Vincent Bonocci: The Reality of Mono

Vincent Bonacci gets real in this Q&A about his surprise bout with mono smack in the middle of his season. He talks about the physical and mental struggles he faced and the lessons learned along the way—a straightforward look at dealing with mono’s hidden challenges and finding the strength to bounce back.

What did you notice, both physically and mentally, with regard to your training before getting your diagnosis?
I hate to say that I was lucky, but my case was far milder than many of the people I have spoken to. I never felt sick or experienced the extreme fatigue other people deal with, and I never had the classic fever and sore throat. I only noticed something was off when my body felt depleted when I was doing my best to push with everything I had during races. I initially thought I was underfueling, as I had been in Sweden where the food quality was not the best, but after a couple more weeks of eating as much as I could stand and still not being able to push, I realized something else had to be wrong. Mentally, it was the stress of not knowing what was happening with my body that led me to go get a blood panel to try to get some answers.

How difficult was the realization that your training would be sidelined for a long stretch of time? How did you deal with that, emotionally?
This was easily the hardest part; at first I was first convinced that I could beat it quickly and not lose too much of my season. I even managed to have a very productive training/resting block (heavily focused on resting enough, with some light training) over the Christmas break, which gave me hope that I was over it. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I had a couple good races immediately after that block, but the fatigue I experienced thereafter was like nothing I had ever felt before. That is when I realized that I probably would need to sacrifice the rest of my season.

Emotionally, the hardest part was worrying that I would never get back to where I had been, and that gnawed at me for a while. I talked to my therapist quite a bit through this process, and that did a lot for making the recovery process manageable and preserving my sanity. I would recommend that anyone in a high-stress, high-consequence moment in sport find a trusted professional to talk to; it was probably the single biggest help to me in my experience of losing a season to illness.

Did you attempt to keep yourself fit after being diagnosed, or were you so fatigued that that wasn’t really an option?
I did, and I realize now that it was the wrong decision. I think the best thing I could have done when I felt the fatigue after my first races would have been to rest until I felt normal again, but I returned to training too quickly and never got my energy back.

Did you try to improve in other areas, like nutrition, when you were sidelined?
I did. I was lucky to be with one of our team wax technicians, who had been the head nutritionist for Bora-Hansgrohe for the previous couple years, so I picked his brain and learned all about how much vitamin C, Zinc, etc. I should be taking. He also impressed on me the importance of fueling well, because although I was not training, my body was fighting a virus.

What was the best thing you did for yourself during your recovery? What was the worst?
The best thing I did, which was also the hardest, was taking two-and-a-half weeks completely off of all training. Mentally, this was a nightmare, as all I wanted to do in the winter was train, race, and be a part of the sport, but heading home to SLC from Europe and sitting on my ass was what I needed, and I am so glad I did it when I did. The worst thing was easily the last race week I did. I had my worst results of the season, felt a bit embarrassed by my performance, and probably put myself even deeper into the sickness hole. In hindsight, it would have been way better to take more time off sooner.

What did the first few weeks of returning to training look like on the other side of such a long absence? Did you have a coach guiding that process?
The first few weeks felt super weird. After taking such a long break, some of the motions felt a bit unfamiliar. The shooting, in particular, was a bit of a difficult one to get back to in-season sharpness, and my body was definitely a bit out of shape. I noticed this the most in my first intensity sessions, where I could tell that even though my body was rested, my heart wasn’t trained to beat fast anymore, and I was just not quite ready to go past that threshold for a little while. I really only got past that when I went to the end-of-season races in Montana. By the second day of those I felt like I had finally shaken off the rust and could really give it the beans again. I was lucky to have a coach to go through this whole process with me, and I was also tracking RHR and HRV to see how my body was responding to training and rest.

Have you had to change your training to account for losses specific to your illness? For instance, a heavier focus on strength work to make up for decreased muscle mass?
For now I haven't, which is pretty lucky. That being said, the time that I missed essentially took me from the second half of my race season to the offseason, so it is to be determined whether I have some fitness deficiencies that need addressing.

How quickly did your fitness return? Do you think you are back to where you were before mono?
I am definitely not back to where I was, but right at the moment when I was somewhat convinced that my fitness would never come back, I started feeling good again. So while I still feel like I took a long time off (because I did), I also feel it returning incredibly rapidly, and I think I will be ready to mix it up with the best again next season.

What advice would you give to athletes facing a similar extended period of training unavailability?
This is a bit of a stupid saying, but the hardest thing to do is probably the right thing. Any motivated professional athlete is going to believe that they are different and can train through it, but it is much more likely that this is not the case, so take the time off and get better. The hardest thing to believe is that your fitness and skills will come back more quickly than you think, but that is true, so trust in that and sit on your ass until you are ready to get back after it, and be sure to be honest with how you are actually feeling.