3/28/10

I was back at the track today, after a month-long absence, which was precipitated by the last workout I did there. I overexerted myself, caught a cold, had to break my consecutive running days streak, and had a case of laryngitis so bad, even Tom Waits would have winced to hear me speak.

Despite all that, I was back at the oval this noon, banging away at the Mondo Rubber beneath my feet. It was not warm, and overcast, and windy. Perfect conditions for another rhino virus invasion, should I compromise in the care of my health, which, as a non-Republican, I am prone to do.

There is a concern more serious than the common cold that I carry with me, though. Whenever I run extremely hard, whether at the track, or in a race, I feel at some point as if I am going to die. My chest is expanding to its limits, trying to help the lungs pull in more air, and that hurts. My heart feels like it is beating about two hundred times per minute, which is much higher than the maximum listed for men my age. (Note: As a child, I was diagnosed with tachycardia, a condition in which the heart receives a false electrical signal that causes it to beat much faster than normal. In my pediatrician's office, I was clocked going over two hundred bpm.) I then picture myself collapsing, my heart so utterly destroyed that no one can save me.

Of course, it's not uncommon for people to have heart attacks while running. The man who literally wrote the book that helped start the running craze in the '70s, Jim Fixx, died from one, while running. My youngest brother, a great runner, felt the warning signs of a heart attack while working out on a track, and had the sense to get himself to a hospital to be checked out. He had two heart attacks-while there. He was two months shy of his fortieth birthday. The blockage was in the vessel that feeds the main pumping chamber of the heart. Infarctions here are called "Widow Makers," because they usually result in sudden death. My brother, probably because his heart was so strong from years of exercise, survived, though he cannot enjoy the same intensity, or duration, of running that he used to. He has celebrated five birthdays since the attack, however, for which I am grateful.

That I now have a family history of heart disease also weighs on my mind, as I heave and gasp my way around the track. I could stop when it starts to get uncomfortable, or I could just not come here at all. I could choose never to push myself beyond an easy pace, and still enjoy the cardiovascular fitness jogging provides. But I haven't, and I won't. Going fast, even though it's not as fast as it used to be, is exciting, and I'm not yet ready to give up those thrills. I want to have some stories to tell the other geezers at the assisted care facility when I'm ninety-nine, and sucking my dinner through a straw. And not just about how bad things were during the Recession of The Aughts, either. I want to run until I die, and if I keep doing what I did today, I just might.

Thanks for humoring me.