Chesty cough and training

Cup-o-fish

In March I signed up to ride Mont Ventoux at the end of July, giving me plenty of time to train.

Since then, however, it has been a real struggle to get any decent training in - firstly I had a chest infection (possibly viral) which took out 5 weeks.

Then I started on the gym bike, very gently (cautiously!) working up from 30 mins gentle to an hour which included 30 mins moderate with hard intervals.

10 days ago I finally got out on the bike for an hour and a half which included a couple of reasonable hills. The next day I went straight down with a cold and now have a tight chesty cough.

I know all the sensible advice is to rest until I feel completely well again. What I'm not sure about is how late I can reasonably start "proper" training again and still do Ventoux - the Cingles (3 routes up in one day) had been a hope, maybe that's out of the question now.... I've a week's holiday in two weeks time so no training then (but hopefully some decent Menorcan sun!) but I have to make a definite decision before the end of the month.

To give you an idea of my normal fitness levels, I try to train on the bike 2-3 times a week and 1-2 times in the gym. I have managed gold times at sportives the last couple of years. (Oh, and I've just turned 50).

supermurph09

I feel your pain here, my training has been compromised by an endless run of coughs and colds, my advice would be rest for 4-5 days, take some medication to hopefully clear the symptoms and then once you feel better start back with some L2 (endurance pace) type sessions of short duration, 45 mins to an hour. Then add in some short sharp efforts in those sessions to begin the rebuilding job.

The end of July is still about 10 weeks away, that's plenty of time to recover and rebuild. Patience is the key here.

davidof

What was your level of fitness before you were ill? If you cycle a lot you'll be fine for one climb if you are happy with that. I've seen ladies on shopping bikes doing it.