Heart Stress Test - Prognosis and Recommendations

I wrote about my Dad's condition with Coronary Heart Disease and how it ultimately led to him passing away. I went and got consultation with a Cardiologist and these were the steps that we followed:

1. Blood work
2. Cardiac CT Scan
3. Stress Test

Blood work was done to test my Sodium, Potassium, LDL, HDL and diabetes levels. This is first indicators of something going wrong with your body function. There are ranges prescribed by the Heart Associations. We checked and found out that my basic measures are all within range. My blood pressure was "excellent" according to my doctor. Once we had done this, my doctor recommended that we get a Cardiac CT Scan done and I did that last month, the results were surprising to say the least. I have what is known as the Atherosclerosis which is a fancy word to say that there is hardening of my arteries and in my case the small artery. My doctor right away recommended that we go on a lipid lowering drug regime. I take 40mg of atorvastatin everyday since he prescribed it and will go in for more blood work in another couple of weeks.

Heart function under stress
Yesterday we did the Stress Test, basically a number of nodes were attached to my chest and I was on stationary bicycle. The peddling became harder and harder, the doctor kept recording my blood pressure and the machine was recording the beating of all the arteries that go to my heart. All I saw was about 10 graphs that were showing the regularly going up and down, which I believe is the beating rhythm of my heart. The doctor explained to me the stress levels and how they see if there is any abnormality when the heart is working at its peak. He gave a passing grade on all the analysis, which means there is no depravity of Oxygen or Blood Flow to my Heart when it is put under stress which is good because if there is a symptom of either a Oxygen or Blood Flow depravity then it leads to a stroke or heart attack. The prognosis is that I can continue with all my physical activity i.e running without any constrain.

Diet
He recommended the South Beach Diet basically reducing the consumption of simple carbohydrates like white bread, cakes, cookies, pasta, candy and alcohol but increase consumption of complex carbohydrates.

Drug and Treatment

He pointed me to two recent studies, the Reversal Study and the Saturn Study. Both studies point to a method of treatment that my doctor wants me to follow.“This study demonstrates that the highest doses of the most effective statins currently available is safe, well tolerated and produces marked plaque regression,” said Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Stephen Nicholls, MD, PhD, lead investigator of the trial. The finding that these therapies produced low levels of LDL, raised HDL and removed plaque from the artery wall in a safe manner is positive news for patients with heart disease.” The bottom line is that when one goes through an aggressive lipid lowering drug regime i.e 80mg of Atorvastatin or Rosuvostatin, they found that it actually reversed the case of Atherosclerosis. My doctor wanted me to continue the 40mg dosage for another couple of weeks and ensure that there are no side effects before bumping my dosage. The saturn study was designed to measure the impact of CRESTOR (rosuvastatin) 40 mg and atorvastatin 80 mg on the progression of atherosclerosis in high risk patients sponsored by Astra Zeneca and their findings are here.

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Cardio Vascular Disease

My father passed away on September 19, 2011. he was diabetic and had his first heart attack on July 11, 2011. The doctors recommended that we do a by-pass surgery. Before he could get his body in shape to do the surgery he had 2 more attacks. He was rushed into surgery they found 6 major blocks in his artery and his heart was functioning only at about 30% capacity. His internal organs were very badly damaged, he fought for 19 days in the intensive care but finally his kidneys gave up. I stopped running regularly since my father's incident. Althought I have been doing some runs just don't have the motivation to get started again seriously. My plans to run the Chicago Marathon in 2011 did not happen as I was preoccupied with my Dad's passing. While I was visiting my dad every day in the IC unit, we got to talk to the doctor about why he had this problem of course there were many reasons he was diabetic and the doctors felt that he had Cardio Vascular Disease which is basically cholesterol build up on the veins and arteries that blocks blood flow in your body. It happens due to many reasons, like smoking (my dad did not smoke), heavy drinking (my dad was a teetotaler), bad food habits (my dad was very disciplined did not take sugar or eat rice since he found out he was diabetic), overweight (he was once again not overweight - 70 kgs for a 6 foot frame) etc. The main reason I felt that we could not save him was the fact that we did not detect the problem early enough.

