Coming Back From COVID

A light bike doesn't replace good fitness.

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LedZeppelin007
Posts: 654
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 3:46 pm

by LedZeppelin007

Hey,

Finally, COVID got me and my family (brought home from daycare from my baby daughter). It was a fairly mild case (felt like trash with a high fever for two days and then some minor fatigue and congestion for the past two weeks). I’m vaccinated and boosted and I do think that helped. After the major symptoms resolved, I returned to the bike with a Zone 2 ride. My HR was approximately 15-20bpm higher than usual. This worried me, so I waited 5 more days until today before riding again. Tried an hour tempo ride at approximately 250 watts for an hour (prior to COVID, my FTP was 315 watts, so this seemed reasonable). I ended up terminating the ride after about 45 minutes when my heart rate had been at 173ish bpm for 20 minutes. That’s slightly higher than my lactate threshold HR (my max HR is around 183-185bpm).

This is freaking me out a bit. I fully expected to lose fitness, but not nearly this much. Anyone else notice this when they’ve gotten COVID?

Any positive stories or advice for coming back?


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matcav
Posts: 106
Joined: Thu May 28, 2020 3:52 pm

by matcav

I've got a pretty similar case (two days of fever, 6/8 days with positive test + general tiredness) and I also experienced a pretty similar recovery experience.
It started getting better after 3-4 easy rides and accelerated after one month or so. Take it easy, it will pass

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LedZeppelin007
Posts: 654
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 3:46 pm

by LedZeppelin007

matcav wrote:I've got a pretty similar case (two days of fever, 6/8 days with positive test + general tiredness) and I also experienced a pretty similar recovery experience.
It started getting better after 3-4 easy rides and accelerated after one month or so. Take it easy, it will pass
Thanks, that really helps!


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robeambro
Posts: 1826
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:21 pm

by robeambro

I've also fallen ill with Covid recently and I've got mild asthma. I've first tested positive around two weeks ago. Tireness and a general feeling of shortness of breath are still with me, and today I tried riding again. It felt as if I'd never ridden a bike before, and even at 120bpm I was coughing a bit. By the end of the ride, which I've done in low Z2, it felt a bit better. It'll be a long way..

Orbital
Posts: 392
Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2018 12:52 am
Location: Pitt Meadows, BC

by Orbital

I was lucky with covid. Kids brought It home from school last November. One had a minor cough, but at that time we were encouraged to test for everything. Both kids and I tested positive, wife remained negative. Besides one child having a cough,myself and my son were asymptomatic. However, here in Vancouver suburbs we had major flooding and washed out highways in late November. My wife and I had taken a trip as soon as I was able to come out of isolation and unfortunately were caught stranded and basically living in our vehicle for 3 days until we could be airlifted out. By the time we made it out and reunited our family things mentally changed for me. The trauma of that whole experience, the increasing division in this country (Canada) and the isolation from friends and family has taken the optimism out of a lot of things and just generally sapped a lot of my motivation. So while I haven’t had any lasting issues physically, the same can’t be said mentally.

stoney
Posts: 474
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:26 am

by stoney

Orbital wrote:
Sat Oct 08, 2022 6:45 pm
I was lucky with covid. Kids brought It home from school last November. One had a minor cough, but at that time we were encouraged to test for everything. Both kids and I tested positive, wife remained negative. Besides one child having a cough,myself and my son were asymptomatic. However, here in Vancouver suburbs we had major flooding and washed out highways in late November. My wife and I had taken a trip as soon as I was able to come out of isolation and unfortunately were caught stranded and basically living in our vehicle for 3 days until we could be airlifted out. By the time we made it out and reunited our family things mentally changed for me. The trauma of that whole experience, the increasing division in this country (Canada) and the isolation from friends and family has taken the optimism out of a lot of things and just generally sapped a lot of my motivation. So while I haven’t had any lasting issues physically, the same can’t be said mentally.
Your dictator was pretty tough during the pandemic...kept you guys locked down. I'm sorry for you and your country.

Andrew69
Posts: 593
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:52 am
Location: ɹǝpunuʍop

by Andrew69

I had a mild(ish) case in January
Thought my head would explode one night due to sinus pressure, otherwise nothing more than a mild cold (10 days)

But it took me more than 2 months to start to feel normal and a good 4 months before I was able to recover from hard rides like before the infection
While it did take time for me to get back to normal (Vaxxed and boosted, but Im 50 so it may have had something to do with it??), the good news is no lasting issues and my ftp is now above where it was pre-covid

mrlobber
Posts: 1928
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Location: Where the permanent autumn is

by mrlobber

Keep in mind that covid isn't a classical "flu", it's partially a hybrid blood-nervous system virus, usually thrashing the part of the body where you're the weakest.

Being triple boosted, I survived numerous contact cases until eventually my kids brought it home on the 3rd attempt in February 2022. Felt sick for 3 days like normal "common cold". Then after another couple of days when the cold symptoms disappeared, made bloodwork especially targeted at potential heart issues. When that didn't indicate anything, and also HRV looked close to normal levels, went back to Zwift and even competed in 2 races (one being the country first Zwift championships) - naturally, not my best form, but wasn't too far off either. After that, for around 2 weeks remained at careful monitoring of any weird spikes or other discrepancies in HRV/HR when doing easy riding, of which there weren't any, so later continued training as usual, even skiing 40+ km without any issues a couple of times.

