and the workout room - well one corner of it. The rest is open floor space.
Don't make excuses for why you can't get it done.
Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.
Well that's a heckuva torture chamber ya have there HF!
I got in 7 miles this morning ... the most I've had in quite a while. My foot is feeling completely healed.
I had not heard of this book or author. I never wanted to believe that what I used to do could contribute to cardiovascular problems but there is certainly a lot of evidence pointing that way. So many of the members of my running club have heart issues now, and these guys were very fast in their day and trained unlike I'd ever heard of amateurs doing. Interestingly, the older ladies in the club don't have any cardiovascular issues. Having already had arterial calcification/inflammation leading to a heart attack, I'll likely read that book for some clues as to how to proceed with my running now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. BTW, can yo point me to the podcast? Thanks! Update: that book is in my library as well but I'll have to get it sent over to my branch.
I had not heard of this book or author. I never wanted to believe that what I used to do could contribute to cardiovascular problems but there is certainly a lot of evidence pointing that way. So many of the members of my running club have heart issues now, and these guys were very fast in their day and trained unlike I'd ever heard of amateurs doing. Interestingly, the older ladies in the club don't have any cardiovascular issues. Having already had arterial calcification/inflammation leading to a heart attack, I'll likely read that book for some clues as to how to proceed with my running now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
BTW, can yo point me to the podcast? Thanks!
Update: that book is in my library as well but I'll have to get it sent over to my branch.
I'm about halfway through "The Haywire Heart". Fascinating! A bit too technical early on, but it moves beyond that pretty quickly.
Too technical?! I wish I'd read this book before meeting with my cardiologist following my heart attack. I understand so much more of how our hearts actually work. It was very technical and I had to re-read a few times to get it down but it was worth it. It felt like a physiology textbook early on, didn't it?!
I agree with everything you just wrote. I should have left out the word "too" because the info is very important to understanding the rest of the book.
Book of the month club!
I returned The Haywire Heart today, what a great book. I've learned so much about the physiology of the human heart. The book has me strongly leaning towards the idea that my own heart problems NOT being caused by long periods (decades) of endurance training. My issue was caused by the first half of my life eating poorly, as well as a strong genetic component. Not to say that endurance training will not cause me problems in the future but I certainly don't train as hard or as much as I used to. I'm already doing a lot of the things the authors mention as possibilities in mitigating these problems.
Also picked up The Chaos Machine. Happyfeat, thanks for that rec. Just skimming it in the library has me excited to dive into it.
I'm glad you got such valuable learning about your own cardiac health and history out of The Haywire Heart, KCam. Should we recommend it to our doctors?
I don't have any of the problems described in the book, no genetic component, and a healthy lifestyle all my adult life. However I do have a history of repeated vasovagal syncope in the early 2000's. After the first episode, doc said "it will probably never happen again." (This is why I don't trust them saying that about the heart attack I had.) The next several v/v occurred in the nighttime following long runs. Then they occurred whenever I had GI distress. There are multiple reasons why they occur, but basically they are the vagus nerve misfiring and causing the heart rate to nearly stop. I can't tell you how terrifying that time period was for me until it got sorted out. No one has said why my coronary artery spasmed and pinched off, blocking blood flow and causing the heart attack; but I suspect a nerve "misfire". Why not?
As some described in the book, when I'm running well I have a low RHR in the low 30's (per my Garmin wrist HRM, but also per the hospital when I was there for a few days almost a year ago). This seems to be presented as a possible risk factor for future arrhythmia in the book. I may never "run well" again, so this could be a non-issue. My body is pretty much a train-wreck lately and I think my RHR is elevated reflecting that. Sorry to ramble on. I guess I feel like I don't have much control over what the future holds in terms of cardiac health.
Wow, the the of 30 is theorized to be problematic in the book. When your sinus HR is that low it's thought that other, emergency, mechanisms in the heart can be triggered to cause beats when they shouldn't. Even at my best my rhr was never lower than 39 or 40. Right now it's about 48 -52. Do you run with a hr monitor? I rarely do a run without one since my heart attack. I still have a FR230 which doesn't have a built in he monitor so I use a rhthym+ forearm strap or a wahoo chest strap. The chest strap is better especially when I wet it with medical contact gel.
