Running after Covid?

Interesting to hear that it took weeks - about how many do you recall?

It's 3.5 weeks since i tested positive and I feel 100% in day to day life but running is torture. My HR is extremely high and everything just feels so hard - my legs are heavy, I'm sweating and breathing heavily. I have only done easy runs and all shorter in distance than I would be used to doing. I did a parkrun on Saturday in 37 mins - was with my little one and took some (very welcome) walk breaks. My Garmin afterwards told me I was "Overreaching" and needed 3 days recovery. For context my 5k PB is 22:xx and I would normally be able run 24-25mins as a steady effort. I'm getting frustrated but also trying to keep things in context. I'm hopeful that this will pass with patience!

Best of luck OP, running after sickness always sucks. Why are you doing 37 min runs if they kill you? Do 20, 25, 30 preferably in threes before doing doing the next.

I am the master of illnesses and injuries return, take it slow, and you will get there faster.

I had a moderate case, first four days in bed with shivers, aches, temperature. Another four weakness with a chesty cough.

I started running again day 10 after first positive. Pre COVID I was up to 50 mile weeks and in good shape as I was at the tail end of a marathon block.

Initially my chest was quite glassy but gradually reduced and I built up to a 20 mile lsr 20 days after first positive, I still wasn't fully back fit and my heart rate was elevated compared to pre COVID levels for at least 4 weeks.

I wear my watch all the time. my sleeping heart rate went from late 40s to mod 50s for at least 30 days after positive test. This is probably the main metric I used for the affect it had on me. One month before normal.

That was me.

Everyone is effected differently. It's a novel disease so it's very unlikely you will get good advise other than take it easy.

I really think smartwatches/garmin/fitbit etc are an under-analysed mine of data for Covid. As you mention, Rest Heart Rate is a fundamental indicator of fitness and could be aggregated to at least provide different recovery (or otherwise) scenarios. All those companies are sitting on tons of data I hope they are doing something with it for the common good...

I had 3 days with moderate symptoms and then 4-5 days of being fatigued.

On day 9, I did a recovery level 5Km run to test the waters. HR was high but rest of the body felt ok.

Whether I was running or not, my HR continued to be high for about 10 days after that. As my HR was higher, recovery was taking that bit longer. The spikes for elevation became less and less. I never had those HR lows that you would expect on descents, it remained just above typical easy HR rate. As I run a lot of the same routes over and over, I could see the HR rate slowly returning to normal with each run.

It was 3 weeks after initial diagnosis that I did any session work. In total it was 16 easy runs before any sort of effort.

I still have a lingering dry cough and my taste/smell has not returned.

Yeah totally agree. The stress level data for the previous nights sleep on my Garmin were through the roof the morning I tested positive.

How reliable is this sort of stress level data?

Tested positive in late November...was fairly sick with flu symptoms for about a week, felt crappy for a few weeks and then started getting breathless in January so went on a bunch of meds that more or less cleared that up.

Back running a few weeks now but not feeling 100%....feel like a car with a couple of gears missing. Also get random bouts of feeling tired/meh for 2-3 days so trying to build a consistent base is challenging.

Have a deferred entry for DCM but it's starting to dawn on me that I won't be able to train for and/or run it in the way that I want.

Doing a bit more cycling as well lately...seems to be less of a drain than running right now.

I wear a Garmin 245 and keep an eye on the stats but only have it since Christmas so don't have anything to benchmark it against unfortunately

I track HRV daily (first thing in the morning) using a finger sensor and the Elite HRV app. I find it pretty reliable, the morning after a hard session my HRV goes down and my RHR goes up giving me a lower readiness score, I have also seen negative changes after vaccines and if I've had a few beers, followed by a poor nights sleep. Ultimately I will go by feel, but if I feel a little extra fatigued and the data is backing that up I will adjust my training or bring forward a recovery day.

Like with everything else, there are all kinds of factors involved; you are more likely to get Covid when you are stressed from

life and your immune system is down. For example, my mother and sister had it and my dad didn't get it.

There is so much at play.

Also cycling is easier no matter what, you lose your fitness faster with running and it takes longer to gain your fitness back.

Running is a big part of my life and I have been lucky to avoid covid so far (as far as I know). As an over 50 boosted in December it is a pity I can't buy an extra booster. The vaccines are plentiful now and paying for them for those who want it should be allowed. It used to be the way with the flu vaccine.

Even willing to pay twice the price so that someone else who cannot afford it gets it.

I really do not fancy the risk of being floored for a week and unable to run properly for months. Quality of life matters.

I had it in December sore throat and cough, I started back after the isolation ended ,HR was a little higher than normal for it but all good since then.

This is almost exactly the same as my experience of sickness length, recovery time, heart rate elevation etc.

I don't know which variant I had. It was at Christmas, so could've been Beta or Omicron.