Just watched Dave Scott interview with Babbitt pre Kona - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDOJRJNiAMo - and he mentions a heart issue he had last year at about 18:30 into the interview. Does anyone have specifics? Arrhythmia? The Man continues to lead us all down the multisport road and I’m curious about the specifics. It’s obvious he is still very fit and he mentions in the same interview that he had swum the course that morning.
Thanks! I couldn’t find any prior thread on this issue.
Just watched Dave Scott interview with Babbitt pre Kona - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDOJRJNiAMo - and he mentions a heart issue he had last year at about 18:30 into the interview. Does anyone have specifics? Arrhythmia? The Man continues to lead us all down the multisport road and I’m curious about the specifics. It’s obvious he is still very fit and he mentions in the same interview that he had swum the course that morning.
Thanks! I couldn’t find any prior thread on this issue.
No idea. Fwiw, I do try to ask questions of elders, the quintessential one has been something to the effect ~“Have you ever had negative repercussions with your health from all the training and racing”. I am genuinely interested in its effects. As a long-time implantable pacemaker/defibrillator rep, I do have substantial experience with the heart. For the most part I haven’t heard any real horror stories. It would not be uncommon to hear of quite a bit of afib, then again, it is quite common in the entire aging population.
Conference I was at said 1 in 4 people have a hole in heart, yet not symptomatic. Wouldn’t surprise me if 1 in 4 slowtwitchers have issues and WE don’t even know it yet. Then years later we get that ‘see I told you all that training was bad for you’ muttered by an overweight relative lol.
BUT I did want to stop the interview and say, wait wait hold the F on, did you just say you had a heart issue?!?!
It would not be uncommon to hear of quite a bit of afib, then again, it is quite common in the entire aging population. //
There have been a couple studies on pro endurance athletes, and it seems we are 3 to 4 times more likely to have heart anomalies than the general population. In all my years it sure seems like that is the case. And the pro part can bleed over to AG’ers that train and race like pros too. My doc has told me for 35 years that what I did was not healthy, he was the first I knew of that had a feeling and some stats to back up his theory.
And when you really think about it, of course it is this way. People that put their bodies on the fine edge of sport/fintess/breakdown should be crossing the line more than just your average Joe. And any damage done to the heart does not repair itself, so even if you have no symptoms at the time, it becomes a ticking bomb that comes out later during some perfect storm you have created.
Not sure about Dave’s problem, it may have been related to the really bad car crash he had a few years back. Good news as you know is that modern medicine is keeping most of us alive, and even able to do some form of exercise still, the healthy kind!!!
I truly curious…what is your exercise/training week look like now? distances and times.
…I have always waited for the moment that Dave Scott does IMH just one more time doing the best with what he has, just to see what he has in the tank.
I have followed his sporadic triathlon results the last 10 years and would love for him to give Kona one more go…
apparently its not likely I would guess…
I truly curious…what is your exercise/training week look like now? distances and times. //
Well I got my pacemaker in 2001 and then couldn’t function very well for a couple years after, more related to the pacemaker settings than my heart though. Got that sorted out and then began training about 6. to 9 hours a week, pretty much that has been it the last 10 years. Had a bad patch the last 3 years of almost doing nothing really, but am swimming again now at age 60. You can see exactly what I do in the Fishes thread, but back to repeating on the 1;25/1;30 base, and just did a 1;18 100yd IM at the end of workout the other day!!
Goals now are to get back into swimming shape, maybe do a 400 IM SCY in low 5 minutes, should put me top 5 in the nation. Then once I stop gasping for air, will work in some biking, mostly MTB, and then try and run a couple/3 miles a few times a week. What I found in my first comeback at 50 was I needed very little mileage to race pretty well. Went a 4;44 hard 1/2 ironman(Oceanside) at 50 on about 7 hours a week of training. As long as you don’t get too fat, all that muscle memory comes back and a few miles acts like a lot if done properly.
Next up get on the bike!!
It would not be uncommon to hear of quite a bit of afib, then again, it is quite common in the entire aging population. //
There have been a couple studies on pro endurance athletes, and it seems we are 3 to 4 times more likely to have heart anomalies than the general population. In all my years it sure seems like that is the case. And the pro part can bleed over to AG’ers that train and race like pros too. My doc has told me for 35 years that what I did was not healthy, he was the first I knew of that had a feeling and some stats to back up his theory.
And when you really think about it, of course it is this way. People that put their bodies on the fine edge of sport/fintess/breakdown should be crossing the line more than just your average Joe. And any damage done to the heart does not repair itself, so even if you have no symptoms at the time, it becomes a ticking bomb that comes out later during some perfect storm you have created.
Not sure about Dave’s problem, it may have been related to the really bad car crash he had a few years back. Good news as you know is that modern medicine is keeping most of us alive, and even able to do some form of exercise still, the healthy kind!!!
Which is a big part why I try to sleep 12 hours a day. I do believe, having interacted with lots of endurance junkies, that endurance junkies, don’t have the ability to rationalize when is too much and the body needs rest. I wouldn’t try to be a professional and also have a real 9-5 jobs, that seems like a recipe for health problems to me. Any time we study this we need to look at life long patterns of athletes. As an example I know most people who will keep exercising on something until the pain threshold reaches a 7-8, meanwhile, I throw in the towel at a 2.
Thanks for the outline…as I have outline before I have trained steady for 31 years at 7 hours/week…with tempo and speed work always…triathlon, mt bike, nordic skiing…so I hope that is unlikely to give me trouble. I’m 58
onward!
