My heart just wasn’t in it, literally and figuratively. If you have been following this blog since last December, you know that the first half of this year has been an exploration into what is going on with my heart. What I know so far is that I have a type of arrhythmia known as Premature Atrial Contractions (PACs). The good news is that this type of arrhythmia is not dangerous. I can continue to be active and not worry about having a heart attack. There are other types of arrhythmias that can trigger a fatal heart attack or cause blood clots which go on to cause serious or fatal results. The bad news is that when my heart acts up, I have low energy. This happens most often in a run, but it does happen on the bike and I see no reason for it not to turn up while swimming.
Without going deep into the weeds, I just want to say that the heart is a very complex organ. To pump well the muscles must contract just so. Not all at once. Timing is everything. Picture a marching band. What happens when the drum line gets out of sync with itself? The clarinets march to the snare drum while the trombones march to the bass drum. The band is no longer in sync. Every time the heart’s upper chamber (atrium, the “A” in PAC) contracts early it’s like the bass drum getting ahead of the beat. The smoothly moving ensemble falls apart.
To help understand what is happening I purchased a Frontier X heart rate monitor. This device is worn just like any standard heart rate monitor chest strap. It supplies a standard HR value via Bluetooth to my Garmin watch, and it records a continuous EKG strip that is downloaded to my phone, then up to the cloud, after a workout. Expensive, but worth it to see all those PACs scattered across the charts.
So far, I have learned two things from looking at the Frontier X data. First, the rate of PACs has nothing to do with the type of workout or the intensity. I do not have enough examples to draw a reliable conclusion, but I have compared identical bike workouts done on the turbo trainer where one has a ton of PACs and the other, just a handful. Second, I typically see a flood of PACs when I go from a hard to easy effort, such as the end of a hard interval entering the recovery portion.
My strategy for this race was to swim well and go all out on the bike in order to leave enough time to complete the half marathon by power walking rather than running. In my mind I pictured the end of the bike segment looking like those pro riders at the end of a time trial, crossing the finish line and falling over. Recover on the walk from T2.
From the moment Pattie and I arrived in Kona on Wednesday her hip was so sore she could barely walk. At first I thought it was a simple strain, but there was no acute event to explain it. She tried her best to overcome it, but there is only so much you can do when your body is screaming at you to stop. By dinner time we noticed the leg was swollen. The next day she said it felt better, but she was obviously in a lot of pain at the expo and could not walk home. An aside, Ironman athletes are a nice bunch. Someone driving up the road saw Pattie limping and offered us a ride. I went and got our car.
There is a condition called Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) that athletes are warned about, especially on long drives or flights home after a hard race. A blood clot in the leg, painful by itself but very dangerous if it breaks up and gets to the lungs. By Friday night I began to worry that this is what Pattie had. I did not want to tell her because I did not want her to worry, while at the same time I did not like the idea of being out on the course should her condition deteriorate.
Wait, it gets better. On race day morning Pattie was moving her rented E-bike around to the front of our town house, in the dark, and fell. Same hip, plus a bruised elbow. As planned, I walked to the bike corral while she rode down to the beach, where we met up for the start. I tried to stay focused but could not escape feeling bad to leave her alone all day. Bad enough to be in so much pain, but things could get a lot worse.
I tried my best to settle into a smooth swim, but for most of the course I felt like my arms and legs were being controlled by different brains. My breathing was getting desperate, and I knew that if I continued like that I would be crawling out of the water, which was how I felt at my first Honu. That feeling that you cannot possibly ride your bike, even a hundred yards.
I was in wave two, so more than a thousand swimmers were behind me. I knew what a good pace felt like and kept hunting for it. At the same time, I held a position to the left of the main pack so as not to be constantly swam over and not to impede the folks passing me. I breathe on the right, so from my position I could track the pack while staying parallel to them. Even so I did get swam over and knocked around, but hey, it’s a race.
I knew I would be close to the one hour and ten-minute cutoff, but I was also sure I would make it under one hour, so I was really surprised to see my time of 1:16. I was on my way to T1 when I realized that I was already going to get a DNF, so why bother to continue? Apparently, the old practice of having the grim reaper at the swim finish is no longer a thing, due to the complexity of the start timing (three at a time every five seconds). Nobody said I had to stop. It just did not make sense to keep going and leave Pattie all alone and miserable, for no reason. Sure, I could have ridden the bike course and tested my pacing and nutrition plan. If Pattie had not been injured I might have, but seeing how things were I turned in my timing chip and called it a day.
One of the challenges of using the Frontier X is turning it on and off. I am willing to fiddle with it on a workout, but for a race it is just too finicky. I chose to wear my trusty Garmin Tri HRM, so I do not have any record of PAC activity.
In spite of our challenges, Pattie and I did have a good time. I must say that our meals were outstanding. Pattie managed to prepare just what I needed, and it was all delicious, in spite of having to hobble around in the kitchen.
My Big Plan for 2022 was to finish Honu and take a shot at a full at IM Cozumel. My spring season has been so troubled that I had pretty much decided to retire from racing after Honu, but after such a bad day I do not want to end it there. I mean, come on, I have invested a lot of money on bike gear, including a sexy new set of Hed wheels. I can’t let that go to waste. For now, my plan is to work on raising my FTP while giving up endurance as little as possible. In training, where there is give, there is take. If I don’t make it to Mexico I can always set up a virtual race, like I did in 2020. After that? We’ll see. Even if I give up on racing I still plan on maintaining most of the same training schedule. Vigorous exercise is without a doubt the Fountain of Youth.