Covid

Departing from the usual content I post here, I'm going to record my experience with covid so far as I sit isolated in one room of my apartment in Athens.

Amazingly, I have never had covid until now - at least I never knowingly had covid (and I've always tested if I felt sick or was knowingly exposed). Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 I've always been very careful. I wore masks longer than most people around me. I was among the first to get vaccinated (my state, Maryland, eventually included university professors in the group given priority access to the vaccine before the general public) and have gotten all the boosters that have been available. I've actually lost count of how many covid shots I've gotten: five or six, all Moderna, including most recently the updated booster in September 2023, seven months ago. My son did get covid once, but amazingly my wife (who also has never had covid) and I did not get it from him even though we made no attempt to isolate him from us at home. I actually had started wondering recently whether I'm one of those inexplicably immune people you sometimes read about, since almost every other non-elderly person I know has gotten covid at least once, usually repeatedly. But no, now I know that all along I've had masks and Moderna to thank.

I started feeling symptoms three days ago on the evening of Monday, April 15. I had just returned to Athens earlier that same day from running the Rotterdam Marathon (see my previous post). It's not uncommon for me to get a cold after running a marathon, which is well known to suppress your immune system temporarily. So feeling mild cold symptoms the day after the marathon didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary. The next morning, Tuesday, April 16, I still felt like I had a head cold, but it was so similar to how I ordinarily feel after marathons that I didn't get around to taking a covid test for several hours after waking up (but I never left my apartment that day). That was when I got the positive test: Tuesday at midday. The line indicating a positive result was super thick and dark, and it showed up immediately. Clearly I was shedding a lot of virus at that point. So I told everybody I'd had recent contact with, and whom I knew how to get in touch with, about my positive test (all of whom are testing negative) and started isolating in one room. It's a very nice room, I must say, and I'm very lucky to have covid here of all places, given that I must have covid at all. I have a balcony with views of the Acropolis and access to fresh air without putting anyone else at risk. I usually wear an N95 mask when I occasionally go elsewhere in the apartment, including to the one of our two bathrooms that only I use while I'm isolating. When my wife leaves and our son is at school, I do open windows and walk around the apartment, mainly to the kitchen, without a mask (and after washing my hands). But she's here most of the time. I'm obviously very fortunate for that too, for her most of all, and that I don't need to take time off work since I'm on sabbatical.

So I flew to Rotterdam on Saturday, April 12, the day before the marathon. Then I ran the marathon on Sunday and obviously felt fine. But I started feeling symptoms the day after that, Monday, after returning to Athens. What I've read suggests that the incubation period for recent strains of covid (this is presumably JN.1) is longer than 2 days. The shortest time I've seen mentioned is 3 days, but usually 4-5 or even longer is mentioned. So my timeline suggests that I did not pick up the virus while traveling to Rotterdam, but rather picked it up in Athens in the days before I left for Rotterdam. If so, then my wife and son were probably exposed then as well, but perhaps only I succumbed to it because only I ran a marathon on Saturday that suppressed my immune system. That seems like the most plausible reconstruction anyway. Another possible explanation (maybe?) is that I did pick it up on the way to Rotterdam and succumbed to it earlier than people normally do because of the marathon. Anyway, I hate to think that I may have exposed others to the virus while traveling back on Monday - apparently you are contagious before developing symptoms. But I'm somewhat reassured by the fact that my wife and son are asymptomatic and testing negative, even though I was in closer contact with them, and for longer, on Monday (as well as Tuesday morning in my wife's case) than I was to any anonymous fellow travelers. 

