Running With A Cold
The dreaded man-flu often comes calling at the most inconvenient time and there is nothing more frustrating than being cursed with a nasty cold during your marathon preparations. But why are runners more prone to picking up the sniffles and what are the consequences if you run with man flu?
The positive effects that running and regular exercise have on our health are so well documented that the subject often verges on becoming a little tedious, especially for couch potatoes.
Well, sadly, here's something to put a wry grin on the faces of those allergic to any form of physical activity more vigorous than standing in a queue for a Dunkin' Doughnut:
Excessive amounts of exercise can actually depress the immune system and lead to ill health.
For the majority of people who enjoy exercise in moderation, the immune system benefits from an increased resilience to invading bacterial and viral illnesses and there are several theories as to why this happens. These include:
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A temporary elevation in body temperature which helps to fight bacterial growth.
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The ‘stress busting' effect of exercise can suppress the release of stress hormones, which are known to make the body more susceptible to invading antigens.
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Increased physical activity can help to circulate white blood cells around the body at a faster rate, enhancing the efficacy of the immune response.
However, for the serious fitness enthusiast or runner preparing for an endurance race who spend many hours every week in training, the immune system is compromised and weakened by the rise of substances known as catecholamines and glucocorticoids in the blood stream, along with an increase in the stress hormone cortisol.
These rises can leave the body far more vulnerable to infection, especially in the first 2 or 3 hours after training, leaving a runner more to prone to illness than an idle and inactive couch potato. This increased vulnerability is the very reason why marathon runners are often afflicted with colds and upper respiratory tract infections.
So, should you run with a cold?
To be honest, if I could take the 5th on this question and avoid answering it altogether I would.
The trouble is, running with a cold can be dangerous and potentially very damaging to your health. A hard or long training session can, but not always, make a cold worse and cause it to move from your nose and into your chest, hampering your preparations even further.
Once a cold is resident on your chest and you have one of those coughs that irritate everyone around you, training MUST stop and only resume once you have had clearance from your doctor and an infection has been ruled out or killed off by antibiotics.
The general rule for runners as far as colds are concerned is that if the cold is above your throat, ie you have nasal congestion and don't feel you have a fever, then a GENTLE jog should be ok.
If the cold is in your throat or chest, then DO NOT RUN under any circumstances. There have been a number of cases over the years where people have trained with chesty coughs and colds and the virus embeds itself deeper in the cardiovascular system ending up in the heart, with the consequences sometimes being fatal.
The fitFAQS advice for runners with a dose of man-flu is to not run at all until it is cleared up. Even if you take a week off training, it won't take you long at all to be back where you were before and it eliminates any risk of you prolonging the cold and it moving south into your chest. It's just not worth the risk - why not take the week off training and shake it off rather than run the risk of putting yourself off games for several weeks with a chest infection.
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