Oh Great! Three Weeks Of Solid Workouts And Here Comes My Cold Again

Training
1

For the last year or so, it seems like I keep getting cold symptoms on the Monday of my “recovery week”. Been struggling to get consistent time on the trainer after some afib issues, life stress, etc… Felt amazing on my last 90 min over/under workout on Sunday to complete my training block and (like clockwork) woke up with a sore throat and muscle stiffness.

Anyone else struggle with this?

2

Typically it would be because of some combination of:

  • Excessive outside stress
  • Training too hard
  • not eating enough
  • not sleeping enough
  • not drinking enough water

How would you say you are with these things?

Some other things to consider:

  • is your FTP set correctly? (if you can do a 90min O/U then it’s probably close)
  • are you doing too much intensity?
    • It’s pretty common for people to find that TR plans just have too much intensity. So depending on you plan, maybe try swapping one of the intense workouts out for a true endurance ride.

But it’s pretty unusual to go a cold every single month. So I’d maybe start with dropping some intensity while considering the nutrition and sleep side of things and see if anything changes in the coming months

1 Like
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I agree with a lot of what @mwglow15 said.

If this is a common occurrence that happens right at the tail-end of a 3-week training block, I’m wondering if your immune system is being affected by all of the stress over the period of that block.

Sleep and nutrition play a huge role here, but there will always be a limit to the amount of stress each of us can take before we start to pay the price.

Those outside factors (hydration, nutrition, rest, recovery, life stress) aren’t things that we can always see, so as of now those need to be factored into the training equation by yourself.

How are you feeling throughout the three weeks prior to recovery weeks? Do your workouts feel really draining, or are they hard but manageable? Are you looking forward to your next hard workout, or are you dreading it?

I’d be curious to hear about what your life off the bike looks like and how you’re feeling when you’re in the thick of those productive workouts. :male_detective: