And why does rest make you recover? You'd think that if you could hold down food and get some oxygen in your blood, it would help you get better.

I've been fighting off this crud for awhile and my wife has been bugging me to take a sick day (I have well over 1000 hrs of sick leave so it's not like it would cause trouble at work). On Monday, I told her that my basic rule of thumb is that if riding 40 miles with gear and putting a full day in sounds good, I ride.

Today, just walking the dog nearly wiped me out. I figured I could probably make it to work and through the day, though the ride home would be tough. It did not sound fun, so I took off my gear and went back to bed for a couple hours.

The new plan is to spend the day sleeping and gargling salt water, and my wife is happy about that. While doing nothing certainly appeals to me at the moment, I'm trying to figure out why that should make me better. Normally, that's a great way to wreck your health.

my shoulder hurts like hell from my accident but I still really want to ride! so, I'd say that the answer is "pretty sick."

Your body needs to focus its energy on fighting what's ailing you and it needs time to recover from the damage done. So, rest is good.

My general philosophy is that exercise is almost always better for you than not exercising, but you have to respect the fact that at some point, your body can't multitask and exercise will do more harm than good.

Just as a side note, I'm currently on chemotherapy (have been, on and off, the the past 3 years), and in my experience, there's nothing better to cure the chemo blahs, nausea and fatigue than a nice long bike ride. The endorphins must counter the side effects, because I get between 24 and 48 hours of real relief after a good ride, not to mention the pure joy of riding. In my case, it's the best medicine out there.

in my experience - and based on google searches - if you have a fever, you should rest. if not, it's basically up to you.

if i just have a cold, i almost always ride and i almost always feel better afterward. on one or two occasions, i'm convinced that i actually got over colds faster because i exercised (obviously not scientific, but so what). i don't usually ride hard; maybe 1-2 hours at a pretty moderate pace. but i listen to my body. like you said, if it "sounds good," i'll do it, but if i'm really feeling worn down and crappy, i skip it.

For the life of me I can not figure out why when people are sick they continue coming to work to infect others!

Ok, if you work for a dick boss I kind of get it....But if you have sick time and can use it...THEN USE IT!!!!

BTW like the poster above stated, your body needs the rest to focus energies on getting you better...Sometimes HTFU is not the answer...

Depends on the job you have. Many people can't afford to take off unexpectantly. Things like important meetings, making presentations, getting a proposal in, meeting scheduled due dates for projects, etc., means serious consequences if they don't happen.

Just as a side note, I think the modern office is probably a healthier place than in the past, because we're doing more on computers so there's less facetime and less paper being passed around. Geeze, BJ, 1,000 hours is half a freaking work year.

Really...Life ends if someone is sick??

I work in an office, I know how it goes...If management did their jobs effectively then those last minute scrambles wouldn't occur as often and the world wouldn't end if one person was sick...

Add in the fact that most people are connected via laptop/blackberry/Iphone and staying home is not that tough...

BTW not everyone needs to be there that day....All I know is around here lots of people come in when they are hacking up a lung and they have no last minute deadlines...

Personally I have a laptop...So when I am sick I stay home and work from home or if it's that bad I just laze around in my pj's...

Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine

Yeah -- I tell my wife that if I ever get creamed on the highways, she should just email my boss from my account saying I'm not well enough to work before reporting my death. I figure I earned the leave, so she may as well collect...

If fatigue and pains qualify for a health related absence, then having no pulse and a body pounded into mush certainly should.

Most people are pretty reasonable about this kind of stuff, but scammers use low thresholds as an excuse not to work and hypochondriacs live in their own world.

In my case, the bike ride provides a useful reality check as I'm wondering how sick I could possibly be if I can handle that plus the workday. Usually, just getting your blood pumping will make you feel better. But when I was feeling totally beat less than a mile into the dog walk, I knew it was all over. I was hoping I might be able to rest up and get a short ride in this afternoon, but I can already tell that's not going to happen.

I got that sick last winter. I'd had it creeping in for a while, and then one day it snowed hard and my son wanted to go sledding. We made a family trip out of it because my in-laws have a nice hill in their 'hood. Long story short, running up and down the hill blew me away in under 10 minutes. It was all I could to to stand around and everyone else took over hill duty.