Here is how my symptoms have progressed so far, and what I've been doing to mollify them. For the first 24 hours my only symptoms were head and nasal congestion, and a mild headache. As I mentioned, this is typical for me in the day or two after marathons. For whatever reason, my body tends to produce a fair amount of mucus (sorry), and an uptick in mucus for me does not necessarily mean that I'm getting sick. The head congestion progressed slightly over those initial 24 hours but remained mild. Then, roughly 24 hours after I first noticed any symptoms, on Tuesday in the late afternoon I started getting chills and feeling cold. Now, I had just run a marathon, so of course my muscles were sore. But I'm pretty sure that I also started feeling body aches not related to the marathon around that same time. Every time I had gotten a shot of the vaccine in the past, I experienced a mild fever and body aches (not only at the injection site) the following day. On Tuesday evening I felt almost exactly the same as I always had after getting a dose of the vaccine, except that the nasal congestion was also still there. When I took my temperature and found that I had a fever of 101F, I instituted the old method I learned as a kid to keep fevers down: I took a fever reducer every 3 hours and 45 minutes, so that a higher fever never had a chance to break out - alternating between aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen so that no one part of my body was affected too much. That night (Tuesday to Wednesday) sucked. I barely slept because I felt alternately cold and hot, plus the head congestion had continued to progress and felt very uncomfortable when I was anything close to horizontal. In other words, it felt like I had the flu that night. So far there weren't really any symptoms or permutations of symptoms to distinguish my case of covid from cases of the flu that we've all experienced before (although for me it's been half a dozen years).

The next morning, Wednesday (roughly 36 hours since the onset of symptoms), I stopped the regimen of fever reducers that I had employed overnight and was happy to discover that my fever did not immediately return. I thought maybe that was it and now I was on the road to recovery. I continued isolating but told my wife that I'd take another covid test on Thursday morning if I remained fever free until then, hoping of course that I'd get a negative result and could stop isolating at that point. But over the course of Wednesday it gradually became clear that my symptoms were simply changing, not abating. Mild chills and body aches did return that afternoon, and temperature regulation was still a problem for me over the following night (Wednesday to Thursday). But I don't think the fever came back, at least nothing more than a very low grade fever. The main change moving into Wednesday evening and night was the onset of a cough. The congestion was moving down, again as it does with the flu. But what was different from any case of the flu or other illness that I've experienced is how thick and viscous the mucus was that was causing the cough (again, sorry, but you did choose to read this far). It felt like glue was clogging up my head and coating the back of my throat. Perhaps that is the explanation for the infamously dry "covid cough." Your cough reflex is constantly triggered because this glue-like phlegm is all over the place, but coughing succeeds at moving absolutely none of it even a millimeter. The usual result of a cough also ensued over the course of that night, which sucked even more than the previous night: a very sore throat. I did take ibuprofen once in the middle of that night in order to try to get some of that inflammation in my throat down, but otherwise I didn't take any more medicine.

On Wednesday I drank a pot of herbal tea and as much water as I could stomach over the course of the day in order to move things along and compensate for all the mucus I was losing (it was still thinner at that point). But when I woke up this morning, Thursday, my body felt ravenous for liquid. I drank a pot of tea first thing along with my coffee, in part to sooth my sore throat. I'm on my second pot of tea now as I write this in the early afternoon, and expect to have a third pot later. Very little of this liquid that I've been pouring into my body today is coming back out again. So copious amounts of herbal tea seems to be the best medicine I've hit upon for at least this stage of my case of covid. I'm also about to take a hot shower to sooth my head and throat with steam. I never thought I'd complain about the wonderfully dry air in Greece, but at this unique moment I for once wouldn't mind a bit more humidity. I've read that for many people covid does not progress linearly, but sometimes symptoms (both particular symptoms and any symptoms at all) may disappear only to return days later. And in rare cases where people experience moderate or severe symptoms (mine are obviously "mild" even though they really suck), often these appear only days after symptoms have remained mild for a while. Of course that's statistically extremely unlikely to happen to me, and presumably my immune system (which is evidently quite strong in normal circumstances) is now back at full strength after being suppressed briefly due to the marathon. But at this point I'm bracing for anything and taking it hour by hour. Nighttime sucks but I feel ok during the day and look forward to being able to go outside and walk around again (with a mask) at some point, when my symptoms have abated and I'm testing negative. Until then my main priority is to avoid giving this thing to my wife or son.

If I don't post about covid again, then it's because there weren't any more weird changes in my symptoms and they improved enough that I either was able to leave this room soon or regained enough brain power to do other things besides write posts like this while in isolation. I hope to be back running, and maybe even posting here about running, relatively soon.

