my plan so I decided to try an ad-hoc recovery ride on Tuesday 28th - did Pettit +1 which was ok.
Wednesday absolutely no ill effects after the ride so I considered myself fully recovered from Covid at this point.
Thursday 30th I decided to push myself so did Grassy Ridge +1 which was allegedly a Breakthrough VO2Max but in fact was easy.
Today I did Caltech -6 which was a Stretch VO2Max session recommended by Train Now. I suspect I’m in for a decent bump when I do my new ramp test on Tuesday.
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Just went to try and get tested again so I could return to work… line for a test here was like 5 hours. Nope! I might just quit my job instead. 
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Up here we do a video visit with urgent care, and they give yes/no on either same day or next day testing within our system (Sutter). My wife got an appointment within hours, my daughter gets PCR on Monday (her video visit was Friday afternoon).
There’s a podcast that covers fitness decay. It’s not as steep a slope as believed in this forum. Not only that, but its pretty likely the majority of our competitors are going to (or already have) deal with their own Covid recovery. This latest version is so contagious it’s going to get the majority of people.
It’s January, a good deal away from most of our build phases - focus on your recovery and let any time away from the bike be a time to stoke the fire.
Wishing everyone a speedy recovery. I’m on day 8 and while I’m feeling much better, I’m still probably a week away from even attempting a ride.
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Hope you received positive news from cardiologist. Looking at my own data, tested Aug 26, and 4 weeks later my power at z2 HR was up to .59 IF. At that point I had just over a week of super easy rides, all done by HR, and the first one at .25 IF of pre-C19 zone2 power. So that was a pretty quick bounce back to near normal. Took another 4 weeks to see my power/HR at z2 to return to pre-C19, and another 4-weeks for power/HR to return across all zones back to pre-C19. So about 12 weeks (3 months) total from back-on-bike to back to where I was before C19. And now another 4 weeks later on December 31st I set new fitness peak for all of 2021. Best and hope you see similar or better results.
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Add my name to the list of positives. Vaccinated but hadn’t got the booster yet (appointment was Tuesday 
). Was mildly symptomatic. Had a runny nose and sinus congestion, figured it was just a common cold but work wanted me to get tested and came back positive. No fevers, no body aches, no lower respiratory symptoms, no cough. Today is day 3 and feel pretty much back to normal. Resting HR is maybe a few beats higher than normal (~44bpm). Reading the thread I’m debating hopping on the trainer for an easy spin tomorrow. I’m in the middle of base so I guess I could take some more time off, I’m just super antsy to get back to training.
I also got taken out over the holidays. Same situation as @CaptainThunderpants in that I am vaccinated but not boosted yet (due in a couple of weeks). And similarly antsy to get back to it, particularly as I was seeing great progress at the velodrome.
The fever was the worst bit and once that broke, I felt a lot better. I’m on day 8 now and RHR has been back to normal for a few days. Activity has been a few walks in the neighbourhood and an internet yoga session.
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Don’t feel bad, everyone I know getting it has been fully vaxed and boosted. Where ‘getting it’ is getting tested for work, but really basic cold/flu symptoms (no high fever, no high HR, etc) that quickly go away.
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Add me to the list of 2 vaccines, a booster and a positive test. Was stepping off bike after a 90 min endurance ride and someone I was hunting with called to tell me they tested positive, so I sat in urgent care parking lot for about 1.5 hours, got swabbed for both tests, and rapid came back positive, which I expected since I spent 4 days with this fellow.
Definitely problematic for schedule (4 and 6 year old can’t go to school) , but I’ll continue to train.
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I found a low-use testing site today, in and out in 30 min. And then I got the text from my coworker that the test was no longer required for me to come back to work. FML. 
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Well that sucks, no 10 days of uninterrupted training 
(which includes recovery days!)
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I got COVID back in August 2021. I’d been double jabbed (no boosters then) and initially, I thought I was suffering with hay fever.
My COVID experience laid me up in bed for three days. I was wreaked. Didn’t train in any capacity for nine days. I had absolutely no desire to do so either.
When I did get back on the bike, I did a week of easy spins. A few were indoors on TR, a few were outdoors once my isolation period was completed. I felt pretty good by the end of this and resumed normal-ish training.
Used the next five weeks to ramp the training back up and got my A Event done. The event went really well and I thought nothing of it.
Then December came and I started to feel really out of sorts. Lacking drive or energy. I just couldn’t be ar5ed. Around the middle of December I awoke with a pain in the left side of my chest. Of course I feared the worst! I had no numbness or pins and needles and my left arm was fine so I didn’t immediately call for an ambulance but my heart and mind were racing.
I visited my doctor and got checked out. He confirmed that both my heart and lungs were healthy, as far as he could tell.
Since that ‘pain’, my breathing and heart rate have been all over the place. My heart rate can suddenly skyrocket and then take an age to return to what I’d perceive to be my normal level(s).
In all honestly, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. Did I push too hard too soon? I’m beginning to think that I might have and whilst my COVID infection didn’t seem to reach my chest or effect my breathing, can I really be certain of what was going on?
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My second bout in October last year has ruined me. Main symptoms hung around for about a month (nothing too severe, but annoying) before turning into more of a background cough / long lasting fatigue.
Since them I’ve tried three times to use the “return to play” / “return to physical activity” guides to get back into (light) training. Each time I’ve ended up having to deal with my heart rate going nuts and basically no level of exercise being light enough to use for level 3 of those processes. Even recovery rides would see me over 80% of my max heart rate. Inflammation has been off the scale too, with my sinuses often feeling completely closed up, and my face sometimes looking like it has been stung by bees. Even my socks end up leaving massive grooves around my ankles.
Tried again today after giving myself a full month of doing nothing more strenuous than a short walk. Did a 45 minute session that I’d done in late November (post COVID) but this time with a 15% reduction in intensity. Should have been trivial… but instead, I set a new 20 minute HR record.
Have all but given up on ever being able to get my fitness back, and it sucks given in the last couple of years I’ve had do get of a major pelvis injury and my first bout of COVID (which was worse initially, but I recovered fully from after a couple of months).
Anyway, depressed rant over. 
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I contracted covid a few days before Christmas. Aches, chills, fever, heavy lungs, general exhaustion - the usual goodies mentioned above. I managed to saddle up and complete +700km indoors while it peaked. I was dead set on wrapping up 2021 with 18,000km on the ODO, and with the festive 500 kicking off, I couldn’t resist taking advantage of the pack draft (zwift).
It was pretty miserable. I cried during the final few km’s when my mind and body finally caved from a mix of fever, exhaustion, and relief.
I’ve taken 6 days off the bike since, and wrapped up my first ride of 2022 about an hour ago. Meh… Pretty much what’d you’d expect; disappointingly low power/hr (average pre = 1.87, now ~0.97), elevated hr (obviously, given the low pwr/hr ratio), aerobic capacity feels generally flat/non-existent.
My 2c; start slow, ease into it, and find small wins to motivate you back to form. It will take time, but I love cycling, and you all do too- don’t let the numbers discourage you!
Stay well everyone!
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