I ran 5.7 miles this morning. I was planning to go only a few miles, but here in Pinetop we're in one of those neighborhoods where the roads aren't straight and the intersections aren't perpendicular.  I got lost and ended up taking many wrong turns and winding along the long way to get back.  The tough part was that I was breathing so hard, being over 7000 feet elevation here.  The original plan was for Heidi to walk while I ran, but she seems to like sleeping in these days.  Last night her pulse was racing a little, so the extra extra sleep was fine. 

When I say racing, I mean over 60 bpm.  And that was part of the problem with her diagnosis.  It all goes back to when she was a kid, and the years of competitive swimming. 

40-something years ago, Heidi's older brother Toby, brashly told his parents after watching a swim meet, "I could beat all those kids."  His parents, thinking he needed to set more realistic expectations, put him on the swim team.  The next meet he did just as he said and beat them.  It wasn't long before Heidi was in the pool, soon to be followed by younger sister Robin. 

Workouts for competitive swimming are usually twice a day, 5 or 6 days a week all year round.  Where I would have been happy running a few miles this morning, that distance would have been a typical swim workout back in her swimming days.  A typical single workout, which was usually followed by a second workout later in the day.  Willamalane Swim Club was very good to Heidi, taking her to swim meets around the country.  And Heidi was very good to Coach Dan Cole, competing at a national-caliber level. 

That went on for many years, until she stopped getting faster and then decided competing at the college level wasn't for her.  Years later, I started running to keep the inflation pressure down on the ever-growing spare tire.  It was a natural for Heidi to join me running.  Coincidentally, we've been very close to the same speed for many years now.  She is usually a little faster on daily runs, but I usually beat her in races, unless I am recovering from an injury.  We've run together on Saturday mornings for many years now.  I've always been a pretty fast runner, but I have to work on endurance and durability.  Heidi is just a natural endurance athlete; she just hits a pace and can keep going forever.  She runs the same pace whether it's a 400 or a 1/2 marathon.  It's funny how a die-hard sprinter like me can run the same pace as a natural long-distance athlete like Heidi.

And that was part of her problem with getting to a diagnosis two months ago.  The same reason she was such a good swimmer and such a natural distance runner was her slow-twitch muscle fiber and strong, slow heart.  She went to the doctor complaining that her pulse was racing and she was easily tired.  The doctor measured her pulse at 60 and determined everything was fine.  Heidi pleaded that it was very high, much higher than her normal rate of 40 bpm.  Admitedly, I gotta cut the doc some slack for not believing her.  A pulse of 60 is okay for 99+% of us.  (But the doc doesn't have any excuses for not ordering a blood count as part of her physical.) 

Thus began the appointment with a cardiologist, the ultrasounds of her legs and the scheduled angioplasty.  None of them believed her pulse was abnormal.  But it was.  And still is.  So I let her sleep in.