Rotterdam Marathon race report

After setting what remains my marathon PR in Philadelphia in November 2015 just days before my 41st birthday, I lived in Greece during the first half of 2016 with my wife and son while I was on my first sabbatical. I still had a running coach back then, who recommended that I consider doing the Rotterdam Marathon while I was in Europe that Spring. As it happened, I decided instead to register for the Paris Marathon but got injured two weeks beforehand and couldn't run it, although we still went to Paris and had a nice time. But my coach had planted the idea of running Rotterdam in my mind, and the idea was still there when my second sabbatical was approved for this current Spring. I won't cross the Atlantic just to run a race, but living in Athens again this year gave me the opportunity to run Rotterdam without crossing more than a single time zone. So, two days ago on April 14, 2024, I finally ran Rotterdam and finished in 3:10:18, taking five minutes off the times of my previous two marathons. It was the fastest marathon I've run since my 3:09:43 at the Buffalo Marathon in 2019 and my fifth fastest overall after 20 marathons.

To compare apples to apples with my previous post on my previous marathon (Rehoboth), here's my weekly mileage for the 16 weeks leading up to Rotterdam: 40, 40, 31, 45, 32.5, 50, 44.5, 55, 50, 11, 36, 45, 55, 28, 48, 43 (race week including the marathon). Average: 40.9 miles per week. 

That's almost exactly the same as the average of 41.4 miles per week that I ran before Rehoboth. Another similarity is that my training for both races was sidetracked for a couple weeks, but this time it happened much later in the cycle: 6 and 5 weeks before the race, which effectively led to a double peak build-up and a lighter than usual taper.

I think there are four factors that enabled me to run faster in Rotterdam than in Rehoboth. First, Rotterdam is simply a faster course. I haven't run Berlin or Valencia, but it's difficult for me to imagine a significantly faster course than Rotterdam. It's almost completely flat, with the only real elevation coming from a bridge that you run over twice: right after the start, and then from the other direction in mile 17. Plus the crowd support at Rotterdam is absolutely fantastic. I haven't run New York, but I have run Boston and I think the crowds in Rotterdam are at least as strong as at Boston. Names are printed on bibs at Rotterdam, and there was not a mile in the race when random spectators didn't encourage me by name at least once if not many times.

Second, I'm a bit further away from my hamstring injury now. Rehoboth was my first marathon back and I was still proceeding somewhat gingerly in training while doing hamstring exercises 2-3 times per week. But I actually stopped doing hamstring exercises in January when we came to Athens. That wasn't my plan, and in fact I plan to get back to doing them maybe at a lower level now that the race is over. But my hamstring has been fine during this whole build up and during the race. Plus, just having more training under my belt since taking time off with the hamstring tear helps, even if my training had been largely the same.

But in fact my training has differed in a couple ways. The third factor that I think enabled me to run faster is that I did more and better speedwork before Rotterdam than before Reboboth. Again, my hamstring held me back before Rehoboth particularly when it came to speedwork. But after Rehoboth I started doing shorter (400-800 meter) intervals in between threshold runs, and I think largely because of those shorter interval workouts my threshold runs tended to be ~10 seconds per mile faster after Rehoboth than they were before. My plan going forward is to emphasize speedwork over the summer before returning to marathon mode in the Fall, now that it seems my hamstring will let me, both because I miss running fast and because I think a 5k-10k focused block is key to setting yourself up for a good marathon cycle (as long as you also get enough rest). I don't think it's a coincidence that my threshold pace and my marathon race pace improved by roughly the same amount.

Fourth, the most important part of marathon training itself is of course the long run, and I'm a firm believer (sorry, I hate that phrase) that you need to be hitting your goal race pace regularly during long training runs. I just wasn't able to push the pace of long runs much before Rehoboth, but once this latest cycle really got going in early February most of my long runs featured at least some miles at the average pace that I ended up running in Rotterdam (7:16) or faster. The first couple were progression runs, then I did 5 x 2 miles on / 1 mile off with the on paces around 7:00 and off around 8:00. Then, after a couple easy long runs when I got sidetracked for a couple weeks, three weeks before the race I did 22 miles with 8 miles progressing from 7:18 down to 6:57. Even more of this would be better, but doing this sort of thing at all put me in a different league of fitness than I was in for Rehoboth.