Once you get THAT sick you absolutely have to take a day or two of total downtime.

Tried to race a week after finishing antibiotics for pneumonia. That didn't work so well.

Riding hard with any kind of cold and sinus congestion always makes my head feel like it's going to explode from the pressure.

Fever- forget it.
Upset stomach- forget it.
Stuffy snotty head- forget it.
Intestinal stuff- I'd probably chance it.

Due to allergies I'd never ride if I let this one stop me. Instead, I snort some generic Afrin-equivalent and in less than 10 minutes I'm cleared up for 8-12 hours. It works like a charm on mucus from head colds too. Pro tip: they are serious about the don't use consecutively for more than 3 days.

Well, i had a century ride planned with a friend and when i woke up,i felt like total crap. Popped some pills and took off. On the way back in we had to stop every 5-10 miles because i was burning up and exhausted from fever. I made it the whole ride but i wouldn't recommend riding if you're that sick. It's miserable and you'd be much better off resting so you can recover quickly as possible and then ride.

If you have a cough or maybe a runny nose,then by all means,ride. But anything above that i wouldn't do.

It's kinda funny but I do the same. If I can get myself out on the bike regardless of my health condition, I almost always feel better. I'm sure it has something to do with the fresh breeze of air constantly blowing into my face.

Normally, I like to tough things out, but not in this case. Being miles from home when you have a severe case of the runs is really no fun. It's not quite as bad if there are plenty of trees along the road, but it still sucks. Trust me on this.

There's never any toilet paper around when you really need it.

Uh oh! This thread is veering off into poopdom.

Seriously, my digestive system pretty much shuts down when I exercise, so I've actually found riding to also provide relief from intestinal concerns, though I'm talking mild. Anything serious along those lines is definitely grounds for grounding.

For me the question isn't so much if to ride but how hard and how long. It seems like your primary concern is the commute to work. I would probably take the sick day, and go for a ton of rest. But I also get that other kind of sickness - cabin fever. So I'd probably end up going for a nice long, mellow, low effort ride and still get many more hours of sleep than I usually get.

But for me, cycling is more about healing than anything else. I get chronic stress-related headaches and I'm a downright moody son-of-a-*****. Regular, consistent mileage on the bike has done better for those two "ailments" then anything else I know.

My office is the worst. People come in dripping, snorting, hacking, sneezing and grunting cause the snot wont go down.. its a freaking phloem factory. Boss included. Each one will tell you that they are not going to burn a V-day (our leave is combined) to stay home sick. It drives me nuts because I try to stay healthy and dont need their selfish attitude. Im not a germ phobe by any means but there is a point where its just rude to risk infecting another employee because you dont want to burn time. Now that Im riding again, I get even more pissed because of this attitude. Arghhhhhh!

i have mild allergies and was asthmatic as a kid, so if i try to ride with some sort of respiratory ailment, i come home hacking and wheezing, and will generally be out of commission for the rest of the day. i'll go lift weights if i really feel the urge to be physically active, but it just isn't smart for me to ride.

i'll tough out anything else short of a high fever though. the endorphin rush is fantastic, but i have to make sure to eat about 25% more calories after the ride than i would otherwise.

You guys are lucky, If i tried to tell my boss i wasn't coming into work cause i was sick then he, and the rest of the squad, would show up and physically drag me from my room. They would then exercise me until i either vomited or passed out, and then they would take a weeks pay and make me work until midnite for a week.

if you've got sick days, ****ing take em.

This is not a problem with your co-workers. This is a problem with management/hr.

I'll generally ride through almost any sickness, unless I'm REALLY REALLY sick. I won't do a century, but I'll pedal for an hour. And if I'm really sick, I'll still get on the trainer, for a light 10--15 minute spin. Just to get the blood flowing. Pedaling generally makes me feel better.

A shoulder hurting is not sick. Being unable to walk from the crud is sick. I would rest a few. In the greater scheme of things sick miles are not that helpful.

It's probably just related to the wive's tale, but I always heard "ride a cold, rest a fever".