Context: 26 year old male living in the Bay Area, ran through high school and college, PRs of 1:54 (800) and 3:57 (1500).
Got injured in early 2018, spent a year and a half trying to overcome said injury and ultimately had surgery in May 2019. Was finally able to slowly start running again in March of this year.
Very slowly built up again to the point where two weeks ago I was running 10 mile long runs at 7:00 pace and did a workout on the track that pointed towards being able to run a 5k in the 17:XX minute range.
Because of the wildfires and a hiking holiday my last run was on August 24 - an easy five miles at 7:15 pace with an average HR of 132bpm.
I returned from holiday on Friday and decided to go for a run, only to find that within the first mile run at 7:20 pace my HR had spiked to 160bpm and kept rising as the run progressed. Since then on both occasions that I tried going for a run I've had the same problem. This morning I went for a run and within 2 miles of running at above 7:00 pace my heart rate had gone up to 170bpm - which it normally only reaches during interval sessions. My resting HR has increased too and more generally while I don't struggle for air I have the impression that when taking a deep breath I just don't get as much air as I used to.
I could think of multiple possible explanations, an asymptomatic COVID infection that has caused heart/lung damage or just being overly sensitive to wildfire smoke or whatever allergens might be floating around. I have access to COVID testing through my employer and a nose swab test came back negative - however, something with my running is definitely off and I don't think I could have lost that much shape so quickly.
In any case, does the LR community have any opinions on my predicament ?