I got myself tested with a CT Scan on my veins, arteries and my heart, much to the surprise of my doctor and myself, there was some narrowing of my arteries. The doctor initially told me that we don't need to do a stress test but now I am on a cholesterol lowering drug and I plan to take a stress test on January 18. I have been tracking my heart rate during all my runs and this data should give more insights into my condition. I feel fine though the holiday diet has not been very helpful but I plan to get on the running trail quite soon and give a good fight to my condition.

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Chicago Marathon October 9 2011

I have not blogged since last year about my running since I got injured and could not run the Reykjavik Marathon which was suppose to be my qualifier for Boston Marathon. Never the less, have not stopped running or training to qualify for Boston. I took a brief break last year but continued to train through the winter and have been building a good base for my final push for Chicago Marathon this year. I convinced my partner Sonny to run this marathon as well. Click on the link to see a larger image of my running summary so far I would say it has not been bad, I have run 1 race, the 2011 Mid Night Run, here is the result, 47:23 was the time. Nothing to thump the chest about but it gave a great feedback to me that I need to start running more often during the week. With regard to building a base I think it has been a fair effort, I have done about 743.7 kilometers so far. Now for the running plan for the next 12 weeks:Training Plan with Actuals

100.5 km in the week of June 28 to July 4th

One of the goals that I set out to do this year was to increase my weekly mileage to reach 100km+, I achieved that goal last week. I did 100.55 km in 8:20:51 @4:59/km and I burned a total of 8568 calories! It feels great to have achieved one more milestone in my running activity. I also did a Yasso 800 during the week and here is the details of the track work.


when I compare this to my first Yasso 800, I see some improvements, on an average I have improved about 8 seconds on the 800 and I was able to do 5 laps out of the door now compared to only 3 last year. In addition, my Max heart rate did not cross 175 where are last year it was 177 so 2 heart beats slower and 8 seconds faster.

Based on the above, my average speed split pace for 1 km is 3 min 51 seconds, which extrapolates to 2 hours 42 min 31 seconds... for a marathon. Of course we cannot do a linear projection. But I am sticking to this projection as my best effort time.

Powerade - Midnight Run: 44:17 PB

Ran the Reykjavik Powerade Midnight run 10k race in 44 min 17 sec... here is the official result. This was my personal best and I improved from 46:03 last year so it is almost 2 minutes improvement. Based on this run, my projected time for the Reykjavik Marathon is 3:23:12 still 9 minutes slower than what I need for Boston. The good thing is I know what I need to do to push myself for the next 2 months. It is going to really hard work! Hey, no-one told me that it was going to be easy

Reykjavik Marathon 2010 Training Plan - Goal 3:15:00 - Destination Boston

click to enlarge

Well, here is my training plan for the next 10 weeks before the Reykjavik Marathon. The goal is to qualify for Boston Marathon with a time of 3:15:00, many that I have mentioned this to have looked at me like I was stating something like I am flying to the Moon in the next 10 weeks! Well, criticism and nay sayers aside... I shall focus and build on the base that I have started my training on. I feel good and I can see that my endurance and speed are increasing and I know that there is no substitute for hard work and perseverance. 'noph said

Half marathon result: 1:45:08

I decided to run a half marathon race 15 minutes before the start of the race yesterday. I originally intended to just meet a fellow runner and run with him as a rabbit to help him achieve his time goal in the race but never got to meet him. It was a chilly day but it was bright and sunny, I found out later that the Ash Cloud from Eyjafjallajokull volcano was finally moving over Reykjavik and the air quality was deteriorating.
The official result is here , I finished 99th of the 192 runners. I was quite satisfied with my time as it was 8 seconds slower than what I set myself as a goal. 2009 and 2010 have been wondering years in my running as I am starting to understand my body and able to set goals that are challenging yet achievable. It is a great feeling...


