I think by now people realise there is some “fatigue” thing going on with me.
I spent a couple of evenings last week doing strenuous wall paper stripping (woodchip), to the point I was trembling when I took breaks. On Saturday I took my new cyclocross bicycle for an 18 mile ride, I’ve been talking about buying one for years so I was determined to try it while the weather was good. Compared to my previous 40 year old bicycle with non-indexed gears and ineffective brakes, its a complete revelation and I love it. There is an 10 mile “time trial” section on the route I picked, Nov 2013 I was doing ~45 mins, Nov 2014 on the old bike, ~39 mins, on the new one, under 34 mins. I was pleasantly surprised!
I spent the weekend in a bit of a daze induced by the exercise which is par for the course, I’m used to that along with the muscle aches.
On Monday night, I became extremely cold and shivery with the “flu” aches and pains and basically didn’t sleep, oddly wide awake yet more unwell than I’ve ever been with proper flu. There were no respiratory or digestive symptoms. It could be a virus although the pattern of flu like symptoms 36-48 hours after exertion with varying intensity makes me lets say suspicious.
The medical profession? They basically don’t have a clue what is going on :(. Lots of tests up to and including muscle biopsy and some interesting results (like spinal nerve damage I seemingly recovered from?!) but nothing which explains it.
There seems to be a finite amount I can do, if I exceed that, there is a price to pay. I still feel horrible 24 hours on, nowhere near as bad as I did but still “not good”, sitting wearing half my wardrobe to keep warm (trail riding base layers are wonderful). I have no idea which events to commit to and need to be careful about being in a fit state for things. On the plus side, the price comes later, not during activity and I guess I have some handle on the pattern. Its also always been there I think, I’ve just tried to be more active/fit and provoked it.
So really, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry :/. If you see me having disappeared a bit from some things, this is why though.