Navigating Sickness

It will happen to all of us at one point or another; getting sick during the fall or the race season. As a competitive racer this can be one of the most frustrating and stressful situations to find yourself in. Below are some guidelines to help athletes and coaches navigate sickness during the season. 

First, let’s recognize there might be some gray area in what some people categorize as ‘being sick’ but I can tell you that as I’ve gotten older and gained more racing experience, I take even the slightest cold symptoms very seriously. As athletes become more experienced listening to their bodies, they should become better at recognizing when ‘things feel a little off’.  

Cross country skiers are notorious cold deniers. It probably has something to do with all the time and preparation that goes into the race season that we can’t even comprehend having to all of a sudden abandon our race plan. This is why learning to be honest with yourself (and your teammates) and admit that you are getting sick is the first step in being a pro. This means learning how to identify a cold early and being comfortable communicating with your team and coaches. 

One of the benefits of becoming more familiar with how your body feels on a daily basis and building honest communication with coaches is the ability to take action quickly. At first signs of sickness or even just feeling off it is always a safe bet to immediately take a rest day. This can sometimes help supply the body with enough reserve energy to fight off a cold or virus. 

The safest approach for skiers is to have a strict policy of never racing (or doing intervals or strength training) while you are sick. This is important for several reasons. First, your body is resistant to making any fitness or strength gains while you are sick so putting your system through an intense physical effort like a race will have zero positive effects on your fitness and strength. Furthermore, it can be possible to do long term damage beyond just prolonging your cold symptoms. 

Racing while carrying a cold or virus has the potential to damage internal organs and increase muscle atrophy. A process known as Protein Catabolism can occur to the body if it is stressed while under infection, essentially draining the muscles of amino acids. Skeletal muscle and even the heart can experience microscopic muscle damage under these circumstances. What starts as a benign cold or virus can take a turn for the worse under the stress of ski racing. Viral cardiomyopathy, viral polymyositis, and more mild cases of walking pneumonia can be triggered from racing while sick and can very easily set a skier back for an entire season. 

If a skier has been proactive and takes a few off days at the initial onset of sickness the next questions is when to start ramping things back up again. A general guideline I like to use is that if a skier’s symptoms and energy are improving after a few days off, they can begin to incorporate active recovery training. These are easy distance workouts, very low heart rate, and typically under 30 minutes.  

As a skier returns to training, listening to their body becomes even more important. We want the first few sessions back from sickness to feel light and manageable. If an athlete exercises and then feels super drained in the afternoon or wakes up with worsening symptoms it was definitely too early to begin exercise. This happens ALL THE TIME and can be easily avoided by taking several off days at the onset of sickness and being very conservative as athletes return to training. Rushing back into training will only delay full recovery in the long run. 

After a few days of active recovery, I will slowly build the duration of distance training workouts if my body is responding well. Personally, I will wait until I have no lingering cold symptom before returning to more moderate training such as speed and strength. 

From my experience this can mean no hard training for 6-7 days after catching a cold. This might seem like a mental drag for most athletes I know but in the long-term missing a week of substantial training will have ZERO impact on an athletes long term fitness. 

In addition to these conservative guidelines, I encourage athletes to resist the temptation to ‘make up’ training after being sick. This can also take some self-control. After all, if a skier just missed a good 6 days of training chances are they will be chomping at the bit to get the endorphins flowing again. Instead, I like to look at the monthly periodization as a whole and resist the temptation to jump into an intensity block after being sick. If your schedule allows, build back up with some moderate volume days and sub threshold training before racing again. 

If you or an athlete you coach has experience some substantial sickness and you have questions about how to plan training going forward please contact us directly.