During my last hard long runs it seemed that the sweet spot was somewhere around 7:10-15 pace. I could run sub-7:10 at the end of long runs but it would cause my heart rate to increase too much, which means that I wouldn't be able to sustain it in an actual marathon. So I went into the race thinking of 7:10 as a kind of speed limit at least during the first half. I planned to go out at 7:13 average, which is 3:10 pace minus a couple seconds per mile to correct for overdistance. My A goal was to beat my 3:09:43 at Buffalo in 2019,  if I could pick it up a little in the second half. My B goal was to run 3:10, if I could just hang onto an even split. I didn't really think much about what to aim for next if 3:10 slipped away, but I definitely wasn't going to be happy unless I ran a good bit faster than 3:15.

Here is how the race transpired according to the mile splits recorded by my watch (which differ slightly from Strava):

Mile 1 - 7:05

Mile 2 - 7:10

Mile 3 - 7:10

Mile 4 - 7:13

Mile 5 - 7:10

Mile 6 - 7:10

Mile 7 - 7:12

Mile 8 - 7:10

Mile 9 - 7:07

Mile 10 - 7:09

Mile 11 - 7:06

Mile 12 - 7:07

Mile 13 - 7:12

Mile 14 - 7:08

Mile 15 - 7:08

Mile 16 - 7:13

Mile 17 - 7:18 (includes bridge)

Mile 18 - 7:09

Mile 19 - 7:15

Mile 20 - 7:12

Mile 21 - 7:10

Mile 22 - 7:15

Mile 23 - 7:24

Mile 24 - 7:35

Mile 25 - 7:29

Mile 26 - 7:29

Final .36 - 7:13

Finish - 3:10:18

As I mentioned, you cross a bridge right after the start in mile one, which takes you up and then down. I realized when coasting down the back side of the bridge that I had run up the front half a bit too fast. But no worries. After that I settled comfortably back to between 7:10 and 7:13 through 8 miles. I felt good and this was easy, as of course the first third of a marathon should be.

Then you can see that I picked it up a notch for the next 7 miles or so. Initially, I think the enthusiastic crowds just carried me a hair faster. But I was still feeling great and started thinking this might be a good day. Just as I was telling myself to stick to my plan through halfway, though, during mile 10 I was surprisingly passed by the 3:10 pacers. I knew they were running too fast and was telling some of the people following them that they were actually running 3:08 pace. But I figured that since I was feeling good I could afford to run along with them just a few seconds faster than my planned pace. Sure enough, I hit halfway in 1:34:03 (and I was well behind the 3:10 pacers at that point). The pacers briefly slowed down at halfway but then resumed their 3:07-8 pace. I felt so good through 15 or 16 miles that I had to talk myself into not running even faster until after 20 miles.

But it got harder before I reached 20 miles. The 3:10 pace group seemed to fall apart on the bridge in mile 17. I don't know what happened to the two pacers at the front of the group, but I never saw them again after the bridge. It turned out that there was another, smarter 3:10 pacer further back, who I saw going up the front end of the bridge. But then I pushed ahead down the back end of the bridge and didn't see that pacer again until the final kilometer of the race, when he passed me with a tiny handful of runners in tow. At that point I thought I was probably still going to finish under 3:10 and didn't worry about trying to stick with this little group.

The five miles after the bridge and before my pace slipped (18-22) felt harder and erased any idea of speeding up. But I still thought I could hold on and finish around 3:08-9, or maybe even 3:07 if I could somehow summon a kick at the end. Alas, it was not to be, though. The familiar marathon fade finally hit me in mile 23, and from then on it took everything I had just to continue running at all. I actually didn't slow down that much - less, in fact, than I did in Buffalo, where my fade occurred over 5 miles and peaked at 7:56 in mile 25. I haven't gone back and looked at the splits of every marathon I've run, but I may have faded less at Rotterdam than in any other marathon except my PR race, which is the only marathon I've managed to negative split. So I'm not kicking myself over it. I hung in there and ran 3:10. Beating my Buffalo time by running only 36 seconds faster really would have amounted to hitting it out of the park that day.

I can't think of anything to criticize about the Rotterdam Marathon, except maybe that like some other European races it started at 10:00am. Why such a late start? Otherwise, some other races might be as good in their own ways, but you really can't get much better than this. By the way, flying into Amsterdam and taking a train down to Rotterdam is super easy and fast. Ask me about it for details. I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Rotterdam - Central Station, which is right by the finish line. The start line is a mile or so away, but I was definitely happy to see my hotel right after crossing the finish line.