Post 63 - A lot happens in a week

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Training done this week was as follows:

Monday 19^th January 2015: Rest
Tuesday 20^th January 2015: Rest
Wed 21^st January 2015: 6 x reps: 3:16, 3:12, 3:10, 3:09, 3:10, 3:12
Thurs 22^nd January 2015: 1 hour bike
Friday 23^rd January 2015: Rest
Saturday 24^th January 2015: 2 hour turbo
Sunday 25^th January 2015: Swim 3.1km, 45 minute run

Totals: Swim 3.1km, Bike 55 miles, Run 13 miles

A lot happens in a week…

This was a planned easier week, following two tougher weeks. My mileages were a lot lower than they’d usually be, with a couple more rest days than usual thrown in. I need these easier weeks to rest and recover, and allow my legs to get stronger – the strength comes when resting, not when training.

Monday started badly, as my neck locked up on the way to work. Never a dull moment, and never plain sailing… I don’t know why this happened. Maybe it was the cold air, maybe I slept funny, maybe I bent over, twisted or lifted something in a bad way, although this is all speculation. Some things you just can’t explain. Anyway, I spent Monday in literally excruciating pain, unable to turn or lift my head. I had visions of last year, when my back locked up horrendously at around the same time. I struggled through the day, and then after work I paid a visit to a chest specialist, to get my breathing and chest checked out.

Two GPs had already said I seemed fine. The specialist did the usual cursory checks, which again were all fine. She was puzzled when I said I couldn’t get off the bed and would need a helping hand – my neck really was that bad. I did a spirometry test – basically blowing into a tube as hard as possible, for as long as possible. It wasn’t quite what I expected, as the mouthpiece of the spirometer had a large diameter – try opening your mouth wide, taking a deep breath, keeping your mouth wide open, and forcing all the air out of your lungs as hard as possible. It’s very different to blowing through a straw or doing a breathalyser test. My spirometry values were all fine too, but the specialist claimed that she likes to play Sherlock Holmes and find things that are wrong with people. She wants to do a whole range of detailed and time-consuming tests, so I’m currently weighing up whether to go ahead with everything or to accept the opinion of two GPs, one set of spirometer results and one set of detailed cardiologic test results that everything is fine…

On Tuesday I travelled to Italy again with work… A planned small meeting at a supplier had turned into a large and complicated meeting, so armed with laptops, notes, shirts, ties and exercise gear, I headed off. At least the trip was during a planned easier week.

I’ve been asked to run in the Garioch 10K race in Inverurie (close to Aberdeen) at the end of March, as a two-time previous winner. It’s the tenth anniversary of the race, and so hopefully I’ll be off to Aberdeen for this event in March. I don’t expect to win the race, but I’d love to get under 33 minutes. Part of me would like to train specifically for it, but I’ve got to think of the bigger picture and keep focussed on the big goal of qualifying for Kona. But I do think that doing a few faster running races and training sessions will help my Ironman marathon.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, still wearing it!

I’ve also been asked to go back to Northern Ireland to run in the provincial cross country championships in mid-February. Our club are reigning champions, and we picked up gold medals last January. I don’t want to go and make up the numbers though, and the club will have a strong squad. So on Wednesday night in Italy, in the cold and rain, I told myself that my neck was “better”, and I dragged myself out of the hotel to an industrial estate, where before Christmas I had run 6 repetitions of approximately 1km (or approximately 0.621371192 miles if you’re that way inclined KB!) I stress “approximately”, I’ve no idea of the exact distance. Each lap was something a little over three minutes when running reasonably hard. I did the same 6 x 1km on Wednesday night, on what was a terrible night for running. A comparison follows:

10/12/14 -  3:25, 3:20, 3:16, 3:16, 3:16, 3:15
21/01/15 -  3:16, 3:12, 3:10, 3:09, 3:10, 3:12

It was much better running this week than in mid-December, on average 6.5 seconds per kilometre quicker. I was pretty happy with this, although the final interval was tough and I was really struggling to keep the time from falling away. I rewarded my muscles with a hot bath in the hotel room (much better than an ice bath!) followed by grilled beef and vegetables in the restaurant with two of my colleagues from Korea and Sunderland.

Camera phones are terrible things

I used to relish this sort of training at university, going and doing a timed interval session, writing it down, carrying on with training, and then a few weeks later going back and doing the same session and being markedly faster. It’s a good feeling. These times would give me a bit of confidence that I could go back to Northern Ireland for the provincial championships next month and at least give a better performance than what I showed in the two races I did over Christmas.

Thursday evening saw a fairly pitiful exercise bike session in the hotel gym where I didn’t push hard at all for fear of hurting my knees on an ill-fitting bike that could hardly be described as adjustable. On Friday I flew back, with the clearer weather affording some spectacular views of the Alps from the plane. And such blue sky too… I have to work out a way to live somewhere like this…

The Alps from the Alitalia flight. Awesome.

On Friday I had an early night, thankful that I hadn’t gotten ill following the Italy trip – lots of attendees were coughing and spluttering. On Saturday, I had the second of two appointments for the cardiology study I have volunteered to take part in. This study is being sponsored by the British Heart Foundation, and is analysing the impacts on the heart of prolonged endurance sports training and racing. So essentially I am guinea-pigging myself to contribute to ground-breaking medical research, while also essentially having my heart tested in detail. My first appointment was last week and involved an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram, a blood test, and a VO2 max fitness test.

