Three weeks ago I had a discussion with the heart specialist. After all the tests I’ve taken, he is 100% certain I have atrial fibrillation. That said, I’m in very good shape. In fact, I killed it on the stress test. In other words, I have a runner’s heart.
He said I could continue to run. I was very upfront about my exercise habits; it is in my best interest to not hide anything from the doctor in this case. Surprisingly, he also encouraged me to push myself if I want to. With the caveat that I should listen to my body. Usually I say my body is a big crybaby and I’m better off not listening to it, but in this case, I am going to pay close attention to my chest. In my defence, it has not been in pain or discomfort lately, but I do notice that I don’t have as much energy to push. In fact, for the first five minutes of any run, I am feeling out-of-breath.
I am going to get an ultrasound of my heart in a couple of weeks (an Echo test). He is going to give the hospital warning that I will have very thick heart muscles.
After that, there are two ways this can go to get my heart back to normal. I will either takes some medication and then try to wean myself off of it. Or they will sedate me and jolt my heart. (CLEAR!) Honestly, the second option sounds exciting and cinematic, but the first one is probably safer.
I’ll just do what my doctor recommends.

I used to notice that all of my blog entries were about running. I don’t think I’ve done a proper run post in awhile. I’m not talking about epic runs, but the more standard ones.
Yesterday’s run was part of a scavenger hunt. You could get a maximum of 100 points, and there were lots of ways to get that. By the end of my attempt I had 410 points.
It started out well since you could get one point for each push-up you could do in a row. I’ve been training for that for years! A few months ago, I could have gotten all my points with that alone. However, I’ve been taking it easier since my heart has been acting weird. I’ve been trying to build up again, but 65 push-ups put me well on the way.
English Bay Beach has been closed to swimming due to fecal contamination. I don’t think it was humans though; the beach was covered with birds. I think I’ve seen more birds in the past, but there were still over one hundred birds when I ran it. Each bird is worth one point.
I could also get 50 points for finding every letter of the alphabet in order. I stopped off at a map (3 points) in Stanley Park and was able to spot every letter except the last three. But a license plate with X, a StanleY park sign, and a sign about what is haZardous and I was done.
I did look for a babbling brook, but the usual creeks were silent. The heat dome of last week has dried the place up so that water isn’t really running.
With all the points I had, I didn’t need to “Jump in the water with your legs (5)” or “Full submersion jumping in water (20)”, but I’ve done it often enough lately that I feel it would be disingenuous to myself if I didn’t do it again.
Today’s run was also a little special. I’ve been keeping my runs to under 17km because of my heart, but I decided to change that. I had plotted a 27km course from before the Sun Run that I wanted to do to get some missing parts of streets. It has been sitting on my desk, taunting me. Now it shall trouble me no more.
Since it was longer, I tried to do it earlier in the day than usual. I probably could have gone earlier because it was still getting hot towards the end. I was getting thirsty over time and thinking of the nice drinks I would have at the end.
The end was “Juke” a very good fried chicken place. (Today’s daily challenge was to get food.) I picked up three pieces and started walking home. I took a little detour and got myself a Slurpee. It was finished before I got home.
There, I drank a tall glass of lemonade as well. It was great. After that though, it was not great. I had put too much sugar-water in my system; my stomach was feeling queasy. It was actually hard to eat the chicken.
I drank a lot of water and took a nap. Things were better after that.