A Good Week to be Ill?

Last Saturday I woke up with a sore throat, and throughout the day started sneezing and producing almost as much snot as a bogeyman.  I did a short spin on the Turbo that evening in the hope that raising my HR might help me burn through whatever virus I'd picked up, but come Monday morning it was obvious the plan hadn't worked.  Now normally I'd just ease back on the training intensity and still get stuff done, even though my coach will tell me to rest completely.  The truth is I only vaguely believed her, plus I love training.

However, this week has been different.  It's been a crazy week in the office, with far too little time to get everything done, and shoehorning work in wherever; over lunch, in the evenings, before breakfast...  so the reality is I'm not sure how much of my training plan I would have managed anyway.  Being ill gave me a reasonable excuse not to worry about everything I was missing, but has also made me realise that this is probably the quickest I've recovered from a cold in 5 years, and will certainly change my approach if (when) I get I'll again...

So, based on this experience, what advice do I have if you are suddenly struck by a cold (or manflu to those of us of a weaker disposition)?

1.  Rest and recover.  Maybe my coach is right... there's no point training ill, and whilst you will lose a little bit of fitness training through it won't help
2.  Don't feel guilty.  This is the hardest one for me, I've spent weeks starting to get somewhere close to race fit again, and now I'm sitting around doing nothing!  The truth is you are not - you are sitting around making sure when you start training again you have minimised the effect of being I'll.
3.  Fill your time. Wow - suddenly you've got loads of hours of spare time you don't normally have, so use it wisely.  Time to get all those jobs done, help out more than normal in the house and with the family, and hopefully bank some brownie points for when you start training again.  You might even be able to get around to planning and entering some races that are on your list for the year...
4.  Look forwards.  You are going to be super refreshed when you do start training again, so what is the focus going to be - maybe this is an opportunity to smash that FTP.
5.  If you must train, train smart. For me personally, it's not just keeping fit, but the headspace that training gives me that is important.  So are there things that you can still do - a couple of sessions of yoga gave me some time out, but didn't put any load on my CV system.

I hope these ideas may be of some use to you, but if you are reading this to see how other people cope be assured we all have the same challenges.  And I hope you are fully fit and back to normal soon.