Getting sick ahead of the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon and the Comrades Marathon, is a concern for many a runner. While there are precautions you can take, is a flu shot they best way to keep viruses at bay? Hear Lindsey’s thoughts on this episode of the Ask Coach Parry podcast.

Transcript

You’re listening to the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I’m Brad Brown and we’ve got Lindsey Parry with us once again. Lindsey, we’ve touched on this every now and again and it’s funny. It always sort of comes up as we’re leading in towards winter in the build up to the Comrades Marathon, people not wanting to get sick. But I think this is probably a good time to answer this question. Val Opperman was asking about a flu vaccine. Is now the right time to go for one, yay or nay?

Lindsey Parry: Look, flu vaccines are useful, at the very least they protect you from picking last year’s flu. Often what they do is we tend to get the flu’s from the previous winter season overseas. So that’s what the vaccines are then based on. I would wait until the next vaccine comes out. Unless they’re going to come out very late, but they certainly do help.

Look, I personally don’t use them mostly because I very seldom get sick. I know the flu shot does make you feel a bit grubby for two to three days. If you are someone who is susceptible to getting sick and has gotten sick in the past, then it’s well worth planning 2-3 days where you’re just going to back off your training a little bit and you’re going to hit your flu vaccine.

Ways to avoid getting exposed to germs

There’s lots of other little things that we can do. You’ve got to keep your hands clean. It’s difficult to avoid contact with people all the time, but the main mechanism for us spreading germs around is hands and contact with other people and other objects. If you can keep your hands clean, that means when you do touch your face and your mouth with your hands, you reduce the chance of transmitting those diseases.

Increase your Vitamin C, take 500-1000mg per day and get yourself onto a nice, good multivitamin. Perhaps some immune boosters and make sure you get lots of sleep. If you do those things, then you will go a long way to actually preventing yourself being exposed to the diseases.

BB: Awesome Val, thank you very much for that question. Lindsey, thanks for your time today once again as well. We’re back in just a couple of days’ time with the next edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast. Don’t forget to check out the brand new Ask Coach Parry Cycling.

If you’re into cycling as well, all the details are on coachparry.com. Just click on the podcast section, or the blog section and you can get all the details. A brand new podcast that we’ve launched this week with Coach Parry cycling coach, Devlin Eyden, so go check that out. Until next time, from the two of us, it’s cheers.