TRIGGER WARNING: In this post, i talk about COVID and its effects on my personal physical fitness. The effects of the disease can be considerably worse and i do not mean to make light of it at all. If the reader feels that i am too glib about the disease and don't understand how it can destroy lives, i respectfully request that you go f__k yourself and go someplace else.
Anywho-
The day after the race, Gianina and Adrian tested positive for COVID. Since i was asymptomatic, i opted not to test at the time. However, after developing the sniffles a few days later, i swabbed myself and came back positive as well. Despite all my rationalizing about wearing a jacket, etc. perhaps my subpar performance during the CIM was REALLY indicative of the fact that i was actually sick with COVID. There's no way to know for sure.
My slow finish at Tokyo was not really a barometer of anything, since i that was the plan to begin with. What was strange to me was that - at least based on my Garmin watch and app - my VO2 Max dropped by 10% between CIM and Tokyo. I had not backed down on my volume or intensity to any significant degree, so this was really mysterious.
(There was a side issue of frozen shoulder requiring a shot of steroids, but i can't see what that had to do with anything.)
Truthfully, even without my watch's measurements, i had FELT my VO2 Max drop. Throughout the first half of 2023, despite all my training, climbing up a flight of stairs gave me palpitations.
Palpitations. After ONE FLIGHT OF STAIRS. I mean, i'm no Dean Karnazes, but i'm a F*#$!%@ marathon runner for crying out loud. A flight of stairs should not even register.
So then i went for a treadmill exercise test with my cardiologist...
...and passed with flying colors.
I tried inhalers (which i prescribe to my patients all day every day), with no relief.
It made absolutely no sense.
Eventually, around June of 2023, the gears clicked into place. Decreased exercise performance? Palpitations climbing up stairs, with no clear cardiac or pulmonary cause? Persisting months after a confirmed COVID infection? This sounded familiar. In fact, i had advised many of my own patients about this. It seemed that i had contracted the near-mythical "Long COVID."
No one understands what Long COVID really is. It has a myriad of manifestations, but as far as my particular symptom of exercise intolerance, i did find data showing that victims on the average develop a 10% drop in VO2 Max (such a coincidence that that's how much i dropped by), with a physiologic profile and looks just like deconditioning (i.e. being out-of-shape). Unfortunately, since no knows WHAT IT IS, no one knows HOW TO TREAT IT, either. Argh!
Instead of searching randomly for a miracle cure, i decided to apply what i know.
How do we treat deconditioning? With regular exercise.
How to we improve VO2 Max? With high-intensity intervals.
So i procured a chest strap heart rate monitor (i had been relying on wrist monitors built-in to my watch all these years, which are not as accurate) and now concentrate on staying in "Zone 2" for most of my runs. The point is to build up endurance without stressing the system. I've been training this way for about 8 months, and it's been... eye-opening.
First of all, my Zone 2 is a ridiculously low heart rate, to the tune of somewhere between 130 and 140 beats per minute. In order to stay in this zone for the duration of the workout, my "run" is barely faster than my walking pace, clocking in at around 15 minutes per mile, or 4 miles per hour. On the flip side, i feel like i can maintain that level of exertion for a looong period of time without expending my energy reserves. In fact, even if i get a 90 minute workout in at 5 in the morning, i still feel like i have enough energy for the rest of the day.
After 4 months or so of Zone 2 base-building, i finally started training for my next marathon. I began to incorporate some hill work and picked up the pace. As of today, i feel i'm able to run faster with the same heart rate compared to the beginning of this whole exercise. Whether it's an effect of my training, or just me naturally getting over the Long COVID is unclear.
I feel like the true benefit of all this Zone 2 running is that it's taught me how to recover properly. My slow runs are run at an appropriately slow pace so as to prevent damage from accumulating between hard workouts, and i am not as achy and tired as i normally am at this phase of marathon training. A completely unexpected outcome of this is that i can now run continuously for hours at a time, as long as i take it easy. I still feel like the run-walk-run method is the key to running longevity, but at least now i have another tool in my kit.
This is a work in progress. I'm in this for the very long haul, and hopefully the changes i've instituted are able to keep me healthy in the future. Only time will tell.
Onward to LA!
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