They are everywhere - bacteria and viruses. When they evade your immune system they can put a halt to your training. So, what is a triathlete to do when they get sick? Adjust your mindset. TRANSCRIPT Hi, and welcome to The Lonely Triathlete. My name is Todd. I am the Lonely Triathlete, coming to you from British Columbia, Canada, on this Sunday, October 25th, 2026. And you'll notice I'm coming to you from British Columbia because, for the past couple of weeks, I haven't been in Victoria. I've been somewhere a little warmer. Well, at least theoretically warmer. I was in Mexico with my wife, and things didn't quite go according to plan. And that brings me to today's topic. It's one I've talked about before, and I'm going to revisit it because it seems to be a recurring theme in my life. But this time, there's a bit of a twist. I'm talking about injury, illness as a form of injury, and what happens to us as triathletes when something interrupts our training. Not just what we should do physically, in terms of recovering and getting back into training, but what happens mentally. How do we deal with these interruptions? How do we maintain our sanity? And how do we come out the other side without losing our joy in the sport? Because I think I've had a bit of a realization recently that's helped me look at these setbacks differently. And I want to share that with you. The perfect start to the seasonLet me give you some context. I started my off-season training in September, which is the earliest I've ever started. And for those first six weeks, things were going exceptionally well. My FTP was climbing. I think I gained somewhere in the neighbourhood of five, six, maybe seven percent over those six weeks. My workouts were getting longer, they were getting more challenging, and I was feeling really good about the progress I was making. I was proud of the work I was putting in. And then it was time to go on vacation. We were leaving on October 8th, and when I looked at my TrainerRoad plan, it projected that if I took ten days off, I could expect to lose about three percent of my FTP. Now, three percent might not sound like a lot. But I'd just spent six weeks working hard to build that fitness, and here I was looking at the possibility of giving a fair chunk of it back in a little over a week. I wasn't particularly interested in that. So I did some digging, and I discovered that if I added three harder workouts before leaving, I could probably maintain most of that fitness through the ten days away. And that's what I did. I added those three sessions, got the work done, and went into vacation feeling pretty good about where I was. I had a plan. I'd done the work. Things were progressing beautifully. What could possibly go wrong? Well, let me tell you. A vacation that went spectacularly wrongMy wife has severe asthma and Long COVID. So getting sick is not something we take lightly. We have to be particularly careful, not only about protecting her from illness, but also about protecting me so I don't bring something home to her. We did everything we reasonably could to protect ourselves on this trip. We wore masks through the airports and on the airplane. We sanitized our hands constantly. We wore masks in common areas at the resort, and we tried to keep our distance from people who were obviously sick. And let me tell you, there were a lot of obviously sick people. On the airplane, there were people coughing and sneezing everywhere. I'm talking about wet coughs. People who sounded absolutely dreadful. I would estimate that perhaps fifteen to twenty percent of the people on that flight were visibly sick. And then we got to the resort, and it was much the same story. People coughing around the pool, people blowing their noses at tables, people sneezing openly without covering their mouths. At one point, we were sitting outside eating when a couple sat down right beside us. We were uncomfortable because we didn't know their health status, so we moved our table farther away. The man asked us, essentially, whether we thought he smelled. We explained that we were being careful because we had health concerns and didn't know who might be sick. They didn't seem particularly bothered by that explanation. And within a couple of minutes, his partner was blowing her nose and coughing. So we got up and moved again. Look, I understand that people get sick. I'm not suggesting that everyone with a sniffle should be locked away somewhere. But when you're travelling with someone who has significant respiratory health issues, you become very aware of how much exposure you might be getting. We even re-sanitized our hotel room when we arrived, aired it out, and took precautions inside. We really did try. And the first four days were wonderful. We found our favourite spot by the pool and the ocean. We figured out where to get our drinks. I was working on my tan. Can you believe it? SPF 50, applied multiple times a day, and I still managed to get a