Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Putting My Ego In My Pocket

It's officially been confirmed. I DO have a heart!

It's been an interesting week so far. It started first thing Monday morning at the Sports Med Doctor. I liked him - he really listened. Then he examined me and found a slight heart murmur. He wasn't worried but he did want it checked out just to be sure. He also made me get bloods taken again for a few tests to see if anything shows up. I did the bloods straight away but had to wait till today to have my heart looked at.

So this morning I rocked up for my echocardiogram. I had to get naked from the waist up then had ECG leads attached. Then it was pretty much just like an ultrasound, The sonographer was great. He's recently taken up running to lose a few kilos and last year ran his first 2 half marathons. I think he's hooked because he's lining up to do his first marathon this year. I did my best recruiting spiel and tried to convince him to come along to speed sessions.

At the end of about half an hour he told me that he found nothing particularly interesting. There's a slight regurgitation with one of my valves but nothing that would cause any problems. And the murmur is probably because my heart is so strong. So good news!

Meanwhile I have to wait till next Monday to find out the results of my blood tests. But the good news is that I'm allowed to run - I just have to take it easy. So yesterday's speed session was not very speedy and today's run was a very slow 7k where I just kept my eye on my HR monitor. I even WALKED up a hill to keep my HR down.

I was chatting to my brother-in-law about all of this on Sunday and he's recently done a couple of months of low HR training. The thing I took out of that conversation is that "you have to put your ego in your pocket" and just run to your goals. I used that phrase a lot this morning when my instincts made me want to run faster.

I'm really looking forward to next Monday and hoping the doc's got some interesting results - and that there's a magic pill that will get me back to close to where I was.

10 comments:

  1. Glad you can still run and hoping for good news next week! I think life puts my ego into my pocket for me most of the time! :)

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  2. Good luck. Glad you can still run!

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  3. Glad all is good so far. If you find the magic pill - please share ;-)

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  4. I knew you had a heart.
    Glad all is fine and that you can run now without worries.

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  5. Good news so far and I'm sure more to follow. I have a murmur of the heart as well. Mine is caused by my chest bone that presses against my heart. I have a very slight hollow chest. My sternum presses my heart into a round shape and this causes a murmur. It also gives me a very low VO2 Max which is one of the reasons I'm not the fastest marathon runner around.

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  6. Good news that you can still run - and that you have a heart. :) (I never had a doubt...)

    Glad that there does not seem to be anything to worry about.

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  7. I hope all is okay with your heart (we all knew you had one)! I have never run with an HR monitor, I try to listen to how my body feels. Did you have to make yourself go a lot slower than usual to stay in the good HR zone?

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  8. Tin Man wanted a heart! I'm glad all is well and next weeks results will be normal. Ego gets the best of all of us from time to time. Every now and then I get reminded of it, and it's good.

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  9. Wow. Well done for pocketing that ego - I like the expression. Mine was buried last week when a cyclist flew past me and made me feel very slow indeed.

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  10. Glad you can still be running. Loved your comment. Oh, and love the picture of your son licking the frosting or batter! So sweet. My kids would just eat the batter and frosting if I let them. ;)

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