Returning to running after recovering from COVID (share your story)

Yeah same here. I only had one day of mild fever but I can't run a quarter mile.

Apparently this virus is unique in causing hypoxia, or low blood oxygen, without accompanying shortness of breath. So in mild cases, you can walk normally but not run. In the vulnerable, they are in the hospital on their phones while the doctor tests their blood oxygen at lethal levels.

Apparently shortness of breath is caused primarily by CO2 build up, not blood oxygen. So healthy people (and runners) can operate with sub-normal blood oxygen and feel normal, except when running, when the combo of CO2 buildup and the increased demand for blood oxygen cause strains on the heart.

Received one test that resulted negative, however a series of symptoms and doctors visits have led me to believe I did contract it.

If so, I fall in line with the above posters. It has been nearly one month now and I am still not anywhere near 100% running. I feel reasonably okay for day to day activities. The few occasions I have ran have also been marked by very high HR (150’s+) for easy/recovery/jogging.

The difference in ability is stark!! I have decided to take additional time off to not risk lasting damage to my lungs/heart.

Will mention that I could be considered “elite” only for the posters expressing how no elite athletes have contracted the disease.

Think I had it, but am better than ever now, mainly due to the lockdown forcing me to have longer easier runs on the whole. Doing more mileage, and feeling more refreshed.

Thanks for sharing your stories. I've heard through the grapevine, of other runners who have similar experiences and their running has not been the same (even after 4-6 weeks of recovering from the virus).

It's most noticeable in my HR. It's waaaay more elevated than it should be. For example, normally 7:30 pace results in an HR of ~130bpm. Now 7:30 pace requires 145-150bpm.

Prior to this I was in shape to run sub 17 for 5k. Now I'd be lucky if I could break 20.

Your HR changes are very similar to mine.

7:30-8 min pace looked like a tempo run prior to illness for me.

Wish you all the best in your recovery.

Sick for about a week. Cough caused me to sleep in a chair a few nights. Never stopped running but slowed down for 10 days. 10 days after that ran faster 5k TT than I had in 5 years. Easy runs still feel sluggish but knocked out a nice progressive on my hard day. Makes no sense.

Lovin Corona wrote:

Sick for about a week. Cough caused me to sleep in a chair a few nights. Never stopped running but slowed down for 10 days. 10 days after that ran faster 5k TT than I had in 5 years. Easy runs still feel sluggish but knocked out a nice progressive on my hard day. Makes no sense.

Ha, I notice that too.

If I run "hard" yeah, my HR goes up but I actually feel stronger. If I run easy, it feels like a huge drag and I'm very sluggish.

Thanks for sharing! Nice to know that i'm not alone struggling with this.

I'm pretty sure I caught it in Paris on the weekend of March 7th/8th. I got it very mild but can’t seem to shake it 7 weeks later. I never had a fever (never really took my temperature) or had a hard time breathing and kept working remotely the whole time.

I mostly trail run and normally run between 100 and 120k a week.

My symptoms were:

I started having very mild diarrhea on March 12th the lasted a couple days. The next evening, I got a sore throat that lasted 4 or 5 days. I also had a dry cough that lasted 4 or 5 days but was very mild. I’d cough a couple times an hour. My left eye was also really sore for at least a week.

Running:

I didn’t run at all until Saturday March 21st. I woke up feeling better and it was a really nice day so went for a run that turned into 20K. It was all good until the last 3K (which is quite the uphill) I felt out of breath and a weird feeling in my chest. I felt like crap the next day, light headed, dizzy, super tired and had a weird feeling in my chest.

I took the next 10 days off and started to feel better so started up slowly. So on Wednesday April 1st I ran a chill 5k and did this for the next 3 days. On Sunday I ran 20K and felt good so I started thinking I had turned the corner.

The following week I ran 60K from Monday to Thursday. On Friday I went out for a longer run and at about 28K I started getting the same feeling I had gotten 3 weeks before. The next day I felt like crap. I had the feeling in my chest again and was super dizzy.

I took 3 days off and started feeling better. Tuesday April 14th I went for an easy 5K run and ramped up to finish the week with a total of 60K.

Thinking again that I had turned the corner, I ramped up the mileage and vertical the following week (last week) and ran 110K with roughly 5000 meters of vertical. I crashed again on Sunday and feel like I just can’t shake this thing.

I have the same feeling in my chest and my lungs feel weird. I can’t explain it better than that. I’m going to reach out to my doctor (who will probably just tell my stop running forever).

Sorry for the long reply but hopefully it helps someone. Glad to hear i'm not the only one having a hard time shaking this thing.

So no one here had a confirmed case? This is really meaningless then.

It's been 6 weeks since I first got symptoms.

