Hey all,
I received my Moderna vax about 2.5 weeks ago. Since the shot my stamina and overall health have plummeted. I have done two TT races (each Thursday) but my performances were trash. Last week I broke out in a major rash I can only assume was related to the shot (absolutely nothing else in my life changed to cause it). Just before the vax I did a quick zwift TT and managed 390 for 10 minutes just fine. Today I couldn’t complete a round of 5 minute intervals at 350 watts.
My primary season focus is the state TT which is the second week in July. My training plan has me going into specialty about now as I fine-tune my prep. However, I’m still feeling exhausted and weak. I tried a four-hour ride Saturday and felt like death when I was done.
I know that when you are sick, even when your symptoms are gone, fatigue will still linger. I also know that one of the major issues with covid and the vax are fatigue long after the other symptoms are gone.
So two questions relating to that:
Does my decline in ability signal a major decline in fitness and capability overall, or is it the type of thing that my FTP is still hidden in there somewhere (with maybe a small decline) and I just need to get this fatgiue gone to bring back my ‘normal’ self? Am I still ‘fresh’ and ‘fit’ but just need to shake these symptoms, or did that really drop my FTP that much requiring a slight rebuild?
Based on what you all think, how should I adjust my training plan? I feel like a small reset to more of a build period would serve me better than hyper-specific specialty workouts (the crew frequently mention that specialty is not for building FTP, it’s for race prep) since my performance in general needs to be brought back up. But I’m no expert.
Let me know if you have any suggestions on how to handle this specific scenario (and any links to other topics with similar discussions). I’m not sure what the best approach to getting back to normal will be that will lead to my best performance come race day.
Let me know if you have any other questions relating to this that will clarify things.
Cheers all!
I feel you. I got my 2nd Moderna on April 29 and found myself in a hole the week after where my above mid sweetspot workouts were like a death march
I don’t think it signals a decline in fitness more just a reduction in your ability to express your fitness. I would probably assess and do a couple weeks at reduced FTP with the mindset of getting a string of successful workouts to rebuild the confidence in your fitness.
Depending on any A races and flexibility in your plan I would consider doing a small stint of base followed by a build phase. That way you have some easier workouts to get in a rhythm then another assessment into build to get the numbers back up. Even if you have a stable A race you might need to reassess your expectations as the lingering limitations might hang around for longer than you want or others have experienced
I could definitely use a dose of confidence lol. I agree that going back a few steps would be good, but I’m not exactly sure how to implement that given that I am using plan builder. Do you have any suggestions on how to do that, or should I just manually plug in workouts from my build phase?
Edit:
I should mention that since my priority as a time trial, that lends itself to Sweet spot style sustained efforts anyway.
You could see what a new plan would generate as it typically starts with some base. Messing with an existing plan usually breaks the editable ness of plan builder
Just to be clear, you mean delete my current plan and start a new one with today (or something similar) as my start point and all future events scheduled the same as they are now?
Cheers!
I would put a new plan into plan builder and see if it makes sense. If it does then I would probably delete the old plan and run with it.
If it didn’t make sense I’d probably used TrainNow for a couple weeks targeting workouts that are meaningful to your goals then reassess at a start point for a block
Wait, it won’t let me add a new plan because of my existing one. Is there a way to look at what a new one would look like without having to delete my old one and potentially ruin things?
Just tried that. Set my start time for this week (but next year…because time travel). It started me with build but decided to yeet me into a specialty plan after two weeks of build. Which sounds like it might work okay I suppose, but just interesting how it jumps right into specialty assuming my 2022 fake time travel season begins in the middle of May. Interesting. That could work though I suppose. Thanks for your help with this!
You may detrain a bit if you aren’t able to keep up with what you were doing before, but it will come back eventually. It took me a month to get my recovery score back to something recognizable. I took a hit to my training FTP, but I think it ultimately was a good move to take a brief step back to go forward again.
Please tell us you’ve reported this as an adverse event. Anyone on this forum who reads this and works for Moderna is also obligated to report this as an AE.
If you’re experiencing side effects, you should be calling your doctor. Just do yourself a favour and worry less about state TTs, call your doctor, get professional medical advice to get you healthy. Then worry about your fitness and the bike. It’s a race. There’s 4 million more of them.
I think you’ve got a couple of relatively easy options
First - just carry on with your existing plan but take a new FTP assessment now based on your current capabilities. See how you do, and retest often as you start to recover
Second - just push everything out and take a couple weeks off/easy. Give your body some dedicated downtime to recover and re-evaluate when you see things coming back to normal
Thanks for your concern about this and the affects (genuine, not sarcastic just in case it doesn’t come across). As soon as I got my shot I got a text from the CDC with a daily check-in that had me report all side effects and how I felt. I’ve done that every single time (they send daily and weekly check-in texts). Besides checking boxes I can also write about symptoms, which I have done, so I feel I’m doing a decent job reporting my situation.
If you think more is needed, please let me know
I think I will rest until I feel like I can execute workouts (even if it’s a lower ftp). You know how you can tell the difference between a current ftp set too high and your body genuinely unable to perform? I’m in the latter camp still. Once I shake that off I will keep my schedule at a lower ftp and hopefully bounce back quickly (and maybe do some extra endurance instead of a v02 for a week or two)
Finally feeling like “the funk” has broken and I’m getting back to normal. 2.5 weeks…ugh.
Managed a decent circuit ride around a park yesterday and slept 9.5 hours last night. My next TR is tomorrow, so hopefully I can get back to normal performance!
