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Hi all, feel ok, but got a great big hacking bark of a cough, bit of a wheeze as well. Thing is I've got a couple of hours free and I'm dying to get some miles in today, should I ride or should I rest up? Frustrating as I'm always struggling for ride time.
If it is a chesty cough you should not really put your respiratory system under more stress by exercising.
Is the rule not anything above the neck and you can go for it?
Edit: just read the wheeze bit, may be better not then. 😥
Is the rule not anything above the neck and you can go for it?
I remember it as:
If it's in your head, go ahead.
If it's in your chest, give it a rest.
Along with the usual disclaimer that if you follow that advice but die, then you probably shouldn't have.
Was't there a scare story/report/annecdote of some chap going out with a basic chest-infection type of infection and ending up with heart damage from training through it? I always back off if its anything more than a snuffly nose. But that's probably why I'm unfit.
Just go for it. I developed one of the chesty/wheezy coughs a few months back, bringing up thick green, gungy phlegm occasionally. As I was "training" for the Etape Caledonia and that had already been impacted by the long winter, I didn't really have any option but to carry on cycling. It was fine and I murdered my target time for the Etape, so it didn't do me any harm.
Summary: MTFU 🙂
Well, after a day in the office (frustratingly) I don't give two hoots about my long term health, the bikes prep'd and kit ready for a dawn thrashing tomorrow. I'll wake up half the valley with my barking though!
Wait till it clears from your chest.
I have just caught a ruddy cold and want to train/ride but I have to wait till its clear.
It sucks, but wait till it clears-why put off another week instead of 2 months of complications.
If you are riding hard enough to make you bark you are doing no good at all.
You'll irritate your chest from coughing that will make you cough more and prolong the agony.
Go for a ride if you must, but make it a very easy ride. No real effort. Not breathing hard.
Rest a few days now to get rid of it, or keep it for months....
I've got a cough. Took it easy last week to give it a chance to clear - waited until I didn't wake up coughing in the night before starting training again. Still have the cough, but it's now getting better, and I've not really missed too much. Also taking Co-codamol occasionally which helps a lot with subduing the irritation.
Not so much of an issue now, but when I had a cough back in Feb/March (it lasted 4-5 weeks) I carried on exercising, but wore a Buff over my mouth so I wasn't breathing cold air.
as tempting as it maybe, just have a rest and let your body recover.
better to have a day or two off the bike now, then a week or two later
A gentle ride is fine, working hard is not. Keep the heart erate and weffort low if you do go out
there is a link (rare) between sudden adult death and exercising with a respiiritory infection