How to ease back into running post-bronchitis? (Read 283 times)

Sneaking in from another forum.

Last spring, I had pneumonia, and just when I was on my way to recovery from that, I had a severe bronchitis.

Before it all started, I had run a tough trail 50k without problems. Six weeks later, after the bronchitis had tapered off, I was reduced to barely being able to run 1-3 miles. The wheezing continued for several weeks, and overall, I felt weak and exhausted after short distances already.

All in all, it took me about a month to recover from the bronchitis after the acute infection had healed off. I had to take things really easy during that time, my pace dropped badly, and I had to work up the distances slowly again. I ran often (5-6 times a week, instead of 3-4 times as usual), but shorter distances, and slow as long as I had problems with wheezing and weakness. That worked well, I picked up over time, and ran my 50-miler in October faster than I had anticipated before this all had started.

Continue to take your medication for the asthma/tightness, this is very important. Don't force yourself to do more than feels comfortable, you only risk permanent lung damage and aggrevate your asthma. As much as you want to work out hard, you'll have to cut back for a while and give your body some rest. Do less, but more often, at a reduced intensity. Slowly work up to the pre-illness level again (first increasing duration, then intensity) - once you are off the inhalors (or take them only as prescribed to control the asthma, not for any acute tightness), you can increase intensity and duration again. This will take time, think 4-6 weeks!

Good luck!

Update:  HURRAH!  I finally felt like I could breathe and did 4 super easy miles at 8:40 pace with my breathing totally relaxed.  My stride also finally felt fluid--I'd been having muscle aches from the sickness and they are gone even though I lifted weights yesterday and thought I'd be sore.  So I think I'm getting better.  Doing easy miles was a good idea.