I was trying to deny it and went for a run this afternoon, but I could feel the difference immediately. Not to mention that I could see it im my heart rate. Where when I walked to the school the past few weeks my heart rate rarely went above 90bpm, it was jumping between about 95 and 110. Then on the run I could feel it in the back of my throat, I know that sounds strange, but I get a dryness in the back of my throat which has been completely absent the last few weeks. When I got on the hill, I'd run 100m and my heartrate was up to 220bpm so I stopped, walked to the 4km mark and walked back. Dejected.
I wasn't gonna put this up but then I thought I'd better incase some people reading this were thinking I'm being dramatic. Actually the graph looks a lot worse than it should. My watch says my average heart rate was 118 where this graph says 180. It went briefly to 220 and then went back down to 115/116 so don't be alarmed, just see that it stayed pretty stable at 115/6 until I started running up the hill.Whats more my heart was doing pretty strange things. It would DROP as I ran intervals on the way down. It would drop from about 118 to 112 as I ran. I haven't quite worked out what that means yet. But it doesn't seem right.
Why do I think this has happened? Well I think it's a number of things. Firstly I think it was a huge mistake for me to decrease my meds. I should just have managed my races and training better so that I wasn't running straight after taking meds. I remember when I was last in sinus rythm my cardiologist wanted me to be in that state for a year before he would allow me to come off warfarin. So even though my current cardiologist suggested that I come off some meds I think it was a mistake.
Secondly perhaps I'm training too hard, it's like someone gave me some extra pocket money and instead of putting it in the bank I went and spent it! As I felt better I pushed harder and harder and because my body stopped telling me to stop I went ahead and to a certain extent threw caution to the wind.
Add to that maybe too little rest, some strong coffee and a draft beer yesterday and viola, by early evening it was overs and I noticed how my heart was beating funny. I don't think I should stop living, I don't do anything in excess...except perhaps exercise. Every now and then, like maybe once a month I like to have a beer, I don't think anyone can fault me for that. Once in a while I like some good coffee, you also can't fault me for that. What I will do is to abstain from strong coffee and any alcohol until after the race.
I'm going to skip Wednesday's training session in the hope that a good rest will give my heart a chance to regain it's magic. Also i'm going to go back onto my old dosage of medication. Maybe, just maybe I'll get it back. Whether it does or not I'm going to train a lot easier in the future. I'm going to concentrate on completing the run and not try for any time. The excitement of getting better just made me get carried away. Sure I'm pretty bummed at the moment, I had something and I lost it, but this is nowhere near being 19 and your doctor telling you your heart is the size of a football and is only working 20%.
I'm still going to do this thing even if I take 2hrs59:59. I've been at this for too long to give up now.
No comments:
Post a Comment