Regraduating after flu and covid?

[NESTR]

I graduated from Cto5K in early November. After that I kept getting sick, flu followed by stomach flu followed by common cold so that I got to only 7 consolidation runs until January 10 - plus a few short runs every time after recovering to start again with something easy. January 11 a family member tested positive for virus and while the whole family was in quarantine, one after the other got sick with the virus. I tested every other day and only on Friday, January 28th, the test came back positive with a very very faint line. I had symptoms the whole time though, throat ache, running nose, extremely tired, gastrointestinal problems etc...well, my husband stayed isolated in the master bedroom and I was constantly around three kids with Covid ... and no mask because they are very young.

Long story short...I tested negative on Sunday, so Monday, January 31th I went back out to run. With all these weeklong brakes and still feeling very tired I started out with Week 5 Run 1. It was a lot. Now I am wondering whether I should just try to regraduate from there or....try to go for 25 minutes or so just at an extremely slow pace....any advice?

Also, because I got to run so irregularly since graduating, I felt it may be better this time to slow it all down and cut back and rather try to really run every other day....and do the strengthening exercises a few times a week/going for a walk on non running days.

Any advice for me?

[Instructor57 Graduate]

Very well done on getting out there again!Take your time , this is about Gradually rebuilding your strength and stamina.

There is absolutely nothing to gain by rushing this .

Have a look at this article , it may be helpful.

runnersworld.com/news/a3862...

Take care !

[NESTR Graduate in reply to Instructor57]

Great article and just what I needed to stop feeling bad about going back in the program. Thanks for sharing!

[Instructor57 Graduate in reply to NESTR]

Don't think about it as going back , you will come out stronger by taking your time ..... There is NO rush 👍

[NESTR Graduate in reply to Instructor57]

Thanks for the encouragement! True!

[Cheetah_girl Graduate]

Hey NESTR I’m experiencing something similar haven’t really been running since my graduation 2 weeks ago because I had a knee injury and I tried to get back to it today. My goal was to do 20 mins but I managed to do 25mins but at an extremely slow pace. But I know that once I continue over time I’d get back to running for 30 mins at my regular pace.

So don’t worry just keep going. If you need to start from week 5 until you build your stamina again then do that . All the best

[NESTR Graduate in reply to Cheetah_girl]

I think the slow pace may really be the key. As long as you get out there and keep a jogging movement...so this motivates me to get out again today to do Week 5 Run 2 😀

[Hidden]

After my dose of covid I would really recommend taking it slowly and building back up gently.

I thought I would be fine as I only had flu like symptoms but blimey, it really messed with my breathing and fitness.

Take it very steady and do not rush👍

[NESTR Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Thank you for the advice! How long did it take you to get back to where you were before Covid?

[Hidden in reply to NESTR]

I'm still not there yet. Not too far away but still a bit breathless compared to previously.

Its been around 7/8 weeks ish.

As I say, I'm slowly, slowly getting there.

[NESTR Graduate in reply to Hidden]

Great that you are getting closer! But this is not to get back to 5K, is it?

[Hidden in reply to NESTR]

No, its getting back up to my previous 5k pace.

Prior to covid I was running 5k in circa 28 minutes. Now I'm recovering and just under 31 so still a bit to go.

[NESTR Graduate in reply to Hidden]

I see! Seems crazy how even a mild course of Covid could throw one off like that...but I guess we just have to accept it. Sometimes I think what would have happened if Covid had hit me before starting the Couchto5k program. When even going up a few stairs would get me out of breath. I guess we are lucky we just have to worry about how long it will take until we get back to where we were.

[notbad Graduate]

Sorry to read you’ve had such a run of it, and winter on top of that too. Definitely agree, no rush, covid is a tricky one and you had to push through to look after your children! Listening to your body and taking walk breaks if you need them sounds sensible, you’ll soon be back in the swing of it hopefully!

[NESTR Graduate in reply to notbad]

Thanks! Well, I have read a few comments about people starting all over again many times over the course of a few years...so really going back to Week 5 in the light of this seems to be a great place to start rebuilding. So I will happily repeat my Week 5 Run 2 tomorrow, just because I felt too tired after doing that run yesterday. As a matter of fact, I will probably factor in 3 to 4 more interval runs with 5 to 8 minutes per interval before I proceed with Week 5 run 3. I just decided that wanting to get back to 30 minutes of running as fast as possible is silly. I shall rather get back to it as *good* as possible, enjoying the feeling of exercising without exhaustion afterwards and putting the same effort into the strength and flexibility plan. Building it up really slowly will also allow to take the dogs along every time, I have previously tried to get them to 30 minutes of running on a separate scheme...and that got complicated 😁.

Dogs running through puddle

[notbad Graduate in reply to NESTR]

You sound like you’ve got a sensible plan! I’m restarting from scratch as not run in 7 months, but have found week 5 to be a good point if only a few weeks or months out. Good luck and enjoy!

[NESTR Graduate in reply to notbad]

I wish you success!!!