Not the weekend I had planned

As you can gather from the title things have not been going quite the way I had been planning.  Saturday was the VAANEE Track and Field Championships and I had entered and intended running the 800m, 1500m and 5000m.  Although I arrived at Monkton Stadium feeling a little flat I was still looking forward to what would be a good workout.

First up was the 1500m.  My race was for 55year old and over. Taking it on from the gun I had a comfortable lead and with about 700m to go and being mindful that I was running an 800 shortly I decided that the wise thing to do was to ease back just a little and maintain the tempo through to the finish.

Then suddenly, at about 600 to go, all the energy seemed to drain from my body, I was struggling for breath and had a mighty pain in the chest.  I have 'tied up' in races a number of times but this was something different.  Forced to stop I managed to pull myself together and get my breath back.  Determined not to have a dnf I decided to jog / run the last 500m.

The problem was the pain didn't subside and I was not feeling at all well.  Without boring you with all the details the result was that I spent the rest of the weekend as a guest of South Tyneside Hospital with a suspected heart attack.

This is quite a sobering experience but one I would not recommend.  However, the Para-medics and all the staff at the hospital were magnificent and I would like to thank them for all of their help.  I would also like to thank everyone at the track for their help, concern and well wishes and apologies for interupting the meeting.

The situation at the moment is that I can do some easy running but no races until I have had further tests as there are some anomolies showing up on my current test results.

Just for the record I finished the race in 2nd place in a time of 5.38 (by my watch) not the fastest but hey......

Comments

Terry Lonergan said…
Really sad and concerned to read
about your experience ,Alan. Not good at all. But you survived and I'm sure the medics will investigate properly and "sort you out" such that you will be running even better than before this weekend.
Meanwhile take care and look after yourself!
Best wishes, Terry L.
Alan Dent said…
Cheers Terry - Bit of a shock at the time but think the key word in the description is suspected and not the real thing.

Doctors very sympathetic to running. A couple of easy weeks and do as I am told for a change and I am sure I will be back