And just like that, the runger is back.

Background: I had a type A aortic dissection back in May 2021 (at 50 years old, no family history of heart disease). I should have dropped dead, but a combination of 5+ years running my ass off and losing over 100 pounds, combined with having the dumb fucking luck of living 3 miles away from one of the top trauma ERs in the area and 11 or so miles away from one of the top cardiac institutes in the country really saved my ass. And I mean really, the mortality rate is 1% per hour delay to see a doctor, after two days half of the people die if they don't see a doctor. I drove myself to the ER, it took them less than an hour to figure out what was wrong with me, they put me on a medevac helicopter and flew me to the cardiac institute, where they wheeled me straight into the OR. About 8 hours later I woke up to find out that they had performed an open heart surgery and did a full replacement (artificial) of my aorta's upper arch. I was on my feet the next day and back home on day 6.

Running saved my life, and I couldn't wait to get back to it. The problem is that my cardiologist said nope, first you walk, then you run.

After 8 months or so my cardiologist was happy enough with my CT scan to allow me "slow jogging." I had tested myself a few times over the months and I already knew I could do it, but I also knew that I was putting weight and losing muscle, so the walking regime was actually a good thing.

When I started running again I realized that my chest is fine, but my legs aren't. It'll take a while to build that muscle again, but I forgot about glycogen stores. Each day I am able to run farther per stretch, but what stops me is the legs, not the breathing. And yeah, even in 15℉.

The final piece of the puzzle: I had stopped loading on carbs in the past few months, I was worried that with just the walking these would go straight to fat.

After most of a week of feeling the "runger" both after running and late in the afternoon, I just realized that this is my body asking me to start carbo loading again, and that my legs aren't really hurting, what I am feeling is depletion, which I have forgotten after so many years of using energy gels during my longer runs.

So yeah, time to get back on the energy gels, but sadly I'll have to switch to the non-caffeinated ones since caffeine messes with my blood pressure meds.

28 Days Later ...

It's been 28 days since my open-heart surgery for aortic dissection. Just had my first cardiologist follow up, she wants to keep me walking for at least one more month before she clears me for running. This isn't exactly the end of the world, since I lose weight faster walking than running, and losing a few pounds now will help with the running later. I am already past the 1-mile mark, my next goal is to try to score two walks per day, which hopefully means outdoors, I am not really looking forward to even looking at our treadmill.

I feel like a million bucks, except that I am still getting used to sleep near-horizontally, hard to make that transition after spending 3+ weeks sleeping sitting propped on pillows. I did get cleared to drink up to two cups of coffee per day, but the low sodium/low cholesterol diet are going to be a long-term concern, and I am guessing it's going to be interesting how to balance the low sodium intake with the sodium depletion once we head into the worst part of the summer.

BTW, that first cup of coffee was just glorious.

Action shot of what it looks when I'm not doing a damn thing

 

Had an EKG today, came out normal. It is also the first day since my operation that I have crossed the 1000-step mark and it's only 1 PM.

Finally, either my primary care doctor is 13 years old, or there's some kind of filter that kicks in after your 50th birthday and everyone looks so obviously young. But seriously, she's either 13 years old or a vampire and either way I feel lucky to have her on my corner.

The rumors of my demise have been slightly exaggerated

 

I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Just four days ago I had open heart surgery to graft an aortic dissection. My ER doc had me flown across the county to what had to be the best level one cardiac care center on the East coast, these folks took excellent care of me and I'll be forever grateful.

Plus I got to fly in a Helo, which is cool.

I'm awed, blown away and humbled by how people rallied to help me. My mother in law Paula Lopez , my mom Gloria Vera and my aunt Rosa Perez basically raced to the airport, and I've spent so much time on video calls with Ivette Vera , Pedro Javier Vera and Mario Vera that it feels like they are camping out outside of the hospital. My running friends at Strava and Squadeasy have been absolutely incredible, and so have been my coworkers (except my boss lectured me, something along the lines of "you are not allowed to get sick like this ever again").

I know that a lot of people were praying for my recovery, thank you all and please say a good word for the folks at the Reston Hospital Center ER, the medevac air crew in and EVERYONE at INOVA Fairfax Cardiac Center.

2020 Summary

 

2,020 miles for 2020!

Shittiest run of the year and it has to be the one that crossed the 2,020-mile mark for the year. 2 long fricking hours of nonstop rain, and I was already burned out so my pace was crap. At least I made it back in one piece. 