Week 1

First symptoms -- initially I felt winded on runs (like being at altitude but I wasn't). Then I started getting chills, chest stiffness, and shortness of breath for 2 weeks off and on. I got a smattering of other symptoms occasionally -- fever, headache, muscle pain, sore throat. But those were pretty sporadic. I never felt "sick" in the sense of a cold or flu where you're out of commission. Mainly the chest pain and shortness of breath were the only things clearly off and I definitely didn't run with chest pain.

Week 2

Around 2 weeks in I felt like I was over the worst. Chest was getting better. But then I got this muscle weakness (benign acute myositis) in my right calf which prevented me from walking normally for 5 days. That went away and I didn't have any major symptoms from there for 3 weeks.

Week 5

After weeks of feeling mostly fine (more fatigued than normal but otherwise fine) I got these muscle spasms. First my diaphragm twitched an entire night and then my left knee twitched for about a day continuously. It wasn't painful but also...unusual.

Week 7

Now it's week 7 and I continue to feel fine. If I weren't a runner, I probably wouldn't notice except for one thing which is I had a single beer the other day and felt very fatigued the next day. I had a glass of wine the week before and had a similar result. With running, I can't run nearly as far or fast as before.

Running

To give a little more detail on my running, I had peaked at 100 mpw a few weeks prior to getting sick. I was in very good shape. During recovery, I can do about 50 mpw. I tried doing some longer runs a few weeks ago and epically failed. Once I get to about miles 8-10 it feels like miles 16-20 of a long run. I did an 11 mile run the other week and had to take a few days off completely since it made my lungs and chest feel off again.

It's definitely getting better though. I'm gonna lay off the distance for the time being. I did try hammering a little today and got 1 mile in at almost VO2 max which is much, much better than anything I've done these past 6 weeks.

Btw, there's a theory that covid-19 attacks hemoglobin in red blood cells. I presume this means the body will end up destroying those red blood cells to rid the body of the virus. Considering people say it can take 8 weeks to replenish red blood cells after donating blood, I think we can look to that as a guide here too. Not to mention if the virus or lack of oxygen damages other parts of the body and how long those take to recover (lungs, heart?).

Seeing the other posts in here report similar symptoms to me (i.e. higher HR and more difficulty running post-covid) makes me believe the hemoglobin theory even more.

hgjvkvbbbhhhbb wrote:

So no one here had a confirmed case? This is really meaningless then.

No, these are "suspected" or "presumptive" cases and if any of these posters dies, it counts!

Have you tried power running? It's like power walking but, ya know, running...powerfully.

Bad Wigins wrote:

hgjvkvbbbhhhbb wrote:

So no one here had a confirmed case? This is really meaningless then.

No, these are "suspected" or "presumptive" cases and if any of these posters dies, it counts!

There she is, the court idiot - er, jester - back around to attempt to lighten the mood with banal inanity. How are you today wiggy? Did we get to 2600 cases yet? (Slapping thigh...) hilarious, keep the lunacy coming!

hgjvkvbbbhhhbb wrote:

So no one here had a confirmed case? This is really meaningless then.

Well I just got the results back from an antibody test.... antibodies detected.

For me it started with an eye infection, a light sting in the chest, and light coughs. Had shortness of breath for two days after runs, even super-easy runs with my wife. Very light fever after a week, highest temp was 37.8deg C / 100deg F. Coughing intensified, took xylometalozine spray at night to be able to breathe. Cough lasted for two or three days, still coughing a bit in the morning.

After a week I did an 8k / 5 mile run in what's normally E pace (4:30/k 7:12/mi). Really struggled, heart rate was 175bpm, which is about 10-15bpm higher that usual. Planned to do 12k, but cut my run short. And the chest tightnes came back.

For now I'm sticking with short reps, let my heartrate drop to 130bpm before the next. And strength training.

Very strange that such light symptoms get you out of shape so badly and for so long. And how can you tell it's over?

1979 wrote:

Very strange that such light symptoms get you out of shape so badly and for so long. And how can you tell it's over?

Biggest indicator for my is that my HR is starting to normalize. As a result, I feel more strength/energy during my runs.

Pre-illness: 7:30 pace = 130-135 bpm

6 weeks after illness: 7:30 pace = 150-155 bpm

This morning (8 weeks later): 7:30 pace = 137bpm

I hate to say this, but have heard/read that permanent heart and/or lung damage can occur with the virus. I'd want to have my doc testing me for that, but I have not yet heard of any "cures" for either. Don't know of any "antiinflammatory diet" that might aid in recovery but perhaps would be worth looking into, as the virus appears to cause an inflammatory response.

Mike Lundgren wrote:

I hate to say this, but have heard/read that permanent heart and/or lung damage can occur with the virus. I'd want to have my doc testing me for that, but I have not yet heard of any "cures" for either. Don't know of any "antiinflammatory diet" that might aid in recovery but perhaps would be worth looking into, as the virus appears to cause an inflammatory response.

It sounds like permanent or long-term damage may only be seen in those who experienced severe cases. Also, we don't know the long-term effects of the disease because even the earliest cases have only had it for 4-5 months.