How to approach the plan when you get sick?

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II’m a bit over 3 weeks away from my main race this year. Unfortunately, I got sick (probably a cold) on Monday and I’m trying to get back tomorrow back on track. While I was able to do my sessions on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and today (Thursday) where forced “rest” days to let me body recover.

There are two ways I want to approach this:

  1. I was thinking to do two sessions in one day: For instance, do my Threshold and Strength Endurance (low cadence) session tomorrow but not sure if is too much for the body to handle it. Or just do a short easy aerobic development (1.5 hrs) and combined my long aerobic development session plus threshold session on Saturday.

  2. Delete one of the sessions that I’m not able to do and just try to follow as much as I can the weekly plan that I have.

How Athletica AI responds to deleting vs missing a session? Or doing two sessions in the same day?

Any advice would be appreciated it

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Ah, illness and return to training…. Probably the most frustrating thing about training!!

I’m self- proclaimed expert on how NOT to return and it has taken me years to let go of missed sessions due to illness.

Here’s what I would do:
First day after I feel back to normal (and I mean fully healthy, not 50%, 60% or “just a little stuffy” I know THIS is the hardest part, to know when you are fully 100% healthy).
… I digress…
First day after fully healthy, do easy z1/2 session depending on what is typical training day for you (are you a triathlete, runner, halfIM, marathon etc?) . No intensity what so ever. 45min to 60min. Play it safe!

Second day, if no negative reaction to first day, add a bit more time but no intensity.

Third day, if no negative reaction to second day, return to normal training with whatever is in your calendar. If negative reaction, take a day off. Go for a walk. Start from day 1 again the next day if 100%.

My main point: do not try to catch up with sessions that you missed while being sick. Let them go. Don’t move them from earlier the week to the latter part trying to make them up.

You don’t want to add extra load to your system after you’ve just been ill. It’ll come back and to kick your butt. Been there way too many times.

While you are getting to the 100% : walk. Do some easy walking to keep your aerobic engine going. This has saved me many many times, learned from the best, @Prof .

If you feel like 90% and eager to get going again, I’d probably do an easy strength session to remind those fast twitch muscle fiber who’s the boss. Easy!! Definitely not a max strength session.

Three weeks to race? You’ve got plenty of time and the main focus should be to allow enough rest and recovery for your body to heal itself. Plenty of good healthy foods, avoiding processed foods, meditation and yoga to keep calm and believe in the process.

Trust me, if you’ve had a decent build up to this point, you are going to be just fine. :heart:

Training journey never quite goes to plan. How we bounce forward makes all the difference. You’ve got this!

MJ

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Thanks @Marjaana! Always is good to have someone to remind one that this is all part of the process. I will follow your recipe to allow myself to get back to training as soon as I feel 100% recover. Today at 80% and tomorrow I will assess how I feel.

Thanks for your kind words and support!

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Anytime :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: that’s what we are here for !

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I just want to say how useful this is, @Marjaana! 3 weeks ago I got sick with something awful: fevers, loss of voice, terrible throat. A week ago I thought I’d get back to the gym, but when I read your message I realised I was kidding myself. Because I no longer felt like I was dying, and I was so bummed from missing 2 whole weeks of training, I convinced myself I could start back at gym, then easy run.But I realised I was kidding myself. Almost a week later, all I have done is 2x 1km walks - as I am still so washed out and congested. Much as I am struggling with no exercise, I know getting back torunning too early will just set me back more. Your advice to be honest with yourself and just walk until you are fully recovered is hard but oh so wise!

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Dear @Alyssa :heart: thank you :folded_hands: I am glad it was useful advice. I only know because I’ve done the same mistake myself too many times … :sweat_smile:

Hope you are feeling better soon and at your best game! When you are back, it is always a good idea to include a base phase, like only do zone 1-2 for considerably long time at least 3-4 days, maybe even a week. Another thing I’ve found works for me… wait a long time to get healthy, and then wait even longer before doing any intensity. :joy:

You will get there!

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This has been such good advice! In fact, because I’d had a full 4 weeks off running, I started back with walk only (also as I can’t jog and stay in zone 1). This allowed me the opportunity to get my mileage as high as it had been at peak last season - 44km - but just walking and eventually intermittent jogging, returning to walking as my HR rose above my easy zone (which is much lower than Athletica has my L2). In terms of days per week on feet this is higher than I have ever done (6 days). As this illness has taken a lot out of me, it has occurred to me that this could be an ideal way to build back up: high frequency/duration but easy effort. I have changed the next 2 weeks to base weeks and will aim to get out on feet 6 days, with 1 day being a recovery walk, 5 days being walk-jog keeping zone 1-2 and just try a few strides on 1 day to give my neglected type II fibres a prod. I think this approach, because the time on feet in zone 1-2 will be higher than previous, might lead to some good mitochondrial development that paves the way for the build up in training without setting myself back (it’s 16 weeks until my half marathon). (Prior to the illness I was running 4 days a week, total volume around 27-29k/week.) I want to ramp up the running very gradually as I’ve lost a lot of conditioning through the COVID-like illness and am only doing body weight strength training so far - with a plan to finally return to the gym this week!

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@Alyssa, I’m going through something similar to what you went through. I’ve missed two weeks of training, and I’m still recovering – maybe I’m only at 75% fitness. I’ll be following @Marjaana’s advice over the next few days. I’ll let you know how it goes!

I’m sorry in advance if there’s any functionality I am not aware of. I was focused on studying, and I’m just getting back into training for challenges in the second half of the year.

@Prof - I think that it is relevant that the AI Coach knows that I wasn’t feeling healthy, it would be so cool if I could configure a range of dates for that “Sick” period so that the plan will be recalculated giving those 3 days (self-managed steps that @Marjaana suggested, pure wisdom!) before start training fully normal + the next weeks updated.

It will facilitate resuming without me guessing what to do, what intensity, moving sessions around because the alerts and warnings displayed are confusing (for example, below are those that I’m getting today after missing 2 weeks). It could bring on some new interesting metrics about illness vs recovery vs resuming.

Session warnings: Fitness and fatigue is not optimal at this stage. You have a high risk of overtraining. Consider moving or deleting some sessions.

Reason for session change: Increase in load to meet your modality distribution targets. Increase in training load to ensure progressive overload.

Btw… the Vacation mode could work similarly. For instance, I was out from 25 Apr to 5 May. So I could’ve reported this in advance, it would automatically enter a transition period like “Go unscheduled” and as I’m healthy, I need maybe 3 days to adapt, and my plan can continue as AI Coach dictates.

Ginna

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Thank you @ginnaelo … please let us know how it goes.

Excellent suggestions IMO..
Marking yourself sick could simply mean next week I will base week 1. before resuming regular plan toward race/challenge.