It has been a long time since my last post. A lot of things happened over the past few months. For starters let's talk about my heart. I started having more frequent Supra-ventricular Tachycardia (SVT) attacks over the past few months. I didn't know what is was called until I went to see the doctor, but that comes later in the story.
I have had the attacks as far back as high school but they were really rare and only happened when I was pushing it 110%. After High school I can only remember a few times that it happened. When it happens I am usually running and my heart rate is about 170 bpm. Then, all of a sudden it jumps between 240 - 250 bpm. I basically have to stop and lie down and eventually after a few minutes it stops as sudden as it started. Besides having to stop in the middle of a run, or worse on a bike ride, when it happens it pumps lactic acid into my muscles. It also make me feel like I just sprinted as hard as I could for those few minutes. Usually when it happened I was still able to complete the workout, but not as well as I would have wanted to. It started happening more and more. It went from every third workout, to every other to every workout, to every workout. It even started happening twice in some long runs. I didn't like it happening obviously but I delt with it.
This brings this story to my worst race ever. At the end of April was the Salt Lake marathon. I had signed up for the half version of the marathon. I actually felt in pretty good shape and if the marathon was 20 miles instead of 26 I would hav been able to do the full marathon. Despite my SVT I had been trainning really well. The morning of the race I felt really, really good. When the starting gun went off I was ready. Like all big races the problem is that there are a lot of people in the start. It took about 1 mile before the pack thinned out enough to get a good pace. About 2.5 miles in my first SVT attack hit. Usually it wouldn't happen until the 4th or 5th mile but I figured the addeneline of the race might have been a factor. It was pretty embarrassing to have to stop that soon but what can you do? It last for what seemed like forever and actually only 4 minutes but it eventually stopped. I started running again and while I felt a little wiped I stll felt fast. Looking back at my times I was running at a 7:15 min/mile. For me that is really fast. I made it about another 2 miles and the SVT hit again. This time it didn't last as long, but it still sucked. I ran again, and about 2 miles later it happened again. At this point three things were becoming very obvious. First, the rest of the race is going to become about finishing and not worry about my time. Second, I had passed the same people multiple times and it was getting ackward.... Third, I was hoping that I didn't get noticed by any paramedic or cop that could pull me from the race. It continued to happen 3 or 4 more times before I eventually finished the race.
My wife texted me at the 2 hour mark to see if I was ready to have her pick me up. I still had over 3 miles to go. I finally finished the race around 2:35. All of the lactic acid destroyed my legs. I felt like I had just ran the full marathon untrained. My wife, mom, and dad all insisted that I go see a doctor before I run again. I eventually made an appointment to see an electrophysiologist(heart doctor specializing in heart arrhythmia) . They mailed me a heart rate monitor that recorded every one of my heart beats and recorded them at a facility in Texas. After wearing the heart rare monitor for 2 weeks I went in for my stress test and appointment with the doc. Of course no matter how hard they tried during the stress test they couldn't get my heart to "pop" as they called it. Fortunately for me it had happened a couple of times while running with the heart rate monitor they gave me 2 weeks prior. The doc basically said that I had SVT and that he could fix it. "The heart surgery is really a simple out patient procedure". I was surprised that simple, and heart surgery could be used in the same sentence. The next week I went in for the ablation surgery and he "fixed" my heart.
I know that some people would say to try and take it easy and not stress out the heart after surgery. I asked the doc and he said that after 3 days I was good to go. I only need to keep an eye on the wounds in my groin and neck from the ablation. For good measure I waited for 5.
Back to the races!
I started running. I then started biking, then swimming. All without having my heart "pop". Last week I ran 25 miles and biked 31. This week so far I have ran 18 and swam 4. I have signed up for the 4th of July 1/2 marathon, and 5 days later I will be competing in my first real olympic triathlon at Echo lake. I feel out of shape, but it is really something to not have to worry about my heart. I have had some great workouts over the past few weeks. More on that in future blogs. Now you are all caught up! If you have any questions about the heart surgery Let me know.
