Hey all, if you’ve had mild to moderate Covid, how long did it take to recover to get back to racing or doing interval workouts at full gas? I’m at day 24 since symptoms. Called it quits after my 3rd cadence build interval this morning as my lungs felt like I had just raced a cross race for 40 minutes. 
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I was down hard for almost a week with Covid. I started riding after just a few days but it was a few weeks before I felt ‘normal’ again. You are right in the window where I could do a workout full throttle so hang in there. It does get better.
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Thank you. I forgot to mention no issues with z2.
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I spent a solid 2 months gradually working back up to zone 2. My Covid recovery went far more rapidly once I realised I had to take it slowly. I did nothing but walk for a month, then did recovery on the bike and worked my way back to zone 2 in the 2nd month. Am 100% now. I was breathless just standing up post Covid.
If your zone 2 is fine, make sure that’s both power and HR saying zone 2. My original zone 2 power attempts were at HR zone 4. But if your zone 2 is fine, just stick with that for a while, a bit of base training is never a bad thing
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The time to recover to full capacity varies from individual to individual. Some take a couple weeks others months. The key is DO NOT ECEED YOU ABILITIES. You have return slowly as stay within capacity. You can do Z2, now it’s time for endurance (Zones 3 and 4). High intensity comes after you can ride these for about 1.5 to 2 hours, indoors (outdoors is not reliable for this purpose.)
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A couple weeks for me to bounce back. A couple months for my heart. Take it slow…
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Very much this. 
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You are all amazing! Thank you!
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for me i had:
- 1 week of being sick (felt pretty trash), followed by
- 1 week of gradually being less sick, but still only wanting to laze about, then
- 1 week of being not sick anymore and feeling okay in day-to-day, but really not feeling like being active in any way beyond walking, then finally
- about one more week of wanting to exercise, feeling good exercising, but not really wanting to push that hard
so about one month total. And FWIW, when you come back and start training again, even if everything is fine and you have no ongoing COVID impacts, your HR will be higher because you’ve lost plasma volume (that’s the first, quickest, most immediate detraining, but also the fastest to come back). So if hR is higher than normal in those first workouts but you feel good and feel like pushing, i wouldn’t sweat it. But if it feels bad at all, or if you’re in doubt in any way, be conservative. The downside of pushing is wayyyyyy bigger than the (tiny) upside of gaining an extra few days of training.
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This is pretty similar to my experience. Thank you!
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I had covid last week (2nd go round; first time was in Nov. last year). My youngest kid got it first while we were away for a long weekend on the Saturday, then my wife and other kid on Sunday. I’m a teacher and we were going back to school on Tuesday, so I decided to bike about 200km home instead of sit in a car for 3 hours with 3 covid patients. I felt great but decided to test when I got home to make sure that I was good to go back to work, but I turned up positive. The next day (Tuesday) I finally started to get some symptoms (fatigue, runny nose), but they weren’t too bad - and not as bad as last year. Mostly felt OK throughout the week but resisted the urge to do any exercise. Just basked in the sunshine in my back yard!
Back to work this week after testing negative on Sunday, and I felt mostly good - but sometimes was out of breath going up a flight of stairs. Did an easy z2 30min spin on Monday morning, but skipped Tuesday and Wednesday to sleep in. Again did easy 30min spin on Thursday and today (Friday), and went for an easy 6k run this afternoon. Felt pretty much back to normal by the end of the week. I’m hoping to get back outside on my bike tomorrow while the weather is still nice for an easy 2hr ride and hopefully will do something on Sunday too…
Like others said, everyone is different. Even a few months after my first bout, I would find periods where I felt completely wiped and would take time off from exercise (ha ha, and I gained 20lbs in short order. My diet of chocolate and too much work stress probably didn’t help either!). So - take it easy and listen to your body!
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I started covid symtoms late Wednesday night, Thursday was bad with high fever, chills, sweats, achiness and extreme fatigue. Friday and yesterday just tired with a runny nose. I knew that the full recovery would be about a month, it just sucks this is right at the start of cross season.
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I know. Bummed I’m missing.
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I had Covid last year during the Omicron outbreak. I was down pretty hard for a full week. After that my Z2 was okay but I definitely felt like Z3 for HR vs power. Any VO2 max type intervals were off the table for a good 2 months after. It was a long, humbling recovery to regular training. Listen to your body.
I hope you recover soon.
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Patience is required. Easier said then done!
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Noooooo! 
Feel better @rrutis
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Finding it interesting that when symptomatic I had no chest/breathing issues. Whoop did say my respiratory rate was elevated a few nights not consecutively. But sprinting or climbing up a hill as a surge or walking up 4 flights of stairs feels miserable.
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