"Leak free" my ass

If the hydration pack bladder is leak free, why the hell did I have to line the edges with gorilla tape and have to wrap the damn thing with a zip loc bag? Of course, the bag is 6 months old, and it has been used 6 days a week, but it's always been kept inside of the hydration pack, no sharp edges to poke at it, and I never let it go dry, so where did the side leaks come from? 

That said, kudos on whoever came with the design for the hose hook up, you can actually unhook the hose without emptying the bag, which is handy as hell. 

Sort of like a blood sacrifice run, except it's a tiny boo boo and the only bruises were on my pride

Landed on my ass on wet mulch, sort of a tiny little detour at a paved trail junction. Didn't hurt, all I got was a tiny scratch on my left knee, but it was unsettling to find myself sitting on the wet ground, in the dark since the headlight fell off my cap. Also a nice second adrenaline shot near Reston Hospital, courtesy of Karen. Not even us runners are safe from Karen nowadays. 

When your Memorial day run decides that it wants a blood sacrifice

Sigh.

Yesterday I tripped on a tiny clump of asphalt on an otherwise pristine stretch of road. Skinned my right knee and elbow, and bruised the pad of my left hand. Ran another 6+ miles with no pain except stinging from the scratches. I'm taking a precautionary day off, but I'm grateful that all I got was some road rash. 

As to why I tripped? I suspect that I either looked away courtesy of road hypnosis, or I was distracted thinking about the next stop to switch music. 

Another blood sacrifice run

I am sure some may have noticed that every few months I'll title one of my runs with "Blood Sacrifice Run." What that actually means is that I tripped/slipped and fell on my face/ass/whatever. I am part of a group of superstitious runners that believe that the gods demand blood to be spilled as a sacrifice, that these periodic accidents are what keep us "safe" on the long haul. Or something.And yea, that's EXACTLY what I look like whenever I trip and fall. It isn't pretty.

Today I had one of these falls where I actually rolled properly, so my hands/arms did not take the brunt of the impact. No blood was spilled but the bruised ego qualifies as a blood sacrifice. 

AND... I discovered something cool that I had forgotten.

My current GPS watch is the Garmin Forerunner 645, the non-music version. The damn thing detected that I fell down, and immediately sent Ivette Vera an email telling her that I had an "incident," and the time and location. It even sent her a map pin to locate me. All of this was achieved in a split-second, and it even asked me if I wanted to cancel it and report I was OK. I need reading glasses, so I missed that prompt. By the time I was able to fish out my travel reading glasses (I keep a pair of ThinOptics in a keychain case) it showed me a new prompt to allow me to report that I was OK.

It's a handy feature, which is offered at no charge, it just uses your phone to forward the emergency notification. You can even use it as a panic button, there's a way to trigger it by holding the light button for at least three seconds.

Good night, sweet prince

I noticed that my Garmin Forerunner 235 had been out of extended warranty/drops and spills coverage for over 6 months. This of course made me paranoid enough that I went ahead and replaced it with a Garmin Forerunner 645, the non-music version. There is no chance in hell I'll step out of the door without my phone, so there's no need to pay another $50 for the "M" version of the 645.

My 235 was a complete rock star. It kept me safe and measured my performance through more than 9,000 miles. It never had a charge failure, never lost a tracked activity, and whatever dings it took were all absorbed by the glass shield, which I removed before I took this picture. The back looks like shit, it's obvious that 2.5 years of extended wear were more than what the paint in the back of the case could stand, but the optical reader was still pristine, and the watch itself was 100% functional. I did change the strap when the locking loop fell off the old one (later I found that the strap was starting to dry rot, so it was going to need replacement anyway) and I had to replace its charge/sync cable since one of the spring-loaded contact pins wasn't doing its job. Except for those two, and maybe sync delays from Strava every six months, it was absolutely trouble-free.

Pairing my current Garmin foot pod, and my new Wahoo speed/cadence sensors for the indoor bike was painless. I probably spent more time trying to figure out how to update its firmware than what it took to set up everything else. Even if this is not the model with on-board music it still has a phone media widget*, something I couldn't get to work on my old 235. I even got to try Garmin Pay today, it worked perfectly.

I also appreciate how little was changed in how the devices operate. Sure, there are new menus, and a at least one new button command, but everything just "works" the same.

I *was* going to post a link to the eBay auction to the old 235, but the damn thing sold as I was typing this post.

* The music control widget is broken as of firmware 6.4, it stops your run whenever you try to skip a song. Sigh.