My heart has been an issue for some time now. We thought we had it licked, until it showed up last December at the marathon. Since then my cardiologist has been doing appropriate testing, in order to get a clear diagnosis. I have had an echocardiogram and worn a full time ekg monitor for fourteen days. Nothing to report, yet, but the results of the EKG are not in.
As luck would have it, one of my favorite podcasts, FastTalk, did a Q&A session where one of the questions was on heart arrhythmias. (FastTalk podcast episode 203, Q&A on Cardiac Arrhythmias, Ultra Endurance Training, Cramping in Juniors, Low Cadence Effects, and Workout Analysis Tools. Starts at 6:12) As I listened to the question being asked I kept saying, “That’s me!” Except my rapid heart rate is not as high. During the answer portion – and there is no good answer – they referred to an earlier podcast, episode 40 from March, 2018, which was all about heart arrhythmias. Of course I went back and listened to that one, and it was deja vu all over again. (FastTalk podcast episode 40, Too much of a good thing? Heart arrhythmias in endurance athletes)
The episode 40 podcast was connected to a book, “The Haywire Heart,” co-authored by one of the FastTalk anchors, Chris Case. Another one of the authors, Lennard Zinn, is the subject of the book. Zinn was an avid cyclist until he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. I just started reading it, and it looks good.
There are many types of arrhythmias, and their impact on an individual can vary considerably. In a way I was relieved to learn that this is not uncommon among endurance athletes. Still, now that I know a bit more, I cannot shake off the feeling of frustration that I may have to curtail my activity. I am not saying that I will be sitting in a rocking chair all day, shuffling around the house with the aid of a walker. It is too soon to say, but it may very well turn out that training and competing at the Ironman level might not be possible for me.
That being said, there is overwhelming agreement that athletic activity is good for you. The question is, can you overdo it? If we think of activity as a drug, we can think of volume as a dose. With just about any medication, some is good, too much is harmful.
The current thinking on volume is all about balancing stress with recovery. The more stress the athlete can absorb, the greater the adaptation and the better their performance. Push too hard and the stress/recovery balance goes awry, ultimately leading to the highly undesirable condition called over training. Nowhere in this approach is there any consideration for the long-term negative effects of training, particular on heart health.
Professional athletes typically retire from competition fairly early in life. That might explain why this issue of heart health has not been a bigger story. What has changed? The desire for more of us aging athletes to keep going, for as long as we can.
When I gaze into my crystal ball, which is at present very cloudy, I see myself continuing on my plan until I get a better understanding of what is going on and how best to treat it. In the meantime I can eat healthy, get plenty of sleep, and do the little things that keep me on my path.
In line with that, I have received my blood analysis from Inside Tracker. I will devote a future blog post to that. For now, I will say that overall my numbers look good. The one that is way up in the red zone is inflammation. I wonder if that is related to my heart?