I tested positive late May (25th). First three days sucked, “bad flu” level (raging headache, low grade fever, congestion). Then I started a lonnnnggggg and slow recovery. I was back at “work from home” after a week, but still had sensitive lungs. And, while I tired earlier in the day, I wasn’t one of those folks who’d be wiped after any effort. I could ride, but not hard, with my lungs being the limiter. I just didn’t want to push things, even though the legs were OK. I didn’t test negative until 12-days after my first +, but nearly two weeks after that I still had bronchial discomfort and opted to skip a 140-mile / 9,400’ vert gran fondo in late June that I’d been training for all year.
Two months later, I still have a slight ‘burning’ in my upper airway, especially when it’s hot and humid, but at least now I’m back in the saddle regularly and playing catch up. Endurance is OK, but power is WAY down from where I was in mid-May. I did my first aggressive group ride and did well—had some good pulls and hung w the A-group, but really that’s just because I was channelling Geraint Thomas and dong my best to be 2nd-5th wheel whenever possible. (BTW - it really was interesting riding more strategically, knowing my upper level fitness wasn’t where it’s been, to use my limited matches more wisely.)
My wife got Covid from me a few days after I tested positive and like me, she’s had a long & slow recovery, with mild symptoms still lingering. She put a “reminder” post-it by the side door that sums up the “go it slow” recovery approach we’ve been living:
Yes I feel pretty much normal today but resting HR is like 57 instead of 47. Did a steady 40 mins zone 1 and was fine and wasn’t fatigued after it but yes the RHR is not coming down like it would after a normal flu or cold.
I just recently tested positive. I have three shots in the bank, which I assume has contributed to relatively very mild symptoms: Very sore throat, some headache, running nose and a somewhat congested chest. Some painkkillers helped. My RHR, according to my Garmin Fenix 6, jumped from 38 to 42 for two days before falling back to normal.
On day 1 I was completely knocked out, but on day 2 and 3, I ventured out for super easy spins. I kept an eye on the HR, never allowing it out of zone 1. i will wait and see before I push myself into done 2 and beyond, though.
Yes I’m in the same boat, riding now doesn’t seem to be making it worse as long as I’m keeping it steady, I did 40 mins easy yesterday, probably do the same today.
My “A” event is 3 weeks off. I have worked for months to get prepared for riding at high altitude. 4 days ago tested positive for covid. My fever is gone but still coughing and super congested. (tested positive again today)
my question. has anyone tried doing some easy spinning (30 min endurance) while mildly symptomatic to try and slow the loss of fitness?? if so…how did it go?
Sorry to hear that. I know it’s a bummer to perhaps fear that your hard work was in vain. Looking at this thread and all the anecdotal evidence, it doesn’t sound like you’re ready for that. The congestion is not a good sign you’re good to go. I was very fortunate that I had a fever for a couple hours the day i tested positive, but I had no congestion that resulted in drainage or coughing. I did a cautious lazy mountain 3 days after testing positive, but it seems my experience was absolutely the 1% compared to the 99%. I think you need to take it more cautiously and start to consider the fact you may not be able to participate in your event.
Hi, my name is Russ and I’m a COVID victim too. I’m double vaccinated and boosted. Same symptoms as most of you, fever and bad cough and headache for 4-5 days then slow but steady recovery. I’m back at work now and out on the bike a few times but my chest still feels like it’s burning. Power and HR seem fine but my chest is just taking it’s time to clear up.
I’m supposed to be doing a 500k bike packing race in 2 weeks and I’m thinking probably not.
COVID sucks.
So I had COVID a couple weeks ago. I basically had a fever for 12 hours, and then just a sore throat and a cough.
Now let me preface this by saying this is probably not the smartest thing ever (but I am an asthmatic and every time I have gotten sick for the past 20 years, I always have a lingering cough). So my symptoms first appeared on a Thursday afternoon. I did nothing on Friday. By Saturday I was feeling pretty good (and bored out of my mind), minus some coughing so I hopped on the trainer for an endurance spin. I paid close attention to make sure that my HR wasn’t elevated and just started with “Recess.” I slowly kept upping the intensity until I was riding at about 60%…and ended up riding for 2.5 hours.
I woke up on Sunday feeling even better actually did my longest ever trainer ride of 4 hours because I had nothing else to do. I ended up following it up with another 2.5 hour trainer ride on that Monday morning as well.
Now would I recommend that someone else does this, absolutely not. However, I seem to be back to 100% at this point.
It’s weird beast. Here’s my n = 1. (Vaccinated and boosted. Had the OG version in June of 2020 and that really put me on my ass. 2 weeks before a short walk around the neighborhood wouldn’t leave me gassed and around 6 weeks before I was back to normal activity.)
I tested positive on July 12th, so roughly 2 weeks ago. First couple days felt like a bad flu but I was able to keep mostly working from home. 6 days after my positive I hopped on the trainer and planned on tooling around in Zwift. I was feeling pretty good so I tried to push things a bit and ended up setting my 2nd highest 1min power and 3rd highest 5min power for the year. Felt pretty decent the next day so I did my normal workout which was an open water swim. I was a bit slower than normal but nothing weird going on. The day after I did another bike ride which was a Z2 with a couple hard efforts thrown in there. My comments on the workout were “I feel great and strong. Michael van Aert.” Finally that next day I had to skip because I had a bit of a rebound and felt sick.
Next couple workouts were another open water swim, hour run, and an outdoor sweet spot ride. The run and ride made me feel pretty tired afterwards and I had to take the next day off again. That brings me to yesterday when I went to the pool for some 100s and after my warmup and 3 of them I had to pull the plug. First 100 felt easy and fast. Second 100 felt OK, like something I could do 15 times. Third one I felt like I was going to black out from lack of air. Today I successfully did a tempo ride at lunch.
Overall I’m going to keep moving along and when things don’t feel right I’m going to pull back.
Double vaccinated with a booster. It’s been a couple of weeks post covid and any high intensity efforts trigger a day or two of wheezing. However I’ve just managed a season best for 5 and 10 minute power although I suffered during the following evening with a blocked nose and heavy chest.
No doubt a better scientific understanding will emerge over the next few years but it’s the equivalent of throwing out the rule book on managing and overcoming previous illnesses.
Grasping at straws. I didn’t have Covid that I know about (not even runny nose) and I’ve been vaccinated with boosters. But my powers of recovery completely disappeared. My weekly TSS was around 700 for the past couple of years I would say and I was flying in April after a training camp in March. Since then it all went downhill. At first, only in small decrements. But the last couple of weeks I am doing less and less and my legs still feel empty. I don’t do rest days very often but since the training was getting nowhere I took two days off and went for an easy ride today. Well, still tired and couldn’t push any watts. I would get heavy legs just walking back from work (15 min) the other day. Or my legs would be really sore after an easy ride when walking down the stairs (something I would only get after long and really hard ride). I am at my wits’ end and started wondering if it could have been covid.
Obviously, someone could say it might be a training error. And I would agree I made a lot of those through the years. But rest or easy week usually helped almost immediately.
I don’t think this is a derail. Plus we could learn something looking at your info for those that dont have certain programs. At this point I will take any info I can get.
I forgot to add I don’t measure HRV or RHR consistently. I did measure RHR on weekend and had 53 bpm in the afternoon. Last time I was looking more frequently, I had more like 44 bpm but it is a couple of month since then.
