Brick by Brick Week 6: Good News / Bad News

Let’s start with the bad news first:

The Friday before last, I came down with COVID. I was the last person of the three of us and I didn’t get it until a month after everyone else. I fought valiantly but in the end I succumbed. I took Monday off from work, Tuesday through Friday I worked from home but it was tough. Then I was blessed with a long weekend during which I did next to nothing.

Which brings me to the good news: I’m testing negative today and have 90% of my energy back. I had hoped to write an longer entry with more data today but it turned out I had a few hours of work to make up for last week so I did that today and used my spare energy. So this week will be a quick one.

What I can tell you is this:

I am missing exercise like crazy. I can feel that for sure. This round of COVID was much lighter on physical symptoms – a little sore throat at the beginning, a stuffy nose and that’s about it. But wow, the tiredness. At its peak a couple of days ago (helped a little by NyQuil), I felt completely useless. But once I started feeling better, I began itching for activity. I dreamed of training for ultracycling distances again, getting out on my bike and soaking up the last of the sun and then doing a tropical ultra race. I’m less interested in the race itself but when I was feeling my most exhausted I felt huge regret at the untapped physical potential I had – that I wasted a bit of this summer. I only did one 100km+ ride, and none over 200. There’s still time for both, though, isn’t there? And hey, autumn cycling is SO pretty!

But of course this is the key recovery time so that will start later. Tomorrow’s big test will be to see if I feel too wiped out after taking the bus to work. A day or two after that we’ll try a 10-15 min light spin around the neighbourhood and ramp up a bit after that. I don’t want my enthusiasm to cause bigger problems and longer time off the bike.

On the other side of it, the limiting of social media has been fantastic. I’ve spent less than 20 min/day on TikTok and even less on Bluesky and just a daily news check-in. And that’s left me in quite good spirits. it has also made it so I have read a ton. I spent much of my time reading articles and books while I was sick and I can’t believe how much I read and how much I enjoyed it. Yay!

And that, friends, is all for now. Maybe there will be some mid-week entries to talk about some of the data from the past week or perhaps some of the things I’ve read but for now, I’m just going to enjoy not being sick but also not having to prepare a presentation for work.

Cheers!