Stressed Out

A bit more news today. Well, the bit before the news I guess, since I don't actually have any news yet. Confused? I think I am.

What I was trying to say is that I did my stress test today, but I don't have the results yet, so I don't really know how it went. So I am going to have news, but not quite yet. While I don't have the official results, I do know how it felt.

It felt hard.

While it felt hard, it didn't feel bad, well the heart didn't feel bad anyway, the lungs and legs are a different story, but I am counting the heart as a win. I am not counting too many chickens though because as I have seen before, how it feels is not always the best metric to use when it comes to the functioning of the heart. It is something though and I will take it for now.

In terms of how the stress test went, I don't recall the last one I did being quite as hard as this one. Last time I remember making it through 10 steps of intensity, but this time I only made it through 6. However, I am choosing to put there difference down to different testing protocols rather than a significant decline in fitness. I think that is probably accurate...

The testing protocol they used this time around was pretty tough though. Starting out walking on a 10 degree slope and then moving up in speed and an extra 2 degrees of incline every three minutes. By the time I was on the 6th step I was trying to jog up a 20 degree incline. I may not be very running fit, but I am pretty sure I would have found that hard no matter how fit I was. During that last interval my heart rate was bouncing off 180bpm and the doctor was looking a little concerned and so we decided to call it. Probably for the best.

Still, getting up to 180bpm was good. That was the highest I have had the heart rate in a very long time and it got up there with no real incident. I noticed some ectopics, but I don't think they felt any more frequent than they have been at rest (one every 50 beats or so). I certainly didn't have any attacks of tachycardia which is the really good news. In the end that is what the stress test was really looking for, whether I could go above 150bpm without going into tachycardia. Well it definitely did that. Once I was done with the test it did take quite some time for my heart to calm back down though, I noticed a number of wonky rhythms during my recovery. I have noticed that I tend to feel the ectopics more when I am at rest than when I am moving, so the heart may well have been misbehaving during the test too, but if it was I wasn't feeling it. That is part of the reason why it is hard to judge how the test went purely on feel. Hopefully the results confirm what I was feeling, but we shall have to wait and see.

So that is that for now, I am now at the end of the investigative route, at least as far as I will be going for a little while anyway. From here I will be having a chat with Dr Stobie to get an idea of what I can and can't do based on the results of today's test. I am not sure what the timeline is for having the chat, but hopefully it will be sometime soon.

Over the past few weeks I have settled into a nice rhythm of life, keeping fit, doing some coaching, seeing the family, I think I am finding a happy balance. Whatever the results of today's test show, I don't think that balance will be changing, however, it will be good to have that confirmation. Perhaps I will be able to ride a little further, or ride a little harder, perhaps I will be able to run a bit, perhaps I won't be able to do any of those things. Whatever the results show, I think I will be at peace with them. I look forward to finding out.