February 1, 2014
Where to begin . . .
On December 30th, I did a "sit down" with my coach. I was becoming so confused about what we were doing. It just seemed like a jumble of different types of workouts with no rhyme or reason. Part of me told myself to just do what my coach (who I trust) said to do. Be coachable. But another part of me knew that if I understood the overall plan and the different types of workouts, I would be more eager to do them and put more into them. So I asked my coach if we could just talk instead of working out. He agreed. And I learned that there are different kinds of runs that are done for different purposes: 1) distance runs, 2) interval runs, and 3) tempo runs. We also discussed my crazy heart that has a hard time staying in zone 2 (120-130 for me).
So . . . on December 31st, I did a run that made me proud. I ran 3 miles of intervals by running up the 12 hills in our neighborhood. On the uphills, my heart would go into the 140's and then I'd walk until it went below 120. Once below 120, I'd do an easy run keeping it below 130 until the next run. What was so cool is that I was controlling my heart rate. Pretty cool. I came home completely pleased with running and with life in general. I had conquered the heart.
Once home, I was sitting at my desk writing to my coach about conquering my heart rate, when all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, my heart started beating wildly. Irregular and fast. I quickly put my heart monitor back on and found that my heart rate was steady at 150 when I was just sitting there with a LOT of irregular heart beats. So much for conquering the heart. All I could think of was the RUN FROM HELL a few weeks earlier and I figured I should get this checked out. I didn't have pain and I wasn't scared. I just wanted someone to do an EKG so I could know what was going on. Since I didn't think I was having a heart attack, my husband and I went to our doctors' walk-in clinic.
The walk-in-clinic was a hoot. During my run, I had set the heart rate alarm to go off at 130 so I would stay in zone 2. I still had the heart rate monitor on in the clinic and every few seconds it alarmed. So there I was at the check-in desk with alarms going off every 10 seconds! They quickly took me back to an examination room. I learned that heart patients usually go to the emergency room rather than the walk-in clinic. They freaked. The next thing I knew, they brought in oxygen and a defibrillator. They then decided I should go to the emergency room. Since it was nearby, my husband just drove me there. I refused to be pushed in a wheelchair. After all, I am a triathlete!
In the emergency room, the techs hooked me up to an EKG machine and blood pressure cuff. My heart rate was still around 150 with irregular beats. I saw the doctor who asked a bunch of questions. I remember telling her that if I couldn't run any more, I would be "heartbroken." Then, the doctor was called away to address some trauma patients. She was gone for about 1 1/2 hours and in that time, my heart rate came down by itself. The doctor decided to do some tests and I learned that the RUN FROM HELL was not a heart attack (phew), my electrolytes were good, my thyroid was fine, my heart was the right size. The only thing the doc noticed was that my mouth looked dehydrated so they pumped some fluids into me and sent me home with instructions to see my regular doctor. One really cool thing: The medical staff kept referring to me as an "athlete" when describing me to each other! Wow, that was cool to hear.
So, my regular doctor said I had a atrial flutter and referred me to a cardiologist - electrophysiologist. I LOVED this doctor. The first thing he said to me was, "I don't think we are going to do anything." Woohoo!!!! He guessed that my a-flutter was just fluke. He said if it happens again, it is not an emergency. I am not going to fall over dead. I should just sit down and rest and if it keeps up for 6-8 hours, I should see him. But, to be safe, he wanted me to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours and do a stress echocardiogram.
The echocardiogram was fun. By the time I could get in, I hadn't run for a couple of weeks and it felt SO good to run. The treadmill keep going faster and inclining. I asked at the beginning when I should stop and was told "whenever you feel like stopping." At 10 minutes, my heart rate was 160. I was winded but not as bad as I am when I finish a race. The tech told me that I was at 10 minutes, and I just got the impression that she thought I should stop. Since my heart was at 160, I figured they had the data they needed so I stopped. Don't get me wrong - I was winded. But I wasn't at that place I get toward the end of a race where my body says STOP, STOP, STOP - and my brain tells my legs KEEP GOING. I write this because later the lab cardiologist scolded me for not running until I couldn't take another step.
When they were doing the second echocardiogram with my run beating 160, I had the same pain that I got during the RUN FROM HELL. I was SO pleased that this happened so we could determine what it was. The lab's cardiologist later told me that he saw nothing in my heart that would have been responsible for that pain. Woohoo!
My own cardiologist's office called a few days ago to say that I had "passed" my tests and that I could start exercising again. Woohoo!
But . . . I have been re-engaging in exercise gingerly.
I did a very slow 3 mile run at the YMCA last week as my first test. So far so good. I swam a slow mile last night and ran another slow 3 miles this morning. I'm hoping to bike tomorrow. Once I've done this for a couple of weeks, I'll get back in touch with my coach and start seriously training again.
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