JBlog

47 (actually 52 but I forgot to turn my Edge on until 5 miles into the ride) @ 20.6 mph.

Flatville

Did OK, I suppose. Somehow I was pulling again when the spring began and gassed myself right out of the gates, so I was probably third from last to pass the town sign. I have to figure out a way to get in the middle of the pack when the sprints begin. epon finished in the top few, I think. He rode strong tonight. I think he was trying to get me on his wheel when the attacks began about 5 miles out from Flatville but I was out of steam at that point and rode back with Dave and the dude on the Klein. Can’t remember Klein-rider’s name, but when I first started riding with Wild Card he was about as squirrelly as me on the bike. His bike handling skills seemed much better tonight.

The chest pain came back for a visit about 5 miles from home, but I also rode a lot harder tonight and haven’t taken the Coreg since around 6:00 this morning. It seems like the chest pain has some correlation to the last time I took the Coreg. Hopefully a reduction in dosage is just what I need to be able to put down sustained efforts without heart discomfort.

Martin suggested that I do the Lytle Park Sprint Triathlon this Saturday in Neoga. It’s a 300 meter pool swim, 12 mile bike and 5K run, so it should be pretty doable for me. I think I’m going to sign up for it as long as Cindy’s OK with it.

Some time in early 2008 I decided to finally do something about my irregular heartbeat. An appointment with Carle’s cardiology department revealed that I had a worsening condition called cardiomyopathy, which is basically and enlarging and weakening of the heart wall. This was caused, it was surmised, by another condition called atrial fibrilation, which is:

a lack of coordination between the patches of muscle, which means that the whole chamber doesn’t contract at the same time. As a result, less blood is squeezed into the ventricle from the atrium. Because of this, blood can get backed up in the atrium, then into the blood vessel that leads into it, and, with time, even farther back throughout the rest of the body.

So I was prescribed two different medications, Coreg, a drug that helps to keep your heart from beating too rapidly and Lisinopril, a blood pressure medication. At the time the medicine was prescribed I was also pretty heavy, at around 250 pounds, so my cardiologist prescribed a fairly high dosage of 75 mg per day.

Even though my heart condition had nothing to do with my weight, I decided that it was enough of a wakeup call that I should consider doing something about it, so I began to exercise. I began with swimming, then added some cycling and a few months ago when I decided to sign up for the triathlon, I added running, too. So far I’ve been fine when swimming and running, but when cycling I’m typically out for 2-3 hours under sustained efforts, which causes my heart to work for long periods of time. I’ve been getting some chest pains as a result of this. I suspect that it may have something to do with the fact that I’m now, at 195 pounds, over 50 pounds lighter than I was when I began taking the high dosage of Coreg and I probably just don’t need as much to keep my heart in check. A call to my cardiologist’s nurse has helped to confirm this suspicion, and she made an appointment for me to see the department’s nurse practitioner who specializes in electrophysiology.

I have another group ride scheduled tonight. We’ll see how I hold up. I’ll go as long as I can and hopefully will not experience any chest pains. I have noticed that I tend to get them more on Saturday morning, which makes sense since my exercise takes place closer to the time I’ve last taken my Coreg. If I don’t get chest pains tonight, or at least as bad tonight, then I think it might make sense for me to back off the dosage. I really hope so, because I’d love to eventually be free of any prescription meds.

42 miles @ 18.4 mph avg. Should have been a much higher average but my chest started to hurt about 5 miles into the return trip so I back it off quite a bit. John on the Linksey tore the group up at around the same time and was doing about 30 mph on some pretty rough roads which was another reason I backed off. Still not real comfortable going that fast on roads that are less than desirable. Today’s Ride

Not sure how I did overall, but I placed 4th out of 16 in my age group. Time was 41 minutes and change, which isn’t horrible. Winning time last year was 32 minutes. Learned several ways to decrease the amount of time in transition and I’m sure I can shave off several minutes from both the biking and running portions. All in all pleased with the results.