Contributed by Kate Bradford
This season is notorious for viral illnesses wreaking havoc on training, more-so if you have children who like to bring illnesses home from school. It’s a juggle to add in simply ‘staying well’ and one that can be incredibly frustrating. However, there are some ways we put ourselves in the way of viruses and I’m here to talk about it. As a triathlon coach and Advanced Nurse Practitioner, I have a particular interest in the health of athletes.
As athletes who train regularly at high intensity, you might have an added risk factor for viral illness. Intense training weakens the immune system for a short period of time afterwards.
'Exercise is generally associated with benefical effects on pre-existing autoimmune diseases'
However, the good thing is that regular, moderate intensity training actually strengthens the immune system overall! People who train sensibly experience better health, recover more quickly from illness and experience lower inflammation levels in general.
For between 3 and 24 hours after an intense training session, the immune system experiences suppression, with the peak of this being around 2-4 hours afterwards. There are some things which might extend the length of time that you experience this, putting you at higher risk. These include, repeated high intensity sessions without good recovery, poor sleep, under-fuelling and poor nutrition and increased total stress.
This means that there ARE some things we can do to keep ourselves healthy.
During this season (and actually at all times, but that’s a different conversation) recovery should be very high priority. Eating and resting well is not optional if you want to maintain your health as well as your training intensity. The mantra of all things training should be ‘control the controllables’. Our ‘controllables’ during the winter are our training, nutrition and recovery. Things we can’t control include children coming home sick from school or a bug going around the office.
We can support ourselves by eating a healthy, varied and balanced diet, with well timed carbs to support training. We can optimise sleep hygiene and where possible, training could be structured towards having an easier day after an intense training day. If you are experiencing recurring illnesses, you either have a toddler at nursery or you might be overtraining and under-recovering. Recurrent illnesses might be a sign to check in with yourself to see if there are any red flags you can notice. Try to be objective, the nature of people who do endurance sports is that most feel they are never doing enough.
'The benefits of exercise to immune health become greater with age, particularly after your 50's'
In addition, we can be aware of ‘total stress’ - I feel this is an area that most people forget. If you are having a very busy time at work, have life stress at home and you are also training at high intensity, your body may not have capacity for all the stress it is under and your recovery might be affected. This doesn’t mean that you have to take loads of time off, it might just mean you need to recalibrate for a couple of weeks in order to ensure consistency, rather than burning yourself out.
Listen to your body.
Other precautions we can take that we all know about include washing hands regularly, resting when sick and avoiding people who are symptomatic. We got really good at this during covid but this seems to be forgotten now. If you use public transport, carry some hand gel and use it when you get off.
I particularly want to touch on resting when sick. This seems to be particularly difficult and it’s an interesting thing to observe. People will happily listen to their coach when they say to run 10 lots of 400 metres around a track, something bound to elicit intense discomfort, but find it more difficult to listen when rest is suggested. It almost seems like rest causes more discomfort! Training through illness is worn as a badge of bravery rather than what it is - a bit of a dunce hat. One week off of training will not lose your fitness. However, training through sickness and prolonging symptoms is likely to affect your training for much longer. Always remember the end goal: longevity, making the start line, still being able to do this when you’re 80. In the grand scheme of things, one week, even two weeks is nothing. You’re less likely to have post-viral complications and be able to get back out there sooner!
I want to remind you that you only get one body. It is our responsibility to respect it, to feed and nourish it and to rest it. As endurance athletes, you push your body to the limit, you should listen when it is telling you to slow down or it won’t listen to you when you’re asking it to speed up.
If you're ready to start feeling great and get started on the route to reaching your goals this winter, find Kate on instagram @kates.coaching or on Spotify at The Accomplish Coaching Podcast.
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