I’m a big believer of science in general, but as someone with asthma and an autoimmune disease, I’m an extra big believer in vaccines. Every fall since I landed in the hospital with the flu in grad school in 2008 I’ve gotten my flu shot, and I’ve taken every option for the Covid vaccine available to me. I also still wear a mask on planes, because it’s helped me avoid unnecessary germs, and I tend to get sick more than the average person.

As I started to do the math, I realized the weekend of September 12th was my best option to get my vaccines this year. It’s 3 weeks before my race, so my body has time to both get the full benefit of it and recover from the impact of my immune system working extra. It’s also after my last work trip before my race, which means I can control things a bit more in my life. Finally, I have 3 personal trips and 2-3 work trips in October, and if the “Flu before Boo” is going to happen (getting your flu shot before Halloween sets you up for the best protection), this was it.

So, I signed up for my appointment at Walgreen’s and headed off mid-afternoon on 9/12 to get it done. I also bribed myself with my September Bookshop Challenge book once I was done since it’s just down the street and let myself buy a cold Gatorade and some snacks to eat while I went to pick up my CSA afterward, as well.

I decided to share my experience on my blog Instagram account, because while everyone has a different experience, this is the first time while training I’ve done the double vaccine, and it usually impacts me quite a bit and wanted to share in case others wanted to have some additional info as they make their vaccine plans for the fall.

The first afternoon, I’m still not sure if the headache was because of the vaccines or because I was not hydrated and hadn’t eaten enough post long run earlier in the day. I was also exhausted pretty early, likely because I’d been up at 4:30 am and hadn’t napped after my long run, but decided to take some Advil in case it was the start of side effects, and go to bed early.

I was able to fell asleep easily, and slept until about 2 when I woke up very achy, like when you have a fever. My left arm, where I’d gotten the shots, was also VERY sore by this point. So I got up and took some more Advil, turned the heat on my mattress topper, and was able to fall back asleep for a few more hours. In all, I got a little over 9 hours of not great quality sleep. My overnight HRV dropped by more than 10 points, and my sleeping heart rate was about 5 bpm faster than normal. Not unexpected, but I like having the data from my Garmin to help me track the impact.

I was pretty achy and tired on Sunday so I kept a steady flow of Advil until bedtime and generally took the day super easy and as a full rest day. I was feeling a bit better when I went to bed, and actually slept a little better but HRV was still really low. So I took Monday as another total rest day. I was achy again for about half of Monday. But got to bed as early as I could, and slept SO well, and my HRV rebounded. So by Tuesday AM, I felt really good. I ran and other than humidity it felt good. I was tired Tuesday night and didn’t sleep as well but HRV was still moving in the right direction.

Tuesday night I again didn’t sleep super well (apparently there’s also some astrology stuff that could be driving this, but that’s a whole other post!) but HRV was good and I was excited for my speed work.

Speed work was super hot and humid, and felt really icky. It’s Wednesday early evening as I finish writing this and I haven’t eaten nearly enough because I’ve been nauseated all day. Was this a lingering vaccine thing? No idea but sharing in case it’s connected.

All in all, I will always get my vaccinations. I believe in science. I want to give myself any extra chance to be healthy I can, and I want to protect others. I hope you’ll get yours this training cycle or just this fall if you’re not training. Remember: Flu before Boo!