I’ve just started my build phase and had what seems to be a 24 hour head cold after completing the first Thursday workout of the plan. I noticed a trend in the last few times post ramp test.
12 weeks ago I did the Ramp Test and the following day came down with a high fever for 24 hours. 6 weeks ago did another ramp test and this time no fever but had a head cold that lasted a week (but never really felt like a full on cold, just the early signs then nothing). Now I did the Ramp Test for build and experienced this weird 1 day cold, but again early symptoms and congestion but woke up today feeling fine.
Could these colds be caused from overreaching? Could the Ramp Test be taxing my body too much? The colds I experienced aren’t typical and never seem to fully develop (minus the fever) so I’m just curious if anyone else has experienced this.
I’ve been struggling with repeated colds since starting MV-build about a month ago. The ramp test doesn’t seem to be the problem for me, but the overall toughness of the build plan. Longer sweet spot workouts has always been very hard for me and at the end of them my HR is often really high, more at threshold level.
After every cold I’ve tried to ease Into the plan starting at lower intensity, but when I’ve returned to the regular plan the cold have come back. Right now I’m building my own plan where I keep the real high intensity but replacing the semi-hard stuff (aka SS) with longer endurance rides. I hope this more polarized approach will do the trick for me.
This doesn’t 100% address your specific questions, but I just came down with a mild (I hope) head cold yesterday and found the following article that seems to support the old adage “in the head, go ahead; in the chest, give it rest”:
My cautious take is, I’ll do something below sweet spot, and I’ll keep it to no more than an hour. I bear in mind a recent TR podcast where they discussed the value of easy/recovery rides to maintain consistency and to keep various muscles and connective tissues functioning well.
Hence I suspect the cautious approach toward aerobic efforts in place of sweet spot will still serve you well even if your FTP doesn’t increase as much as you’d like. Better to be on the bike enjoying life than stuck in bed with a nasty illness.