Indeed, unfortunate incidents like this seem to be on the rise. I have known personally, two people who have dropped dead of heart attacks in the last 5 years. They were both VERY fit. Then of course there is PowerBar founder Brian Maxwell, who also dropped dead abruptly just over a year ago - same thing, heart problems. Maxwell in his prime was a 2:13 marathon runner, but from all reports I heard was still fit and running 5 miles a day.

Some have said that these folks would have died sooner had they not been so fit and active, that what they are dieing of are built in problems with their hearts that they may have had since birth. Still it comes as a shock when a perfectly, to supremely fit and healthy person drops dead on the spot.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I do the same thing, have only gone down a couple of times. I know it's not low blood pressure (in my case) and I find the frequency and severity increase when I am training more and harder. My wife freaks out. Let me know what you find.

Two thoughts on this:

1. The ruthless and random manner in which our lives are revoked is the reason I live the way I do. We can die at any moment, and will die at any moment. That is certainty. Make decisions accordingly.

2. Blacking out 6 times in a month seems very unususal. Would you be concerned about driving a car? I would get that looked at.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Yes, no blackouts though. That stopped long ago when I stopped the excessive drinking, etc. I did get puked on yesterday, though. Reminded me of some of the wilder college parties.

I get slow fades when I stand up too fast. Since I'm tall with a fairly low resting heart rate, I just figured it takes extra time for the blood supply to catch up the change in elevation.

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Relax2dmax

"Just remember there is only 2 letters difference between STUD and STUPID." Heard on the course of the 1998 Lost Boys Ultramarathon

As you will note from the other guys, it's not unusual for our type of lifestyle. I spent 18 months of tests with a CArdiologist as I too kept fading out when getting up too quickly from the couch or sitting.

The outcome was that it is due to the fact that we have considerably slower heart rates at rest and therefore there is an hiatus between rising and our blood pressure producing enough beats to get it equalised out. If you have the financial resources to get this checed out for yourself I would do so for peace of mind. However, it seems to be precisely what you have described.

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"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS

I hst to state the obvious but this is something that you should get checked out...

it is not normal for a fit person to black out.
Without hearing more about your symptoms it is hard to say if it is a cardiac, vascular, neuro, or other

Not sure about your friend's exact cause, but wanted to share a recent experience:

I did a exercise physiology study at U. British Columbia 2 weeks ago. The test involved having 3 dobutamine stress echo's done. Dobutamine is a drug that increases HR, and the echo part is using basically an ultrasound to look at the heart. It was pretty cool, and you could see the valves opening and closing as your heart beats.

Anyways, the anestheologist was showing me the valves, and telling me that many of the recent cases of seamingly fit people keeling over was because the walls of their artery has become so thick (from being able to pump so much blood....not calcification that we see with high cholesterol patients). It basically sticks the valve shut, and the heart begins to empty of blood and eventually collapses on itself. This didn't apply to me, I am much too unfit to have such a thing happen :)

I know I have mis-stated somethings he said. I work with our hospital's cardiology department, I should be able to find some better references. Anyways, hope this sheds some more light on the subject.

-Mike

There's an interminable but useful thread on this over at triathlete.com. Kind of a newbie's board, but this one dug deep into the physiology. Lemme try to find it...

Yes Sir. I think I will get it checked out one more time. Thanks for commiserating y'all.

I don't know this guy who just passed away, but his passing hits awfully close to home. Talk about things that suck, this type of random death has got to be the suckiest thing of all.

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3 years ago I fainted right after a 100k ride. I was placing my bike on the car rack which I luckily did when I suddenly passed out. All I remember is that when I regained conciousness probably after 5-10 seconds I was on the ground. Interesting thing is that I don't think it was hydration, sugar or sodium related problem as I was taking care of that during the ride which BTW was an easy ride. I was also feeling fresh when I finished. After the incident I took a couple days off and resumed training feeling OK. So I kind of forgot about it. I never saw a doctor about this; now I think it was a foolish thing to do as now it is almost impossible to know what happened.

I get this from time to time too. Rarely actually hit the ground though.

The exception was two weeks ago when I had the flu, really kicked my ass overnight. Woke up with raging headache, sore all over, standing at the john taking a leak, next thing I knew I was staring at the side of the bowl, my head on top of the bathroom scale. Scary thing was that there is about 12 inches between the toilet and the wall, and I can't figure out how I avoided bashing my face/melon on the bowl.

