COVID-19 Positive and After Effects

One month after I finished the virtual NYC Marathon, in December 2020, my wife and I were struck with COVID-19.  It was the first variant, before vaccines were available, so it was a nasty variant.  With both of us being physically fit and healthy, we were never in any distress, just really sick for a few days.

I suffered through 48 hours of fever, chills and fatigue followed by 48 hours of severe fatigue and irregular heartrate.  I was out of breath after climbing a flight of stairs.  But this all passed as quickly as it came, and we both felt optimistic that we now had natural immunity for a few months.  

A week later I was back out running.  But running was a bit of a struggle.  I found myself getting out of breath more quickly and at times my heartrate seemed to become irregular.  I assumed I was dealing with some long term COVID effects.  From some research I learned it was not uncommon, and the current wisdom was to get back into endurance exercise slowly and monitor heart rate more closely.   

So, I did.  I learned to run by heart rate instead of just pushing myself as hard as I could.  I started avoiding steep hills and seeking flatter routes.  The Dopey Challenge seemed like a long past fantasy, especially since Disney was only doing virtual events because of the pandemic.