To make things a bit more interesting though, had another 3 "common cold" days in mid May, where I didn't test for covid, but after those, my base sort of vanished - I lost around 20-25W at my 120-130bpm Z2 wattages, which I didn't get back for 2 months after. So that one might in fact has been the "real deal".

Numerous people in my cycling bubble have got it too, from information I've got, 90...95% went through without any long-term consequences on health/fitness. Then again, one guy spent 3 months in hospital with dramatic lung problems, and now his amateur cycling career is basically over.
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robeambro
Posts: 1826
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:21 pm

by robeambro

4 weeks post Covid today. In the last two and a half weeks I've gradually started exercising, but only doing base. What I've noticed is that my HR drifts a lot over time.

Say, prior to Covid, if I rode at 200w, my HR would be around 135-145bpm (Max HR is around 178bpm) depending on various factors - it would however be fairly steady, eg into a 1h ride, it would stay fairly stable.

These days instead, if I ride 1h at 200w, my HR gradually goes from 135, to 140, 145 (after 30 minutes), til low 150s towards the end of the ride, when it settles.

RPE definitely isn't that bad and it does not increase over time, in fact I wasn't looking at my HR for a while and when I saw it being 152 towards the end I was very surprised. My RHR these days is almost as low as it used to be, hovering between 46 and 51.

What does this mean when HR behaves this way? Should I keep sticking to base training or start throwing some high intensity in?

LedZeppelin007
Posts: 654
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 3:46 pm

by LedZeppelin007

robeambro wrote:4 weeks post Covid today. In the last two and a half weeks I've gradually started exercising, but only doing base. What I've noticed is that my HR drifts a lot over time.

Say, prior to Covid, if I rode at 200w, my HR would be around 135-145bpm (Max HR is around 178bpm) depending on various factors - it would however be fairly steady, eg into a 1h ride, it would stay fairly stable.

These days instead, if I ride 1h at 200w, my HR gradually goes from 135, to 140, 145 (after 30 minutes), til low 150s towards the end of the ride, when it settles.

RPE definitely isn't that bad and it does not increase over time, in fact I wasn't looking at my HR for a while and when I saw it being 152 towards the end I was very surprised. My RHR these days is almost as low as it used to be, hovering between 46 and 51.

What does this mean when HR behaves this way? Should I keep sticking to base training or start throwing some high intensity in?
This is exactly what happened to me. I’d recommend base stuff, even though I personally couldn’t hold back from some intensity. 5 weeks post COVID I’m now back to 315 FTP (330 before COVID). When I first started riding again, it was down to 260-270.

But, that’s exactly what my HR was doing at first. A little higher than usual at first and then drifting higher.


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robeambro
Posts: 1826
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:21 pm

by robeambro

LedZeppelin007 wrote:
Sat Oct 29, 2022 6:36 pm
robeambro wrote:4 weeks post Covid today. In the last two and a half weeks I've gradually started exercising, but only doing base. What I've noticed is that my HR drifts a lot over time.

Say, prior to Covid, if I rode at 200w, my HR would be around 135-145bpm (Max HR is around 178bpm) depending on various factors - it would however be fairly steady, eg into a 1h ride, it would stay fairly stable.

These days instead, if I ride 1h at 200w, my HR gradually goes from 135, to 140, 145 (after 30 minutes), til low 150s towards the end of the ride, when it settles.

RPE definitely isn't that bad and it does not increase over time, in fact I wasn't looking at my HR for a while and when I saw it being 152 towards the end I was very surprised. My RHR these days is almost as low as it used to be, hovering between 46 and 51.

What does this mean when HR behaves this way? Should I keep sticking to base training or start throwing some high intensity in?
This is exactly what happened to me. I’d recommend base stuff, even though I personally couldn’t hold back from some intensity. 5 weeks post COVID I’m now back to 315 FTP (330 before COVID). When I first started riding again, it was down to 260-270.

But, that’s exactly what my HR was doing at first. A little higher than usual at first and then drifting higher.


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Thank you for sharing - it's good to see that my heart isn't doing anything "unusual". I might stick to base for now.

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MrCurrieinahurry
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Location: London

by MrCurrieinahurry

One of the main things is treat that period of time whilst ill u must treat like it was a heavy period of training as your body was under a lot of stress.
Its far to easy to feel like you havent done anything and jump to quickly into hard training.


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trainergav
Posts: 58
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:36 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC

by trainergav

[/quote]
Your dictator was pretty tough during the pandemic...kept you guys locked down. I'm sorry for you and your country.
[/quote]

I'm not sure why you felt that you needed to interject that. Especially since what you wrote is factually incorrect on so many different levels.

TobinHatesYou
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Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:02 pm

by TobinHatesYou

Wannabe dictators don’t like peaceful transfers of power after being voted out.

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sigma
Posts: 689
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:12 am

by sigma

So I picked up Covid on a work trip to Europe a few weeks back and it's just clearing out of my system now. I've resumed some light spinning on the trainer but noticed an erratic HR relative to normal and big drop in power. My plan is to stay very light intensity until I see some normalization of numbers but curious if anyone else can share how the experience was for them returning to the bike (with the understanding it's a very individualized journey).
Lots of bikes: currently riding Enve Melee, Krypton Pro, S Works Crux, S Works Epic Evo, SL7.
In build: SW SL8

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