Running with Mono

I had mono last summer and hate to tell you that the thread you need to be looking at is the one that said "What is worse DNS or DNF". You may be able to get around the track 4 and 8 times but you will feel a meltdown going on inside you.

You'll be taking some time off after track is done anyways. I had a similar situation with XC; I had gotten mono immediately after the section meet, and WAS recovering but still not 100%. You will probably feel terrible halfway through...but you'll never know if you don't try. I wouldn't want that little voice in my head saying "what if you would have ran?"

Just take it extremely easy until Saturday. You may even want to take every day but Friday off, and do a shorter warmup on Saturday.

Good luck.

If you insist on running "through" mono, which is a system-wide viral blood disease, you might get lucky and not drop dead, just run a really slow time.

On the other hand, you might not be so lucky.

Think about it.

Bruce Denton was sick as a dog and shuffled his feet to get in 3 miles during the pouring rain, just so his weekly mielage didnt suffer.

Man up, and run through it

Sounds like you already have doubts - which is enough to give you a bad race without mono. I would skip the meet - mono progresses through 3 stages - you are definitely in stage 1 and you will feel progressively worse. My daughter is still recovering after being diagnosed 5 weeks ago...her fatigue really peaked at about week 3.

Skip the meet.

High School track is not the centre of the universe. Let this race go; you will have many other opportunities in the future to prove yourself as a runner. I know that, right now, it seems really terrible that you're missing your state meet in your senior year, but in the long run it just doesn't matter. You have goals for running in college. Good. Focus on those; they matter far more than a high school race. If you're serious about running, you need to be thinking about taking care of yourself so that you can hit your pick 6 or 8 (or 10) years from now, not risking your health for the sake of local high school glory.

Race, their is time to recover afterwards. You don't want "What If's" rollin in your head. Good story to tell to friends and teamates too, remember that time i passed out in the two mile at state!

DO NOT RUN!

You can end up with chronic fatigue syndrome which can last your ENTIRE life aka you will NEVER be able to again run near your full potential.

That is of course the worst case scenario, you may be able to race just fine, but personally I wouldn't chance it. I had mono last summer and was lucky to run 5k in under 30 minutes, not fun. Get lots and lots of rest, take some time off and come back stronger than ever!

I had mono my junior year of high school and my last race was a 3200m (about a week after feeling symptoms) and I ran a minute and a half slower than my PR. I went out on a good pace with the leaders (I was a top seed in my region) and felt apart. It is not worth it take the time off and recover. Especially if you say that you have not that severe of symptoms. It only took me about 4 more weeks to recover. I am now in college and let me tell you high school now means shit. I could be damn close to beating the top seed from that race and he was top 5 at Footlocker.

I had mono in HS and it made me tired for almost a year. I was in bed for 2 weeks was sluggish running for several weeks after that, and it took months to fully recover.

Don't run and certainly don't race. Maybe the "what ifs" will be enough motivation to become a stellar runner in the next few years and you'll look at this time as not missing out but when it all started.

You guys telling him to "man up" and run, are out of your f---ing minds. I hope you don't end up coaching my kids some day. You'd have to be brain dead to run with mono.

drsmrtypnts wrote:

DO NOT RUN!

You can end up with chronic fatigue syndrome which can last your ENTIRE life aka you will NEVER be able to again run near your full potential.

That is of course the worst case scenario, you may be able to race just fine, but personally I wouldn't chance it. I had mono last summer and was lucky to run 5k in under 30 minutes, not fun. Get lots and lots of rest, take some time off and come back stronger than ever!

This is exactly correct, and I am living proof. The morons telling you to run through it are, well, morons. They don't know what they don't know. Epstein-barr virus is not something you want to mess with. Sounds like you have already left a legacy anyway. No way is it worth it to risk the rest of your career for some meaningless accolade that nobody but you will care about ten years from now. Trust me.

Once a Cassidy wrote:

Bruce Denton was sick as a dog and shuffled his feet to get in 3 miles during the pouring rain, just so his weekly mielage didnt suffer.

Man up, and run through it

I agree with you, but I'd hate to break some news to you...Bruce Denton isn't a real person (at least not the one you're referencing).

Why don't you start the race and if you can't hang then drop out?

drsmrtypnts wrote:

DO NOT RUN!

You can end up with chronic fatigue syndrome which can last your ENTIRE life aka you will NEVER be able to again run near your full potential.

That is of course the worst case scenario, you may be able to race just fine, but personally I wouldn't chance it. I had mono last summer and was lucky to run 5k in under 30 minutes, not fun. Get lots and lots of rest, take some time off and come back stronger than ever!

"In addition to having had mono, the only factor that seemed to make much of a difference to whether someone developed CFS was physical fitness. People with a lower level of physical activity within the months following the initial infection were much more likely to develop CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome] ."

hey there......what did your personal physician say? If you have an enlarged liver or spleen, racing could cause one of them (or both) to rupture, which could kill you.

I had mono in high school.....beginning of Jr. track season. Thank your lucky stars that you only got it at the end, AFTER running fast times. I got to the point where I could only run a half mile at a time.....then I was in bed for a week. I remember laying in bed, having to pee, but feeling like the walk to the bathroom was WAAAAAY too far, and I could barely make it. I took about 9 days off completely, and basically had a lame track season with some disappointing times. I didn't take enough time to recover fully, though. The end of Senior XC season, I relapsed (a small percentage of mono cases do this, usually due to lack of initial recovery) and missed league finals. In 2 CIF races I ran 2 min slower than what I should have been at. Horrible. I eventually had my tonsils taken out due to chronic tonsilitis, linked to mono.

I guess my suggestion is that you should talk to your doctor. Think seriously about your options before deciding. AND.....regardless of whether or not you do the race, give yourself time to recover FULLY! A lot of time......you will regret it if you don't.

Youre going to be on the shelf for awhile man. Worst case scenario is a bout with hepatitis and a ruptured spleen. Your doc should have already advised you not to run and you should be taking antibiotics and getting a ton of rest. Your symptoms may just be starting. Expect your throat to be severely sore (worse than strep) along with some painful lymph node swelling in the upcoming weeks.

Ironically enough... wrote:

"In addition to having had mono, the only factor that seemed to make much of a difference to whether someone developed CFS was physical fitness. People with a lower level of physical activity within the months following the initial infection were much more likely to develop CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome] ."

http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/news/20011207/predicting-who-will-get-chronic-fatigue

The very last sentence of this article undermines any and all credibility it may have otherwise had:

"The study also implies that CFS after infectious mononucleosis might be partially prevented or treated with an early and graded return to appropriate physical activity in order to prevent or treat physical deconditioning," he adds.

Exercise is not only contraindicated for true Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), it exacerbates and, in some cases, perpetuates the syndrome indefinitely. There are aspects of CFIDS that involve the faulty transport, metabolism, and byproduct detoxification of oxygen respiration in the mitochondria, compromising the muscles and the heart, and the HALLMARK of true CFIDS is exercise intolerance (in fact, some physicians would go so far as to say that the only difference between fibromyalgia and CFIDS is that exercise is good for fibromyalgia but worsens CFIDS). Many well meaning but ignorant physicians have prescribed exercise as treatment, but "push-crash" is definitive for the syndrome. You push too hard, you crash. For most, that limit is not very far.

Don't run. I made this mistake 30 years ago, and I regret it still -- I ran like crap, I was sick for another six months, and really not back together for a year.