canklecat

A few more anecdotes from my experience with the Super Cooties...

More than a year after catching the bug in October 2021, I finally feel like I'm back to the level of fitness I was before getting sick. Took about a year.

However I need more time to recover. I used to be able to ride or run almost every day. Now I usually need a full recovery day after any bike ride or run longer than an hour. Friday I did a 20 minute easy warmup on the indoor trainer, a 5.5 mile run at moderate pace, another hour on the indoor trainer at easy effort to cool down and loosen up some tight hip and quad muscles. Felt great before bedtime. But Saturday I was wiped out and could hardly get out of bed. That's been typical for the past year since recovering from COVID.

I haven't been able to handle long rides, including group rides, since earlier in 2021. If I join friends for a casual ride, between the commute to and from the meetup, the ride itself, and maybe socializing during and after, that's often a commitment of 4-6 hours or longer. I just don't have the energy for that anymore. But another factor is chronic neck pain from cervical spine stenosis, which limits my rides to 60-90 minutes.

But age is probably another factor. I'm 65 now and significant gains in fitness are almost impossible. I'm mostly treading water and trying to minimize the loss of fitness. Very different experience compared with 2015 when I resumed cycling at age 57 after a 30+ year hiatus from riding and running. From 2015-2020, I experienced steady, and sometimes dramatic, improvements in fitness. But nobody beats aging, we can only delay the inevitable with a bit of luck, good genetics, diet, exercise and rest.

MinnMan

Wow - you've really had a tough time of it. I'm sorry about all that.

Well the aging is hitting all of us. I'm 61 and though I haven't experienced large losses in strength and endurance, I definitely know that it's a holding operation - trying to hang on to what I have, with few prospects of improvement....

Dimago123

I just had covid two weeks ago. It was mild and I did not stop riding. Treat it as if you had a cold that didn’t have a name. Listen to your body and don’t push too hard.

GhostRider62

I had the Pfizer vaccine and boosters. Despite being very careful, I was given Covid at a birthday party on Thanksgiving weekend (Saturday). On Wednesday, I felt time but my morning HrV was messed up. My ride that day was off (Heart rate to Power in the aerobic zone Z2). That night I started to sneeze and had a 99.5F fever for 2-3 hours. I woke up with a runny nose and kept sneezing. I felt ok. Took an antibody test and was positive. Took a PCR test and also positive.

3 months later, I have myalgia, still stuffy and runny, lung congestion, and no sense of smell. FTP off by 75 watts. Yes, I went to my Doc. I also went to the cardiologist. None of them are concerned with a 25% drop in aerobic capacity, told me I am old and that is normal. Ok, I have not dropped 1% in 4 years and in 3 weeks I drop 25% and they say it is normal.

Super Coddies, my A$$

MoAlpha

Sorry to hear and your questions to your providers are reasonable, but their response is exactly what one would expect. Cardiologists are interested in people with objective, actionable, and billable signs of cardiovascular disease. If you had signs, they could transform you from an athlete to a patient, put you on meds, take you to the cath lab, and maybe turn you over to the chest crackers. All very slow.

Thought about a visit to an exercise lab and a little expert coaching?

GhostRider62

Since I presented with general inflammation, how would it not be reasonable for my heart to be inflamed? If so, what would be a more appropriate recommendation from them? I explicitly stated that concern multiple times. A catheter? How about some blood work. No money? I am on a monitor 24/7. Beats me why. Billable?

Why do I need a coach? That is a very perplexing response. As an MD, your response seems typical. Why do I need a coach. A few years ago I did 18.4 METs in my early 60's. A drop in threshold power of 75 watts in 2-3 weeks after acquiring Covid and I need a coach. My stoke volume is much less than before Covid and I am fatigued, that is the medical issue.

MoAlpha

What was your stroke volume before and after COVID?

terrymorse 

Have you considered getting a workup from a sports cardiologist? They ought to be more sympathetic to an athlete's concerns, and less likely to disregard your complaints.

My nearest resource is Stanford Sports Cardiology:

Peevess

I still can't exercise normally after Covid. My doctor says I just need more time, I hope so.

GhostRider62

Just a follow-up, my new Pulmonologist told me that her older athletes with asthma need a minimum of 6 months to a year for recovery and most recover fully. She said around month 6, improvements are rapid. So, I have hope.

5 months later still no sense of smell and overall inflammation is quite obvious to me. Power and endurance are still measurably lower than in November but it has only been only 5 months. Family Doc, Cardiologist, and Pulmonologist all say to keep exercising. So, I do. I have had some improvement. My 5 minute power was around 400 watts last year and down to 240 watts in January with FTP around 200-210W down from 291W in November off season (high of 312W last Summer). FTP has come up to a modeled value of 242 watts and my 5 minute power best is 296 watts recently. Slightly encouraging. One key improvement is using albuterol before every workout per the Pulmonologist.

lex further

Thanks for an update. Already 5 months without sense of smell, that's unbelievable.
Coming back to training after a many days in bed can be super intense and in my opinion should be done very slowly.
I would start with the light yoga exercises https://betterme.world/articles/chair-yoga-guide/ and then make it more and more active day after day.
Cycling is definitely not an options for the first couple of days after the illness.

sin7

Covid's effect is really different. I had it around 2.5 months ago. I didn't lose any smell and actually I tested just cause I felt something is wrong. I didn't believe at first it was Covid cause I expected it to be much worth. For the sake of experiment I went running once (yes, with covid) at 12 AM on working day when nobody was around and even with inhalers (I have asthma) my running distance was cut 3 times from my usual. So it's surely affected the lungs. I never lost sense of smell as I said and it took me 3 weeks to be tested negative. In the end I don't think it affected any of my sport results. I'm not sure. My lungs always weren't that good and they stayed the same as I think.

MinnMan

Considering that I started this thread, I should follow up a little, but my experience is surely specific to some other things that intervened.

My sense of smell came back slowly over a period of a couple of weeks. Apart from that, i was symptom free after the first few days, BUT I stayed antigen positive for almost two weeks.

I returned gradually to riding, but in mid-January (2+ weeks after first contracting Covid) I crashed and dislocated a finger, so that slowed my return to training. And then over the following 2 months, I trained only intermittently because I had a lot of travel, including nearly 3 weeks in India where I had no opportunity to exercise apart from walking (in the 98°F heat....). By early March, when I returned to regular training, my fitness had decreased substantially, but it's hard to say how much the Covid had to do with it. 2 months later, and I'm feeling fairly fit again, though I'm not in the form that is usual for me in May.

BTinNYC 

I had a reasonably mild case this January. I was about 10 weeks into a 6 month training schedule.

I could do the 1 hr interval sessions in about 2 weeks, but the long 5 hr Z2 rides took more like 2 months. It took about 7 weeks to get my CTL back to just-before-covid level.