I woke up this morning feeling like 19%, I know it was exactly 19% because I measure it. Over the last year I have gone deep into the data and got fit, here’s more on my journey from long Covid to second place in a 10K…
Last October, I spoke at How to Web conference in Bucharest Romania (Watch the talk The Modern CEO) and inevitably got COVID. My first time.
We’ve all had it by now, and like many of you I was smashed by it. I was in bed for a week, I lost my taste and was sluggish for weeks afterwards. I was sure it was Long COVID. I didn’t want this to be my future so I pushed myself hard into getting fit. I work with a personal trainer, I started running everyday (I will beat you Dodham’s Lane) building both muscle and strength.
I also bought a glucose monitor, it sticks on your arm and measures glucose levels in your blood in real time.
The graph on the left shows a typical before day, glucose spikes and valleys. Spikes left me feeling sluggish and tired and lightheaded when it was on the way down. I cut out carbs (as a 48 year old man this works) like bread, rice and pasta. Switched to rye bread, more vegetables and the graph on the right was two weeks later (sadly the monitors only work for 2 weeks).
And it worked, I felt great. Ran a ½ marathon in February, came second in a 10k (still can’t quite believe that) in May and of course shed the last of the COVID symptoms.
Fast forward to today and I feel terrible.
I measure my health through my Apple Watch and the excellent Athlyetic and here’s my current recovery status. It’s been low for 3 weeks and falling, I have been back running for a week after my Laser Eye Surgery three weeks back, the thing I haven’t been doing is strength training. I’m loosing muscle mass, my recovery drops, cardio doesn’t stop the decline in recovery (as measured by HRV which has dropped from 76 to 71).
I was talking to an old friend last week about loosing fitness and how easy it is, low recovery means I don’t want to run, or train which leads to recovery dropping even more. The same mechanism I used to feel better is making me feel worse. I can’t train with weights for another two weeks and the longer I leave it the worse my appetite will be.
James Clear in his wonderful book Atomic Habits talks about the two elements of an activity. The commitment and the cadence. I can’t commit to swinging a 16KG kettlebell around but I can keep the cadence of some muscle training up.
So a pair of these will have to do…
I won’t let my fitness go, I want to recover, I need to be patient (this is something I’m working on). If you feel the same way, or have been here, share your story. Maybe it’s time for you feel better than 19% too.