I have been going back and forth on wether or not to do a write up on my day. I did post a report here back in 2012 after a wild and wicked full IM where I managed to overcome the conditions and win M40-44. That was a special day. I decided to post this as both a fond farewell to a race I did 7 times but also partly as a cautionary tale to me fellow older men who have been in the sport as long as I have.
Back in 2018, I had an incident of A-Fib post Santa Rosa 70.3. I had to have a cardioversion to get out of it. Since then I had no issues whatsoever…until end of October last year about 2 weeks post Kona. I was back in A-Fib. Once again, I immediately had the cardioversion to return to normal sinus rhythm. My A-fib is caused by an enlarged left ventricle of my heart. Outside of that my heart function is perfectly normal, but this structural issue isn’t going to go away and I will always be at some risk for a relapse. Post procedure I retuned to normal training and raced two open half marathons over Jan-Feb to work on getting some run speed back after 2 years of full IM training. I felt great. I was at Oceanside intending to race when a sinus infection the night before made me decide to DNS. I was ok with that decision and got back to training once I felt better.
Two weeks before St. George, I raced a local Olympic in Tempe. At mile 4 of the run, I was feeling great when suddenly my HR had a noticeable spike up. That in and of itself wasn’t alarming, but I also I had a very strange and very brief tingling in my chest that made me stop in my tracks. I walked for about 4min to see if my HR would come down and it did quickly. Once I felt normal I started to jog and watch my HR to see if it was in normal values. It was and I finished the race without incident. But it spooked me. I waited to see if I went back into A-fib but I was fine the following day and because I already had a November appointment with my cardiologist, I figured I would wait and see if anything else happened before reaching out to him.
I had considered not racing St. George and just calling it for the rest of the year. My wife was certainly and understandable concerned. I decided to at least start and if anything went even slightly sideways I would pull myself off course immediately. It was a strange mindset to go into a race with that made me feel sort of ambivalent to the whole proceeding. Guys, all I can say is even if you feel great, get some cardiac work done. It should be part of or 50+ routine just like a colonoscopy…I had my 2nd on Tuesday. 
So the race. The water was about as warm as I can remember it in all the events I’ve done at Sand Hollow. It was delightful. I used the Form Goggles swim straight compass on the outbound leg as it was directly into the sun. Worked great and I hit the halfway in 15min flat. Then disaster struck Somehow I convinced myself an outgoing buoy was my sighting target and off course I went. A jet ski had to come to my rescue.
If I had to guess, that probably cost me at least 90 seconds and I limped in with a 33:12.
T1 was fine, I did put on socks, probably could have waited until T2 to put them on. My plan on the bike was to watch HR as much as power. As long as it was steady and the effort felt appropriate, that’s what I rode too. I was eating about 110-120g of carbohydrate per hour, felt good going up Snow Canyon and went very quick coming down although my top speed was 52mph on the short, steep hill on Telegraph. I came in with a 2:38, 3min slower than 2024.
To add to my days blunders, I went down the wrong rack in T2, another costly time set back. The run was where I was the most concerned regarding my heart. I set out on the first lap with a hard cap on how high I would allow it to go, 142bpm. I didn’t find the heat to be so bad and I went through 6.5 miles in 51min flat.
I started the second lap climbing up Diagonal and allowed my HR to come up into the high 140’s, I wasn’t running faster it was just getting hotter and I was getting tired. When I made it to the top of the golf course, knowing the last 5K were downhill, I let it rip a bit and saw the low 150’s towards the end. Ran a 1:45:16 which was almost identical to my 2024 run with about 5bpm’s lower HR.
5:05:57 was good for 9th, about 8min off last years time which netted 4th in the AG. Had I swum straight and not had such a slow T2, I may have sniffed 5th. But regardless, I’m glad I went and although I am relieved to not have any adverse heart issues, it’s still in the back of my mind and I’m going to take the rest of the year off. I want to see my doctor again, maybe get a calcium scan and do some additional work to make sure everything is working properly. I’m glad I wrote this, going through it again in my mind has been helpful and I hope others find it helpful and can give some thought to their own heart health and some of the downsides of doing the sport we love.