There have been a couple studies on pro endurance athletes, and it seems we are 3 to 4 times more likely to have heart anomalies than the general population. In all my years it sure seems like that is the case. And the pro part can bleed over to AG’ers that train and race like pros too. My doc has told me for 35 years that what I did was not healthy, he was the first I knew of that had a feeling and some stats to back up his theory.
And when you really think about it, of course it is this way. People that put their bodies on the fine edge of sport/fintess/breakdown should be crossing the line more than just your average Joe. And any damage done to the heart does not repair itself, so even if you have no symptoms at the time, it becomes a ticking bomb that comes out later during some perfect storm you have created.
Mark,
I’ve been reading the same stuff.
Lennard Zinn wrote a long piece in Velonews last year about these heart issues in elite level Age-Group and Master’s cyclists. It caught up with Zinn, a life-long serious cyclist himself, when he had the shocker of having some heart problems. He was typical for men and peers of mine, when we are dumbfounded by this.
Zinn’s piece is here - http://velonews.competitor.com/cycling-extremes
It’s hard to know what to make of all of this. Certainly, my generation, (your’s to Mark), who got into higher level competitive endurance sports when we were in our teen years in the 1970’s and then carried on training and racing, well into our 40’s and 50’s are the FIRST generation of humans to really do this.
It’s hard for current millions of AG athletes, who run, ride do triathlon or whatever endurance sport to understand or believe this, but prior to the late 1970’s there were very few people that ran, road, or did endurance sports past the age of 35 - 40. I seem to recall a few eccentric 40+ Master’s guys in my Running Club back then, but that was it. The Boston Marathon had a couple thousand runners. Cycling was something REALLY eccentric folks did back then ( but you either raced really seriously or you did not ride at all!), and obviously, triathlon was just getting going.
I know a number of my age peers, who were endurance sports athletes, some VERY accomplished, some just very good, who are no longer with us - gone from heart issues! Sobering stuff!
This read will be out soon with Zinn as one of the authors. Mandrola was my original cardiologist when I lived near him and very well respected in the field. not too mention a very solid cyclist.
This read will be out soon with Zinn as one of the authors. Mandrola was my original cardiologist when I lived near him and very well respected in the field. not too mention a very solid cyclist.
Great! I found Mandrola’s webpage a couple of years ago and his writing and advice is excellent.
I’m guessing that Dave Scott had a bout of Afib, which isn’t that uncommon. Since Scott is the oldest of the Big Four at age 62, I’m wondering how many athletes on the planet have put in more hours at a HR above walking pace than The Man?
It would not be uncommon to hear of quite a bit of afib, then again, it is quite common in the entire aging population. //
There have been a couple studies on pro endurance athletes, and it seems we are 3 to 4 times more likely to have heart anomalies than the general population. In all my years it sure seems like that is the case. And the pro part can bleed over to AG’ers that train and race like pros too. My doc has told me for 35 years that what I did was not healthy, he was the first I knew of that had a feeling and some stats to back up his theory.
** **And when you really think about it, of course it is this way. People that put their bodies on the fine edge of sport/fintess/breakdown should be crossing the line more than just your average Joe. And any damage done to the heart does not repair itself, so even if you have no symptoms at the time, it becomes a ticking bomb that comes out later during some perfect storm you have created.
** **Not sure about Dave’s problem, it may have been related to the really bad car crash he had a few years back. Good news as you know is that modern medicine is keeping most of us alive, and even able to do some form of exercise still, the healthy kind!!!
Which is a big part why I try to sleep 12 hours a day. I do believe, having interacted with lots of endurance junkies, that endurance junkies, don’t have the ability to rationalize when is too much and the body needs rest. I wouldn’t try to be a professional and also have a real 9-5 jobs, that seems like a recipe for health problems to me. Any time we study this we need to look at life long patterns of athletes. As an example I know most people who will keep exercising on something until the pain threshold reaches a 7-8, meanwhile, I throw in the towel at a 2.
Man, 12 hr/day of sleep, that is a ton!!! I average around 10.5 myself but 12, that’s taking to another level!!!
I have given some thought to this topic.
Here are some thoughts:
What I do believe to be true is this.
Dave Scott’s heart issue is featured in a lengthy interview and case study in the new book The Haywire Heart from VeloPress.
Dave Trendler
VeloPress
So, give us a three sentence summary, not an advertisement to sell a book.
Geez, does a profit need to be made for everything triathlon?
Having said that, I am interested in the book.
Rather than thinking of it as an advertisement, can I convince you to instead consider it a notice that there is an answer available to the question about Dave Scott’s heart condition?
According to Chris Case’s interview, Dave Scott was diagnosed at age 62 with atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation. It’s one of the longest “Case Studies” in the book at 8 pages.
(Chris Anderson’s famous quote that “Information wants to be free” is bullshit. *People *want information to be free. But it takes money to gather interesting information. Thank you for buying the book and supporting VeloPress. If you’ve never shopped with velopress.com before, please use coupon VPFIRST for $10 off your first order.)
Dave
So, give us a three sentence summary, not an advertisement to sell a book.
Geez, does a profit need to be made for everything triathlon?
Having said that, I am interested in the book.
You can see in the VeloPress online preview that Scott had an issue with atrial flutter and/or atrial fibrillation. I guessed right. I’ll be buying a copy. Thanks to VeloPress for publishing the book and to Dave for talking about his issues.
Thanks for the short answer to Dave’s heart issue.
As a 61 year old with 36 years of triathlon training and a minor heart arrhythmia, I am interested in the book and will purchase it.
On this “free” internet site, your initial response was essentially, “want to find the answer, but our book”. An ad, not an answer.