Yes! The low RHR is a bit concerning to me now after reading that. I wear the Garmin 235 with the wrist HRM which might not be the most reliable. However when I worked at the clinic, I sometimes compared low daytime readings to a pulse oximeter and they pretty much matched each other - plus the hospital had similar low overnight readings. Anyway according to the Garmin report, it's been around 40 for the last month with one dip to 35. I didn't ask the cardiologist about it when I saw him since I didn't know it could be a potential concern. What I did ask about was if it was safe to run in the upper zones and he said yes, as long as I feel fine at the time. I can be plodding along and my HR will be in the 180's. My average high over the last 6 months is 204. It's ridiculous. If I notice when it's around 190, I'll stop and walk, but I don't usually know until I see the data later. I guess the good news is it drops 30 beats or so pretty quickly once I stop running. Some day perhaps I'll upgrade to a better watch with chest strap, but it's not in the budget right now. I have a running friend who will be very happy when I do because I suspect he thinks my watch is possessed - or at the very least he's dying to know if it's accurate.
I've never used a wrist-watch based HRM but I believe they are very similar to my forearm strap in how they work. I believe them to be very accurate - when they're accurate. How's that for double-talk?! My experience is that they are more easily able to lock onto your running cadence rather than your actual heart rate. It's not usually for the entire run but just for certain periods. The watch or forearm based HRMS don't always do it but it is quite often, in my experience. Chest strap based HRMs aren't any more 'accurate' but they seem to be way less prone to this cadence lock. Especially if you take some care to 'wet' the contacts before putting it on. I buy medical electrode gel to wet the contacts and it works really good. It's cheap as well.
My max HR is no more than about 160-165, and I rarely can push myself to do that. In races I can usually race in the 150's and that is a very difficult effort level. At the end of a race when I am pushing hard to the finish is when I will sometimes see legitimate HRs of 160. But when the HRM cadence locks it is not unusual to see 170's to 190's. My heart is not at 190! I do however pay attention to it to make sure I'm feeling OK when I see those numbers ... just in case!
Here's a shot of my HR during a 3000m race when I wore my chest-strap HRM. Notice how my HR rises smootly from 85 up to a little over 150 by the end of the race? I totally believe that that was in fact what my heart was doing during that race.
And one from my 5K the other day. This one I was wearing my forearm monitor. That rise up to 180 is totally bogus. That was the monitor trying to lock to my cadence rather than HR. It settled down within a half mile down to about 155 as in the previous graph. After the initial inaccuracy I think it was probably spot-on including that little bump to 158 where I went over a hill.
FWIW the HRM is on the backside of my watch. If actual cadence is in the 160's, how does that translate to a HR in the 180's because of "locking into cadence"? Wouldn't it "lock on" in the 160's?
IDK. Open my 4-mile log entry for Nov 17 and select Graph to see my HR that day. It doesn't look like it's an erroneous tracing to me. Looks pretty normal. (I tried to do the screenshot thing, but can't make it work.)
I think the ones on the back of the watch are the worst HRMs of all. Here is a pic of your HR and cadence on that 4 miler. Your HR is actually probably real just very, very noisy because of that crummy HRM. So, yeah, you really do get to almost 170-180 on runs - that is just inconceivable based on my low maxHR. You're like a superhuman runner compared to me! So, yes I now see your cadence is at about 160 to 170 for most of your run. My cadence for those two runs was probably 185 (though I didn't show it on my pics). So for me when it jumps to ~180 for the beginning of a run I KNOW it locked onto my cadence and not my HR. I assumed your cadence might have been 180 or more and it was cadence lock but that HR graph does look like a valid, but noisy, trace.
I don't think I can take on the title of superhuman runner! All I can say is I've been a runner since I was 18 and took "Jogging" in JC. So I guess this is what 47-ish years of doing my thing gets me - a wide ranging heart. 🏃♀️💖
I appreciate your taking a look and giving your take on it. I've heard of the cadence lock issue before, but didn't think of this way (graph) to suss out if that was happening. Today I ran on the TM because the road hurt my knee so much yesterday and I held onto the bar a bit to see if stopping arm swing affected the watch reading cadence and HR. It did not affect HR other than the bar was ice cold and when my fingers froze, the pulse went down. Once warmed up, pulse went up even if no arm swing. Of course we can't look at that since the file importer is down today.
ETA: Here's an article describing the wide-ranging heart and how that's a good thing.
https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/health/injury/a760723/qa-im-40-is-a-maximum-heart-rate-of-202-safe/
Excerpt: "Your low resting heart rate indicates that you have a big bucket. The fact that your stroke volume is relatively high, and your maximum heart rate is over 200bpm is a good thing, because it means that you have a large cardiac output (flow of blood in litres per minute = heart rate x stroke volume). Cardiac output is argued to be the main limiting factor to your maximal oxygen uptake, and the more oxygen you can process, the more efficiently you use energy – an obvious benefit for endurance performance."
This is great, but actually very small consolation for the monumental slowdown that I've been experiencing. I'm fervently hoping PT can get me running well again.