Unexpected jump to a new training plateau
Over a month ago I went on a 3-day holiday. No gym or aerobics training, no supplements or anti-inflammatory drugs, none of my usual foods - a complete break from my normal routine.
During the trip, I felt weak and run down. On return, I developed a cold (rhinovirus, confirmed). Two weeks after, with the cold still present but receding, I eased into gym training. Lower body strength was pretty good, upper body strength noticeably lower.
A week after restarting gym training, with the cold still not quite gone, I tried jogging. I did better than I have done at any time in the past 12 months. Runs on the following days confirmed it.
Somehow, despite the 3 week break, I had jumped to a higher tolerance of aerobic exercise.
I can't explain it. It's not remission - my body still doesn't feel normal (pre-pandemic normal). I'm still impaired, but suddenly less so.
Since getting LC (exercise-triggered air hunger) years ago, I'm used to gaining slow, steady improvements, as I tinker with my supplement and drug stack, exercise patterns, time restricted feeding, and so on. I'm also used to sharp declines in aerobic fitness whenever I take a break. But the opposite happened here.
Thinking back, over the 5 years of LC, I haven't experienced a jump in tolerance like this. Jumps were normal for me pre-pandemic. 8-12 weeks of hard aerobics training would trigger a jump to a higher performance plateau, where, suddenly one day, that "hard" training would feel comfortable.
That would be my new baseline. Increasing the training load again would be the same story: no apparent improvement for 8-12 weeks, then a jump to the next performance plateau.
So it feels like something in my body has been fixed, but something else is still impaired. Whatever is going on, it's encouraging, especially after 5 years.