Training/HM after illness

Hey guys, I’m after some advice please. I’ve just finished 3 weeks ‘on’ in my training plan, and caught a cold. I’m now heading into a rest week, which is good timing. The week should be ending with Primers/HM, and I did have the goal of breaking an FTP of 280w. The cold seems to be passing pretty quick with lots of rest and fluids, but HRV (Garmin stress score) and resting heart rate are really elevated. My resting heart rate is usually 46 but today is 66! My plan has a recovery ride today, which I’ll be skipping, and tomorrow is a rest day before TBTITW/Mini Blender on Wednesday/Thursday as Zone 2 rides. I’m not planning on training until my resting heart rate gets back below 50. Up to this point in my training I’d been feeling good and getting some good times on some local climbs, so I was really excited about doing HM. I’m not sure what to do now, is this weekend going to be too soon for HM? Should I substitute this weekends riders for Taper Efforts or similar and start my rest week again next week? Or just forget HM and carry on with the plan?

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Hi there.

Sounds like you have a sound plan there already - no work until you’re feeling better basing it on resting HR sounds like a good one.

And if that ends up being in a day or two then hey, I’d the Z2 then go ok, and you’re comfortable with your health then HM isn’t going to change whether you’ve done one or two rides or not.

If it ends up being a week … then I’d build in some sort of Z2 then Primers beforehand so that you’re good to go again.

I personally don’t do any VO2 type work after any lay off without a ‘process’ of getting going again … legs heart and lungs all struggle.

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Found this thread as I can feel a cold coming on. In the past I’ve made the mistake of ignoring it too long, or getting restarted too soon, and ending up with a month off the bike.

What would be the best way to keep things ticking over while sick? 100% do nothing? I was thinking keep doing strength and yoga, and maybe some recovery pace sessions with either low or high cadence, like getting away with it at 60% or power station at 40-50%.

Thoughts?

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Hey there. There are so many ‘depends’ here.
Personally if I have a light head cold that’s gone nowhere near my chest then I still ride recovery rides while I’m not feeling that great.
Anything else I do other stuff like Abi’s more restorative yoga. I don’t do STR

Thanks. I think you’re right about whether it’s near the chest or not. Just really hard to hold back from training and making it worse…

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