Published in Canadian Running, September & October, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ted Guloien survived a cardiac arrest on the half-marathon course. It led him to re-evaluate his \u201cno pain, no gain\u201d approach to running.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n by Ted Guloien<\/p>\n\n\n\n You likely know what a hypochondriac is\u2013someone who has excessive and persistent anxiety that they are ill when they are not. (It’s now called “illness anxiety disorder.”) But what about the opposite \u2014the hyperchondriac \u2014 who denies they might have a medical problem, even while experiencing symptoms or pain? That might describe a runner you know, and it used to be me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many years ago, I started to experience chest pain while running, and because I was a fit runner, my GP dismissed it, which suited me fine. My diagnosis of cardiac ischemia and atherosclerosis in 2013 surprised us both. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I learned it was because my heart muscle was not receiving enough oxygen to match the demand I was placing on it, and I was prescribed medications and told to keep my heart rate below 120 bpm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Based on the treadmill stress test, I had a three per cent likelihood of a major cardiac event over the next five years. After four months of running and cycling, the angina disappeared completely, and I cycled up Mont Ventoux in France and completed a 140k Gran Fondo bike race with an average speed of 30 kph, angina–<\/strong>free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the group of runners I trained with, certain attitudes held sway. Beating your best time was the only goal. Our motivational mantra was \u201cYou\u2019re only as good as your last race.\u201d Shaving minutes or seconds from our finishing times was everything, and strategies and tactics to accomplish this were all we talked about. While some runners might DNF (i.e., drop out) during a marathon if they realized a PB was beyond their grasp that day, for us a DNF was unthinkable under any circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You quickly learned to suppress any thoughts of pain and ignore fatigue. You ran from one hydro pole to the next, until you finished. One of our runners ran a marathon with a hairline fracture in his foot. You ran through the pain and didn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stoicism was the runner\u2019s philosophy. You believed that fatigue and pain were only a problem if you let them slow you down. Any excuses about a mediocre performance were met with \u201cYour time is your time.\u201d No one was interested in rationalizations. Mental toughness was as important as physical toughness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even with a diagnosis, I rationalized that cardiac angina is a symptom, not a life-threatening condition, and kept running. I discovered that if I stopped running when experiencing angina pain and rested for 30 seconds, I could still finish the run\u2013and I could crank my pace up to 4:30 per kilometre and my heart rate to 150, without chest pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few months later, in November 2013, I had a sudden cardiac arrest during a race. It happened at the Road2Hope Half Marathon in Hamilton. I was about 200 metres from the finish line when I collapsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hadn\u2019t experienced angina in six weeks. At the start line that morning, I didn\u2019t give my heart a second thought. Three days later I awoke from an induced hypothermia coma in the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suppression and denial are good running partners. They can get you through gruelling months of training and help pace you across the finish line. But they can also lead to serious injury or death, if you aren\u2019t paying attention. As a runner, I focused on the goal, whether it was finishing a race, achieving a PB or qualifying for Boston. But, like running from hydro pole to hydro pole, these goals are simply short-term steps. The ultimate goal, after the race is over, is to be able to keep running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s what I\u2019m focused on now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ted Guloien lives in Toronto and took up running in his 30s, when the management consulting firm he joined subsidized a YMCA membership. He credits his running fitness with helping save his life after a sudden cardiac arrest.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Published in Canadian Running, September & October, 2024 Ted Guloien survived a cardiac arrest on the half-marathon course. It led him to re-evaluate his \u201cno pain, no gain\u201d approach to running. by Ted Guloien You likely know what a hypochondriac is\u2013someone who has excessive and persistent anxiety that they are ill when they are not. … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-ted","4":"post-531","6":"format-standard","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twospeedmousetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}