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Andy Reed
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Hi there – and thanks for the question. I am going to assume a relatively mild case of COVID, and that you were healthy, with a solid base of training leading up to the infection? COVID19 illness with significant cardio-pulmonary symptoms needs additional testing (ECG, stress, Echo etc) and clearance by a physician, before return to training, so if this was more than just a mild illness, you should get things checked out.
If this was a mild illness, then in terms of managing return to sport post COVID, the consensus is to limit intensity initially; I recommend keeping your HR in Zone 1 for the first 3 days, with a gradual increase in volume, keeping in Z1. If no issues, you may then resume your prior training regime, up to your AeT. By day 10, you should be back on track, so you should be able to get in a solid month of training before your climb. To answer your question, then, yes, I would focus on Z1 hiking.
I would not try to ramp up the volume too quickly ‘to make up’ for missed training. You have more to lose by doing too much too soon, than by starting slow and easy, and ramping up gradually. Cramming in additional volume, is just likely to leave you feeling fatigued. Remember to monitor for any worsening or new symptoms – cough, chest pain, dizziness, palpitations etc, and don’t hesitate to get things checked out by a physician. Problems for most fit athletes are fortunately very rare, so in all likelihood, you will be fine as you resume training. Good luck!
A couple of thoughts on this one. My advice for this particular event would be to gradually increase your easy volume over adding in an extra ME workout. It appears that you have some strength training already programmed into your training, and the Bryce 50 isn’t going to have a ton of vertical (I’ve run the 100 mile edition). There is a fairly substantial long and relatively flat section here, and I think in terms of specificity, more Z1/2 would be the best bang for your buck, as it is for almost all ultra events. If you can get in 3 or 4 downhill training sessions in the final 6 weeks, that should get your quads ready for the downhills. You don’t need a lot of this downhill stimulus however, and remember it does risk injury, so don’t go crazy – try to mimic your race pace and overall grade if possible. Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
Something I have found very useful for some athletes is monitoring HRV – the app HRV4training is the best. A few good studies have looked at HRV guided training, and anecdotally I have used this myself. I use HRV as ‘one last final check’ – a green light if you like, before going hard. Once a good baseline HRV reading has been achieved (several months is ideal) you can then use HRV with decision making. If you’re feeling good, and the effort is easy, as in the above scenario, AND the HRV is good, then I believe that is an IDEAL time to add in some intensity, whereas if the HRV is a bit off, I would tend to hold back. I would certainly not let HRV guide all of my training, but it’s a good confirmation that all systems are go!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31490431/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26909534/
