how do pro racers avoid getting sick after races, especially strage races?
 

I seem to get sick quite often after long workouts, so my questions is just a more interesting way to ask how does one continue training and avoid getting ill afterward. I know that pros go to great lengths to avoid getting sick, but how in the heck do they do it. I think of the TdF or Giro and grueling stages followed by pros having to get through masses of people until finally reaching their hotel rooms. I get on a bus after a workout or head to campus and someone sneezes and I walk of the bus with a cold. How do they - or anyone on the forums - avoid getting sick? I am experiencing far too many set backs, this most recent virus lasting over a week! I am taking Vitamin D, C, a one a day. WTF can I do?

Thoughts?

M

Eat right, stay hydrated (water), get enough rest and sleep, and add zinc and Echinacea to your list of supplements. Don't train every day. Rest days help your body recover and rebuild.

Don't be a wuss.

Who says they DO avoid it? They may just recover faster and better.

For me, the key is moderation and not guzzling/slamming anything. Nothing heavy, not even afterward. Keep the heavy stuff for at least 2-3 hours after your pulse returns to earth.

I thought from the title you meant sick as in throwing up after going too hard or something. But if it's viruses and stuff, part of it may just be you, part of it may be the surroundings. I'm surely no pro, but I'm very seldom sick, either, and it's not due to vitamins or anything. Or another way to look at it, if they spent too much time being sick due to viruses, they just wouldn't be pros.

haven't been sick in three years.

i swear by this stuff. try it. either everyday or when you're at higher risk. ie with sick people or run down a bit.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...KsK8rAeIveiNBA

I'm not sure zinc and echinacea add anything (I don't know that they don't; I've just never tried them), but the rest of this is dead on. It's hard to tell from your brief description, but it sounds like a pretty textbook case of overtraining, plus maybe some mild hypochondria (you're obviously thinking about this a lot, which can lead to obsession).
Also, the pros are in much better shape than you are, have time to train six hours a day, and the top ones have people to do all the niggling things that occupy your time, from cooking and cleaning to maintaining the bikes, paying the bills, giving massages etc. And to cap everything, they may have genetic gifts you don't. A lot of us could work as hard as Lance Armstrong ever did and never come close to achieving what he did.

Many of them do get sick, it's just a fact of life when riding and training hard every day in all conditions. In the Tour of California lots of riders got sick because all of the cold and raining weather. They don't check the forecast and say screw it man...

Anyway, training hard supresses your immune system, so if you are already prone to being sick then lots of hard efforts without recovery time in between will take its toll.

I rarely get sick, but when I do it's usually right after a hard training block.

I'm sure The TDF rides benefit from the fact that they are allowed to use intravenous methods after a day of racing to rehydrate their bodies.

Yeah, I gotta go with intravenous fluids and nutrition. If I train and train, I finally hit a point where my body isn't willing to keep my electrolytes balanced.

Immediately after a workout, get yourself out of your sweaty clothes. Chilling yourself after a hard workout is a pointless stress on your system.

And might some of them have that tolerance of pain, most of us don't have.. We know for sure some of them race with diarrhea .