I am about 9 months out from an ablation surgery and still not at pre-ablation paces. 53 YO and have been doing triathlons race etc for the past 15 years. Generally I feel pretty great. Have been AF since the surgery and have been very consistant in my workouts. No more signs of afib and my general heath has been great. I’ve noticed that I have not been able to get my running endurance totally back yet. I’m pretty good on shorter intevals but find that its still a little hard to hold a good pace at middle distance running. (ir holding a 5K or 10K pace). I end up holding a pace for a while then need to take a little walking break for my heartrate to go down. I’ve found that its harder for my heartrate to recover while still running if I slow down my pace in the middle of a run. Ususally need to start walking for a total reset.
Was wondering if anyone else has had similar experinces. If so did you do anything to change your training and/or did it just come back over time ? I’ve also noticed that it seems like I need a bit longer of a warmup before I start to feel good running.
Please let me know if anyone has had similar expereinces and how you managed your training.
it’s only recently my resting HR came down to something close to what it was before my ablation. i’m coming up on 2 years now since my ablation. i continue to get stronger. in my experience most months are better than the month before. you should be able to do whatever you want, within reason. but it’s still early days for you.
Dan - Thanks for the input. I think that having a resting heartrate that is probably a little better for me. ? Pre-ablation my resting heartrate was getting down around 37-42 at night and when sleeping. I felt like this was too low and it was causing me to wake up a little breathless in the middle of the night. Now its in the 60 range. Will be interesting to see where is normalizes and how low it goes.
Its great to hear that you are continuing to get stronger. Its difficult to find much (if any) benchmarking of training progress I keep telling myself to be patient and continue to be consistent.
Thanks for all the great information you’ve passed along regarding your journey. Its been helpful and inspiring.
It 3.5 months I would expect there is still alot of healing going on. Sounds like that might also be the case at my 9 months. At 9 months I find that I have more problems getting my heartrate up higher. A comfortable pace is 135 to 140 bpm. If I am getting it up 145 /150 I’m in a zone where won’t be able to keep a pace that long. Pre-ablation / afib I could regularly get into the 150-165 range. Not sure if this is the new norm at 53 Yo or what to expect. Understand what others have seen!
I am 6 months out from ablation. Heart rate has only just started to decrease a little. Im along way off from pre ablation resting heart rates.
As to running pace I have something similar going on. currently I have a hard stop. if I go above a certain heart rate it’s almost impossible to get my heart rate to recover–Im talking a couple hours while sitting back at home. If I stay below that heart rate, my heart seems to recover normally. Unfortunately that pace is just beyond a walk at this point and its driving me crazy.
My experience was a bit different. I was diagnosed in early 2017 right after my 56th birthday, and had my ablation that December, after my cardiologist convinced my insurance company that medication was not controlling my condition. But my resting HR remained constant before, during, and after afib, in the low 40s. I was also kept on my medication for 5 months after the ablation, while everything healed. Once off the drugs, I had more energy than I had in several years, even from well before the afib. Even though I was out of shape from doing very little activity over the previous year, I was consistently setting new Strava PRs on the bike, beating times I had set several years earlier.
What did change was that I lost about 10bpm from my maximum HR over that year. And I have to very gradually bring my HR up when doing a workout. If I do any kind of a hard effort early in a workout, even just a quick sprint, my HR doesn’t respond and I instantly go anaerobic, and don’t recover. And there are some days, like today, where my HR just simply refuses to go up, usually peaking at high Z2/low Z3…
I’m around your age, and 7 months out from hip surgery.
So, not going to comment on cardiac stuff. What I have noticed, though, is that while I’m not having problems with my hip joint anymore or with cycling, all my running muscles are nowhere near they were when my hip problems made me stop running in the first place. So in my case this was ~18 months pre-surgery, I’m guessing less with you, but it’s possible that some of your leg strength isn’t there, so you’re working harder than you would expect to reach your target pace.
Just a thought.
Also, we ain’t young anymore, healing takes longer than it used to, and at some point our old recovery pace will become our new race pace.
Thanks for the insight! I am seeing alot of what you describe here!
What did change was that I lost about 10bpm from my maximum HR over that year. And I have to very gradually bring my HR up when doing a workout. If I do any kind of a hard effort early in a workout, even just a quick sprint, my HR doesn’t respond and I instantly go anaerobic, and don’t recover. And there are some days, like today, where my HR just simply refuses to go up, usually peaking at high Z2/low Z3.
Are you trying to hold your 5k/10k pace from pre-ablation? Kind of sounds like you’re going too hard, entirely possible you need to rethink your pace expectations
Maybe…but from what I know many athletes do make a full recovery to pre-ablation levels. My pre-ablation 5K pace would be in the low 7s and currently in the 8s. What I’ve picked up through this thread is that it can be a farily long road to full recovery. Still seeing gains so that is good!