The Americano Can Wait

Gordo started coaching me on October 1, 2025. Everything has been smooth for about 3 months.

For Christmas holidays, we planned a family vacation in Southern Spain. A lot of sun, a lot of free time with the family, nice trails, a lot of training hours outside.

Boy, I was so wrong.

December 21, Sunday

We arrived at Alicante, nice hotel, a beautiful 5 km long beach, feels like paradise after running on icy roads of my village in Norway.

Bike sessions were replaced with running. I didn’t want to take the bike with me since it was a family vacation with kids. Possibility is there, but one should keep in mind a psychological effect of a big bikebag on children. The big bikebag can shift the focus on “who is important”. I learned this lesson from a very experienced athlete.

WEEK ONE

This was the first week of vacation. Good 4-5 days. I really enjoyed running on that waterfront. A strong americano before each run. A low hanging happiness. I even got to know a cafe owner and, we chatted everyday.

And, after 4 days, BOOM!

A virus hits all of us in the family. First kids, then wife, and then me. In a dining hall my kids were coughing, many other kids were coughing and many adults were coughing.

Nights with fever up to 39.5°C (103.1°F), no proper sleep, coughing, aching. I don’t like that. Especially when the kids get sick. It is painful to watch, but it is part of the deal. A lot of hours inside the hotel room, watching cartoons and taking paracetamol.

A viral upper respiratory infection usually goes away in 3-4 days. I felt that was the case. However, it got worse.

WEEK TWO

The second week brought no relief. We came back from Spain. I tried to get some movement, but it was difficult. Fever, headache, no appetite.

All signs were indicating a secondary bacterial infection, sinusitis being the most probable diagnosis. I started a course of antibiotics. Zero training for a whole week. Thankfully, I was still on vacation from work.

WEEK THREE

Finally, I started feeling well. I started working at my clinic. Energy levels started increasing but still not fully recovered.

Gordo placed limits on how much I could train:
- No more than 30 minutes of training.
- The heart rate had to be capped at 150 bpm during the sessions.

The last 57 min session was my ego

WEEK FOUR

I felt recovered, and started gradually increasing the volume with two short sessions over two days. On day 3, my energy tanked and I had to cancel the run session. I just fell asleep with my son.

By the end of the week, volume increased slowly and cautiously — but not much running.

WEEK FIVE

I am back at my normal weekly volume, HR still capped at 150bpm.

You can read about the lactate test in this post.

At the end of the week, I did the lactate 1 (LT1) test on the bike. The lactate started rising at relatively lower efforts. It was much higher than expected. Gordo suggested that I should keep HR capped at 150 next week too. So, I did.

WEEK SIX

I got sick on December 26th. Now it was January 26th. It has been a month. I was feeling fully recovered, and back to my weekly volume.

I did the lactate 1 (LT1) test again and this time it was different results. Look at the graph below. The tests are one week apart. Even though RPE, average and max HR are similar, the lactate results are very different.

Take home messages

• It took FIVE WEEKS to get fully recovered from a sickness that “lasted about a week".

• Training is stress. After illness, the body has already been under significant stress, and adding training on top too soon would be overdosing. Capping HR is a simple, effective way to control the dose.

• Keep your ego on (a short) leash.

• Experience has so much to say. I don’t know what would have happened if I jumped back to normal training after one week.

• Playing a long game helps. In the context of a 1000-day training, two weeks of “no training” is not a big loss.
  

Stay healthy,
Bek