Got up, headache still in place, went to the cabinet to get some aspirin, shook out a couple, dry swallowed . . . and woke up staring at a close-up view of the aspirin bottle, laying on its side, aspirin all over the floor.

I thought "Damn, I'm never going to make it back to the freakin' bedroom!"

That afternoon, almost hit the floor again at the Doc's office. He echoed the low heart rate thing others have said, and threw in dehydration as a significant contributor. That ties in with training as I think we are often slightly dehydrated during big training times.

I'm thinking of getting a padded toilet seat and leaving the seat down!

T

Leaving the seat down!

Call yourself a man!

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"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS

OK this got me laughing pretty hard.

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"...I too kept fading out when getting up too quickly from the coach..."

As near as I can figure, either you're (a) sleeping with your coach and have to leave in a hurry, (b) extremely turned on by your coach, or (c) this post has some usage and spelling errors.

One thing is for sure. If I drop dead, it won't be in the process of breaking 2 hours in an OD tri. Good God. That thread about that guy trying to break 2:00 makes me drool... er, I mean sick.

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Holy Shit! I'm going back and editing that before my coach's bf sees that!

Thanks,Bri.

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"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS

This is called positional hypotension, and is a result of your blood pressure not reacting fast wnough to your change in body position. When you stand, the acceleration actually causes blood returning to the heart to speed up (it's already going downward), and likewise, the blood going up to the brain to slow down. Your blood pressure needs to rise rather quickly to compensate, or you black out (slow fade). Dehydration will axacerbate the condition.

What to do? Well, drink water. And when you feel that fade coming on, grab something, and do a valsalva maneuver. Breathing agains pursed lips, kind of like if you were trying to sqeeze one out on the toilet... Hopefully you get the idea. But what that does is artificially bring the blood pressure up (one reason that straining on the toilet is a very common trigger of heart attacks) and get the blood to the brain before you fall over.

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
http://www.mjolnircycles.com/

A very good athlete here in Ohio passed away suddenly last year in the middle of the season. I believe he had an unknown blood clot that caused his death. It is really scary when those things happen, nothing you can really prepare yourself for. They are having a duathlon in memoriam of Alan 5-22-2005, anyone interested in being there here is the link. http://www.hfpracing.com/races/alan/index.php

Tom D. has it right, live every day like it could be your last.

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Striving to have sex more than 66 times per year

I don't get the idea. Can I have a visual of this? ;)

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Adrian in Vancouver

The same thing happens to me but not to the point of falling. I just slowly go dark for a few seconds and get a bit dizzy. Never happened until I got into decent shape the last year or so.

My Doc said the same as brider about the blood pressure. Seems odd to me as genetics have given me borderline high blood pressure any way. I've just gotten used to it and try and get up more slowly if I've been still for very long. However if I was hitting the deck as bottom feeder, I wouldnt leave the Dr's office until I found out why.



Dennis

Happened to me at IMC this year. Right after the run turn and I had just finished one of those "if today is going to be the day, then you gotta make it hurt" attempts at self motivation, and WHAM, the next step I feel this lightening bolt of neuro-fire searing from ankle to ear. Maybe two seconds later I am talking myself back to consciousness, looking around and wondering "where am I" and "what am I doing". I was still running and gradually put all the pieces together, but man it was freaking scary!

As a disclaimer, I figured out the where and what but not the how, as I missed the Q for Kona by two minutes. Guess I shoulda gone down and taken a ride back!

Don't do a valsalva! it decreases cardiac return and will drop you even faster. instead, when you start to feel faint cross your legs (standing) and squeeze/flex your glutes together. that'll send more blood to the heart. Also, fainting 6x a month?>> get checked out again.

I've never had a problem with that -- it's always brought me out of the slow fade nearly instantly.

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
http://www.mjolnircycles.com/

When I donate blood, people usually comment on my low blood pressure; one time a newbie called over another nurse with this panicked look on his face - I thought something was wrong with me. But the nurse remembered me from before - we had chatted about it and she asked if I ever got lightheaded or woozy when I stood up. I have only passed out twice in my life (non-alcohol related that is), and I don't know if they were related or not - both times were before I was a runner/triathlete.

The reasons people are giving here make a lot of sense, but six times a month - of anything like that - I think I would get checked out again. Talk to another doc - another opinion never hurts.

And I'm sorry to hear about your friend's friend. Truly terrible news. But I guess I would rather die standing next to my bike than sitting on my coach...oops, I mean couch. ;)