Most days, I wake up with a headache. It subsides after a few minutes, but it’s a small, persistent reminder that COVID isn’t done with me yet.
My husband is a dentist. He got COVID in December 2020 at work despite wearing two masks, and I got it a few days later. Some hazards are unavoidable.
For context, the month before, I ran a half marathon in 91 minutes with a risky race strategy that decidedly did not pay off (I was shooting for 88). Two weeks after getting COVID, I tried a 20-minute “easy” run at 12:00 pace – and I thought I was having a heart attack. Literally. I went to the ER. And then to cardiology. They determined, after a couple days and what felt like a million dollars, that I had an autonomic nervous system issue (i.e., my “fight or flight” system was out of whack). This happens to a lot of people post-COVID and after a lot of viruses, though many in the medical community are only now beginning to realize this. (Part of the lag is because dysautonomia is more common in women, and when women complain of nonspecific symptoms like fatigue or palpitations, healthcare providers are statistically more likely to attribute them to malingering or psychosomatic causes, but that’s an article for another day.)
I couldn’t run for six months. During this time, I slept about 13-14 hours a day, and when I was awake, my erratic heart rate was exhausting. It felt like I was exerting myself just sitting on the couch, because I was. In a lot of ways, it was like a “normal” running injury; it demanded patience, listening to my body, and sometimes venting to my family. When I started back up, it was June 2021, and I was going on 10-minute jogs with breaks every two minutes. These runs were a turning point for me. I’m 34, and I’ve always had this anxiety that I need to PR again before age precludes the possibility. But these super-slow 10-minute jogs were shockingly pleasant; the sun and the wind and the trees were all there just as they were six months earlier, and they gave me just as much joy as they did when I was fast. I learned that I will still love running when I’m old and beyond all hope of a PR.
“Recovery” has been a physical and emotional ride, having thought in September that I had put post-COVID syndrome behind me only to have it kick me down again in October. But by February 2022 I had gone on some longer runs and done some hard workouts, so I decided to run the Snowman Shuffle 4 Miler as a 15-month rust buster. I like River City Races because they’re always well-run, and they have several races throughout the year of varying distances. My only goals for the 4 Miler were to run smart and have fun. And I did. Maybe they will be my only goals from here on out. (I certainly won’t pretend I’m still not hoping for a PR someday, but at least for now, it’s a stress-free hope.)
My advice after all of this is to remember that everyone is going through something, and my running advice is that you’re not doing it right if you’re not having fun.