bit of a sunburn on day two. By day four, I was feeling pretty good about my tan, my vacation, and life in general. Then, that evening, my wife said she had a tickle in the back of her throat. The next morning, she was sick. She spent the day sleeping in the room while I stayed away as much as possible. That night, I actually wore my N95 mask while sleeping, trying to reduce the risk of catching whatever she had. I did the same thing the following night. But by that evening, I was feeling unusually run down. And the next morning, I woke up sick too. So there we were. Two people in Mexico at an all-inclusive resort, spending our days lying in a hotel room. We had paid a lot of money for this vacation. We'd made all the arrangements, we'd travelled all that way, and now we were both sick. We even had to cancel a major excursion we'd planned, involving snorkeling and exploring an island off the coast of Cancun. And after a few days of feeling lousy, we tested for COVID. Both of us were positive. Now, for me, COVID has presented itself twice as something resembling a really nasty cold. I seem to recover fairly quickly, without lingering issues so far. But for my wife, this was much more serious. Given her severe asthma and Long COVID, another COVID infection was a significant concern. Her lung specialist had previously advised her to get Paxlovid promptly if she became infected again. So we needed to get her that medication as quickly as possible. And that's when we decided we had to come home. We changed our flights at considerable expense and arranged to fly back the next day. Getting the prescription was difficult enough. Finding the medication was another ordeal. We called fourteen pharmacies before we finally managed to get it. Even after she started treatment, her breathing became concerning enough that we seriously considered whether she needed to go to the hospital. It's been a difficult experience, and I'm very grateful that she's getting through it. But here's the thing. We had taken precautions. We had tried to minimize our exposure. We'd done what we reasonably could to protect ourselves. And we still got COVID. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things happen. And that brings me to the point of this episode. What do you do when training stops?So, what does all of this mean for me as a triathlete? Well, first of all, you have to stop training when you're sick. And I know that's easier said than done. For me, the hardest part of an illness or injury is often the waiting. You want to get back out there. You want to resume your routine. You want to keep making progress. But your body needs time to recover. In my case, I waited until my fever, body aches, and other acute symptoms had resolved and my energy had returned before cautiously testing the waters. Around day eight, I tried fifteen minutes of easy cycling. That felt fine. The following day, I did thirty minutes of easy endurance cycling. Again, I felt fine. My energy was good, my heart rate seemed consistent with the effort, and I wasn't experiencing the body aches or fever I'd had earlier. I still had some residual congestion, though, and that was a reminder not to get ahead of myself. Every part of me wanted to jump straight into a hard VO2 max session. I mean, I've just come off a period of excellent progress, and I'm eager to get back to it. But that would be a terrible way to approach recovery. COVID can have complications that aren't always obvious during the activity itself. Some people experience cardiovascular problems, and others experience post-exertional symptom exacerbation, where symptoms worsen hours or even days after activity. Feeling good during a short ride doesn't automatically mean you're ready for a hard workout. So I'm being conservative. I'll increase activity gradually, pay attention to how I feel during the session and afterward, and seek medical guidance if symptoms persist or anything concerning develops. Because the last thing I want is to rush back, trigger a setback, and end up losing even more training time. And here's something worth remembering: I have about a year until the World Triathlon Age Group Championships in Hamburg. I don't need to rush. I have time. And even if I lose a little fitness in the short term, that doesn't mean I've lost the ability to build it back. Which brings me to the mental side of this whole experience. The realization that changed how I see setbacksOver the past few years, I've had various injuries. Some have been related to overtraining, and those have prompted me to take a closer look at how I train and recover. I've gone to physiotherapists and chiropractors. I've worked on prehab exercises, stretching, and taking better care of my body. I've made changes because I want to reduce the likelihood of getting injured. And I think that's entirely reasonable. If you notice that a particular behaviour consistently contributes to an injury, it makes sense to change that behavi
