also, make sure you get plenty of sleep. Good recovery is the foundation to strong training. And eat well. Even if you're on a weight loss goal, lose it slow and steadily.

Having taken a slightly different job this year I have decided to listen to advice about illness. For the last four or five years any time the lurgy hit I loaded up on anything the chemist had and just kept working. This lead to some protracted periods of low level illness and zero training gain.

This year I did catch the bug doing the rounds after flying back from Europe and being a bit flat from jetlag. I had just started the wind up phase for Busselton WA in December so this really frustrated the hell out of me, but decided to back off for a week. Stopped work, rested, drank plenty, ate well, slept and stopped the training dead. Towards the end of the week I felt heaps better and was game for a big weekend ride but listened to wise heads who advised me to do a light ride only. It took two weeks to build back up but the training since then has gone well.

It is really hard to deal with the frustration of doing nothing but when I really look at the last few years there is no way I ever took adequate recovery and this just perpetuates the cycle of illness. Big improvement this year just on training health alone. My advice, take a good break and let the body rebuild completely.

I agree with Anton and jacmun about resting IF you are already ill.

The shot I was talking about is for prevention. It is actually a vaccine.