My second appointment was for a cardiac MRI, in the Heart Hospital in central London. Being the wimp that I am, I was dreading this, as I knew I’d be getting a cannula stuck into my vein, and I knew I’d be getting injected with gadolinium (a dye), then shoved into a noisy, clunking, tight magnetic tube for an hour. Part of me really wanted to bail out, but I’m not like that. So I found myself in a hospital gown, lying on a reclined chair, looking the other way, gritting my teeth, while listening to the doctor’s small talk, knowing he was armed with a needle and a cannula that were meant for me. I’m convinced that medical people are trained to engage in small talk just before they do something unpleasant to you.

So true. These people are priceless.

In went the cannula, the small talk stopped, and onto the MRI table I went. Two other doctors started bustling about over me, strapping me down, putting electrodes on me, putting stuff under my legs, and putting earphones on. And into the tube I went. Being naturally curious and inquisitive, I wanted to look around, to see where these noises were coming from, but I wasn’t allowed to move. For the next 30 minutes I shut my eyes and followed the repeated instructions to “take a deep breath in…. and out… and stop…” as the machine scanned my heart and legs.

On “stop”, as I held my breath out, the machine kicked into life to capture the images, clunking, beeping and whooshing as it did so, also causing a funny vibration above my left eyebrow. For a count of 13 of 14, the machine would make its noises and do its thing, then I’d hear “and breathe normally”. And with a gasp, I’d breathe normally again. After about half an hour, they told me they were going to inject the dye. The worst bit. They’d told me all the risks beforehand, how it can cause anaphylactic shock in a very small percentage of people, what the adverse reactions could be, how the kidneys and liver could fail to remove it from my system. I hoped I wasn’t in the unlucky small percentage of people, and tried to take reassurance from the blood tests last week that showed my kidneys and liver are functioning normally.

“You might feel a cold sensation and a metallic taste in your mouth… here we go…” and I clenched my teeth and braced for it. I didn’t feel too much, and then the breathing instructions started again. The machine started aggressively honking this time, like a pissed-off goose. I guessed it was operating a bit differently now that the dye was pumping around my arteries, veins and heart.

After a few minutes, one of the doctors came over the headphones. Laughing this time, not the usual cool, reassuring business-like demeanour. I thought, “What the heck is going on here?” She was properly laughing her head off. “We forgot to connect you up to the dye machine!” I didn’t quite see the funny side. Maybe I'd have started honking and flapping if I hadn't been tied down inside a magnetic tube, The doctor came in, and the table moved me out of the tube. I got hooked up, and moved back into the machine. “Here we go again…”

“Uuuurgh, gurghhhh, aaaaa, sssssss…” My reactions to the dye being injected. Not a nice feeling as the gadolinium went in, too quickly for my liking. I felt burning in my arm, and this feeling continued for the rest of the scan. I guess my heart rate went up quite a bit. I just wanted to get out of there. Finally it was over, and they got me out of the tube and unhooked. I was pretty relieved. They seemed to want to get the next patient in as quickly as possible. He was an older guy, not part of the study, who probably did have serious heart problems. Health is so important. The most important thing. I got changed out of the gown and waited in the reception area.

When the results were ready, the doctor and I had a chat. The bottom line is that my heart is fine and healthy, and within normal parameters, which is great. He said I have an athlete’s heart, meaning that it is slightly enlarged although not beyond normal parameters. This is normal for endurance athletes. He also made the point that I have got a low resting heart rate, in the low 40s, and because of this, when at rest, my heart is a little bit “sluggish”. Again, this is normal for endurance athletes, and nothing to worry about. When my heart rate increases, my heart becomes less sluggish. Maybe a bit like a big new car on a motorway: at 50mph the car feels slow and sluggish, at 70mph it opens up and feels great.

One thing in particular the study was looking for was the presence of scarring on the heart. The heart is a muscle, like all other muscles. Training causes muscular break-down at micro-level, and these break-downs scar and heal, and in this way the muscles become stronger. He said that I show some scarring between my left and right ventricles. These are the biggest chambers of the heart and they touch together. Where these ventricles touch, especially when I am exercising at a high heart rate, some friction is created, and this has resulted in some scarring. This scarring is common, and manifests itself in around one-third of endurance athletes. It is harmless. They were looking for other types of scarring on the heart, and didn’t find any on me. So, all good. Some images are below.

Leggies

I've got loads more pictures on a CD. They are pretty amazing.

Thankfully the gadolinium didn’t cause any side-effects, so I was discharged. I got home and got onto the turbo for 2 hours, just fairly easy spinning. I had another early night, and then got up and headed for the pool. I did a fairly easy 3.1km. I checked my pace a couple of times, and I was doing my 100s in around 1:35 to 1:40. Not bad for so early in the season, and I haven’t even started doing hand paddle or pull buoy drills yet, nor have I started doing any sprints in the pool. An easy 10km run followed, and the temperature was just warm enough that I didn’t have to wear my jacket. I even saw the first daffodil shoots sprouting, so hopefully we are moving into spring and won’t see any snow, ice or storm chaos.

Two tough training weeks will follow…