I got Covid a 5 weeks before my A event. Initially I was really disappointed that I was going to struggle. I was one of the lucky ones, sick for a couple of days but able to do a light ride on day 6, then pretty much back to it by week 2. Felt some effects early but didn’t really have a big impact on the event. Amazing how it effects people so differently… think I was very lucky !
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Today did my first outdoor ride after a three week break due to covid.
The illness hit me hard, I think the reason was that I did a long road ride on the day it started. I did not have any idea I was infected then: no symptoms and felt just fine.
I took it very easy today. It did not help that the weather conditions have changed during my break. Three weeks back I rode my road bike on dry tarmac. Now the winter has come and I rode today my XC MTB on hard packed snow and ice, with studded tyres.
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What’s the current guidance if you know you’ve been exposed to COVID but aren’t testing positive yet? Carry on training as normal until symptoms develop or rest anyway just in case? (I had dinner with friends last night and one of them texted me today to let me know they just tested positive.)
(Edit to clarify that I’m talking about training specifically.)
There are typically two steps in disease progression. The first is infection, which you probably have experienced. The second is the progression to illness given infection. Assuming you have been vaccinated and/or have had a previous infection, you have some decent immunity and your immune system may be able to take care of the infection before things progress to the point that you are truely ill. If I were your position, this is the time to take care of yourself with as much rest as possible. You don’t want to compromise your body’s ability to fight infection with really hard or long workouts.
I would monitor resting heart rate and other recovery metrics and try not to expose others.
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In the past, how would you have responded if your friend texted you to say they tested positive for the flu or common cold? I would do the same.
Now covid is gone only flu and cold people now know how to get safe themself
Covid gone? What are you smoking?
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I dodged the COVID bullet until 12/19 
Felt like crap the first few days, then another week and a half of feeling tired and congested. I’ve found that my stats per my Garmin Forerunner 955 are worse after testing negative compared to the second week of being positive. I’m totally stumped - has this happened to anyone else?
I was able to do 2 easy endurance rides during my second week of testing positive (days 9 & 11). Even though I was “sick” HRV was balanced per Garmin and HR was right where I expected it. I’ve been covid negative since Monday and my HR is through the roof, HRV is in the tank, and my VO2 max per Garmin has dropped 1 point each of the last 3 days.
The following is from the middle of 1 hour Z2 rides for me. This is with all of the same equipment…
12/29: (Covid positive day 11): 8 mins @ 201W avg / 129 BPM avg
1/5: (Covid negative day 4): 10 mins @ 200W avg / 146 BPM avg
1/6: (Covid negative day 5): 10 mins @ 201W avg / 150 BPM avg
I don’t feel any worse today than 12/29 (for example), and actually feel OK on the bike for easy rides. I’m not sure how to proceed - keep riding easy since RPE is low (even with high HR) or take more time off the bike until HRV comes back around?
Any tips are appreciated!!
Thankfully (touchwood) so far I’ve dodged the bullet but I rode with my mate who usually win regional TTs the week after he returned from covid and he was understandably a wreck but a few weeks later he was flying again and I think it ended up being his best season. Its understandable that your body having spent a lot of energy fighting off the c thing is tired out the week after. A few beats though is nothing and I’m sure you’ll be flying again soon!
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Did anything develop?
I would highly suggest listening to your body, it knows best. HRV also doesn’t lie so in general with COVID you have to be very cautious going too hard too soon. Good luck
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No, my friend took a second test and a PCR and they both came back negative so it seems like the original test was possibly a false positive (she said it was very faint). It’ll be a week tomorrow and I feel fine so far, so I’m resuming my training.
Not sure if I’m too late to be helpful, but last April my daughter tested positive and I posed a similar question about Covid exposure re: training.
My family has always been fully vaccinated and my wife and I made no attempt to socially distance from her for emotional reasons. I was convinced I was going to get it and wanted to know how I should adjust my training. In the end, I just rode by how I felt and, remarkably, neither me nor my wife ever exhibited a symptom nor did we ever test positive.
Conversely, I got my flu shot this year … but still caught that virus and between the flu and a follow on sinus infection I was off the bike for 3+ weeks in December.
You never know. Good luck to all🤘
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The moral of the story is listen to your body and the vaccine shots (flu and covid) may or may not work for you.
I’m just getting back to training after dealing with covid. I thought I’d leave my timeline in here in case it helps and/or comforts anyone.
From the time I got it, until I felt like I could fully train again without holding back was 5 weeks. I got it while traveling across the country for a 70.3 race. I most likely had the virus during the race although I had no idea at the time because I had no symptoms. I’m sure the race and subsequent travel put me in a major hole right off the bat as far as recovery is concerned. I’m sure that if I had just been home relaxing, my body may have recovered quicker (my wife got it as well, did not race, and was back to normal in a week).
Week 1: Super sick. A few days of fever. Full body aches. Somehow both freezing & sweating through the nights. Could not move from the couch. Just getting to the bathroom felt like a monumental task.
Week 2: No more fever, but still dealing with body aches and just overall crappy feeling. Biggest issue during week 2 was that I still had zero energy. Spent most of my time on the couch. By the end of week 2 I finally had energy to start doing some easy chore-type stuff around the house.
Week 3: I was back to work. To the average person I would appear to be 100%. I can perform my job and go about daily tasks. But as an endurance athlete, I could do absolutely zero physical activity. By the end of week 3 I was doing some very short/light strength stuff at home (I’m talking about resistance band type of activation stuff…nothing difficult). No cardio as I noticed this light strength work would wind me (when it shouldn’t come close to winding me). I was also feeling really scared during week 3. You hear so much about long-covid symptoms and I couldn’t get it out of my head that this is how I was going to end up feeling forever.
Week 4: I really enjoy lifting weights in the early season…and I was pretty much able to get back into it on this week. However, keep in mind that my style of lifting is kind of the old-school bodybuilder style with isolated body parts (its just what I enjoy). Very little functional movements, and therefore doesn’t really task me aerobically. So I still considered this week as 100% resting from endurance training or tasking my heart/lungs.
Week 5: BIG Improvement this week. I feel like I was 100% recovered and ready to start training. But I remembered others saying that when it comes to covid recovery, take an extra week after you feel like you’re ready. So as hard as it is when the weeks feel like they’re slipping away, that’s what I did. I was still lifting weights everyday. And I did my first aerobic session on Thursday (Mont Albert -1, 60min endurance). It felt kind of crappy, but I think that was more because of the layoff than not being recovered.
Week 6: Yesterday, I started up my new schedule. Had a 2 hour sweet spot ride and felt great. Had an easy run today that was also not a problem. FTP detector decreased me about 10 watts from the layoff.
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Did things improved a bit ?
I got sick 2 weeks ago - 3 days in bed then back to normal. Testing negative for Covid although it did feel a bit like it.
My HR exploded since then - I would say around +10 to +20 for the same effort as before the sickness. I didn’t really try anything hard - just endurance stuff. I do feel worse than before the sickness, although not as much as the HR would indicate. So pretty lost here.
I’m 2 weeks away from my IM NZ race and I do hope very much that I kinda magically get back to my shape from January 
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Hope you’re feeling better quickly!!
It took 3+ weeks to feel ok doing endurance and now I’m back to normal training. I’d take it easy and really watch HR for a bit. Don’t rush into anything too hard too soon.
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Heh, thing is my main race is in 2 weeks ! Planning on doing endurance only anyway