I had one of those phone calls today. One that you are hoping not to get, but are not surprised when it comes your way. My call was from my Cardiologist Dr Stobie.
I have written about my heart for a while and so some of you may be wondering what has been going on. Well not a lot really.
I had my ablation just over 6 months ago and about a month after that I had a round of testing which showed that things had improved and since then I haven't really done much at all. That break was deliberate. The plan from Dr Stobie was to give me 6 months and then do some more testing to see how things have been going. A couple of weeks ago I had another MRI done, last week I saw Dr Stobie and this week I had a 24 hour Holter Monitor. Today I had THE phone call.
The reason for the phone call was the Holter Monitor. The last six months have been a period of heavy adjustment for me. On top of getting my coaching certification, starting coaching etc I have been adjusting to life without racing and obsessive training. I have been slowly finding an exercise routine that I am happy with and that allows me to maintain an okay level of fitness, but stays within my perceived limits. I still haven't quite nailed that routine, but I have been getting closer. In the last month or so I have been feeling like I am forming a good idea of what I would like to be doing exercise wise.
The exercise has mostly been going well too. My heart has been causing me a lot less issues, with far fewer ectopic beats, however, it hasn't been perfect. The issue has been that during some sessions (not all) I have been getting these spikes in heart rate. They typically happen early in the session (within the first 10 minutes) and happen when I am at low intensity. The spike will often shoot my heart rate up close to max (around 180 to 190 bpm). The heart will stay near max for a little while (30 seconds to a minute) and then return to normal rhythm. Usually once I get further into the session I stop getting these spikes, or at least I stop noticing them.
Now I am not an idiot, I have been fairly sure that these spikes aren't good. I am not entirely sure what they are, but they aren't normal. However, in all other ways my heart has been much better. I get fewer ectopics and the only issue I seem to get is the spikes early in a session, and even then the spikes only seem to happen at the start and then they go away.When my heart isn't under load it has been heaps better. I guess the fact that there generally has been improvement has let me ignore things a little.
Until today at least.
When I saw Dr Stobie last week I told him about the spikes. He didn't like the sound of them, but was generally happy with my improvement. My MRI had been clear too, so things were generally looking up. With the spikes though he thought a Holter Monitor would be a good idea. If I wore the Holter Monitor for some exercise it would give us a chance to see a heart rate spike in action as well as see how my heart is behaving when it isn't doing work. The exercise I wore the Holter Monitor for was 80 minutes on my Kickr on Wednesday morning. I chose the Kickr because it is easy to do while wearing a Holter Monitor and I also knew it had a good chance of inducing a heart rate spike. Which is just what it did.
The heart rate spike I got on Wednesday morning was a real classic one. Heart rate up to 180 after about 5 or 6 minutes of riding and then after a minute it came back down to 130 which is about where it stayed for the rest of the ride. That is a fairly good example of the symptom I get and so while it was probably not a good thing, I was hopeful that it would give Dr Stobie a good insight into what is happening.
Now I haven't actually spoken to Dr Stobie, I spoke to his assistant today, but I guess he saw something in the Holter Monitor results because the message I got today was fairly clear. Do Not Ride Anymore.
While the message was specifically about cycling, really what he was saying was don't do anything that might cause a heart rate spike, which in my experience can be almost anything. So in really what he was don't do any strenuous activity until you have seen me. Not great.
Dr Stobie did want me to go and see him on Monday, but I have to travel for work early next week and so it will have to wait until I am back. Not ideal, but it is what it is.
Until I can see Dt Stobie I don't really have much choice but to stop exercising. I could choose to creatively interpret what he has told me and keep doing low intensity exercise etc, but deep down I know the right thing is to stop until I have seen him. It is pretty frustrating because, as I said before, I was just starting to feel like I was getting into a good rhythm with exercise, it really sucks having to let that go. But deep down I know it isn't really a big deal. I am not actually exercising for anything so if I stop training all that really happens is that I get less fit. If I get the okay from Dr Stobie I can always get more fit again. I don't actually have a time line that I have to stick to, I have all the time in the world to build fitness again if I am allowed to do so.
It is just that race trained part of my brain that struggles so much with letting fitness go. The part that screams out when faced with the idea of doing no exercise. That part of my brain has been so dominate for so long that it is very hard to ignore, but that is what I am going to have to get used to for the next week at least. I know there is nothing actually at stake, but it is hard to remember that sometimes.
When it comes down to it though I really know that I have no choice but to let it go and stop training, at least until I have seen the doctor. Once I have seen Dr Stobie I have no idea what he is going to say, but I suspect I may not like it. I really hope I have the opportunity to build fitness again and get back into the happy rhythm that I am currently enjoying so much at the moment, but if not, well that is another thing that I will face when the time comes.
For now though I am just going to suck it up and have a few enforced sleep ins while I try and learn to take it easy.
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