View Vormaraþon FM 2010 in a larger map
Above is the route of the Marathon, it was a pretty good route which I have run a number of times. Started off with a good clip, at the beginning of the 5th km my Garmin battery died so I was more less blind to my pace. I felt pretty good and completed half way in about 50 minutes I think I was not sure. Then the wind was on my face for the rest of the race, it was brutal. Never the less, finished the race by sprinting the last 200m with the clock striking 1:45! of course I stopped after passing the clock only to notice the finish line was a couple of yards in front of me and all the people standing shouting at me to move forward... which I did and that cost me the last 8 seconds :)

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First race in 2010: 5km in 21:33 PB

Image via Wikipedia

It was a beautiful day to be the first day of summer. Typical, Icelandic style, 0 degrees with 4m/s northerly winds. My wife and daughter and her friend drove me to the venue and I had decided to run the race with my running shorts, had my track pants on. My wife on discovering that I was planning to run in my shorts thought I was crazy because it was pretty cold with the wind chill. I did not want to run with my winter tights because I always felt constricted in them. Never the less, I did not have my gloves or ear cap, just had my LSU hat. Got the bib, my number was 410. Warmed up by doing a couple of sprints up and down the start road next to the Reykjavik City Hall. Heard the sound of the start gun and started to sprint out right away. It was a long straight with a small uphill at the end of the strip, I was able to pass many people on the hills. As they say, your running strength is shown on the hills. Continued a pretty fast clip, completed the first km in 4:09 and then the hills started rolling in not long ones but many short ones and I could see that I was able to push myself quite a bit. I averaged about 4:20 according my own calculations looking at my Garmin 305. Another note that I thought was very interesting is how many kids were running the race on the 4th km, I was passed by a girl, she must have been 12... I just could not believe that she was doing such a good pace, but I caught up with her and many others in the hills and left on my trail. It was a memorable run...  Here is the official result of the 5km race held on April 22, 2010 in Reykjavik. I was 95th out of the 459 runners who finished the race. This was my first 5km race so it was pretty good result considering that I have never run one. I realized that I have a lot of gas left in me when I ran but for some reason I never pushed myself, I guess I need to be patient about improving. Before the run I set a goal of being able to run the race within 22 minutes and I achieved that goal... and I am happy about that. I had a milkshake at Metro (formerly McDonalds in Iceland) :). Now need to start preparation for the next race which is a half marathon the coming Saturday. Click on the image below to see the summary and splits of the race.

Running Stats so far - first 5km race on first day of Summer

Image by Nwardez via Flickr

I have been keeping with the running regime but have not been blogging... shame on me! anyways, here is the summary of my running in 2010 and it has not been bad.


I have registered to run a 5km race on the first day of summer (today!) and the goal is to run as hard as I can and set my first 5km PB. The race starts at 12:00 noon in downtown Reykjavik... I have run this race route before and it is pretty flat except for a small hill stretching about 300m.

Goal for the rest of the year:
1. 100km a week and push it to 150km
2. Start swimming to train for Iron Man in 2012.
3. Run Reykjavik Marathon
4. Qualify for Boston Marathon

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Gamlárshlaup ÍR 2009: 46:03

Here is the official result of the run... nothing spectacular, but I ran the race well within my capacity. I should have pushed myself harder, but what the heck it has been an awesome year and I am very proud of my improvement of 3 minutes and 57 seconds from the last year result.

Running goals for this year:
1. Change the training plan to include more cross training, swimming, bicycling, rope yoga and weight lifting
2. Qualify for Boston Marathon

Thank you hlaup.is to capture my picture!

BITS 2 Marathon 10 KM Race - 44:57 PB

Image by jeffjose via Flickr

I have been a member of the BITS 2 Marathon running discussion group for the past 4 months. This group consists of Alumni and current students of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, my alma mater.

I joined the group to share my experience of running 7 marathons (Chicago 2009, Copenhagen 2008, Berlin 2007, Reykjavik 2007, London 2007, Oslo 2006, Reykjavik 2006) and also learn from other BITSians who are on the running trail. One of the founding members suggested that we should organize a World Run, i.e. everyone runs a race in their current location on a specific date. The group enthusiastically supported the idea and the BITS Alumni Association took the initiative to provide us with the web space to allow registration and they did an amazing job of designing a T-Shirt and the certificate of completion. I will post them once I receive it. The race was set for December 6th 2009. There were a total of160 registrations in locations ranging from Bay Area in California to Marina Beach in Chennai. Many BITSians in the locations who could not participate in the race volunteered to organize the race and support the runners. We have been getting updates from each of the locations, and it is fascinating to see so many faces taking on this challenge. Note that many of the participants are first time runners.

I am the only BITSian in Reykjavik, Iceland so I had to run the race alone. My effort to get my running buddies to participate did not materialize as I was lazy to not announce earlier than the day of the run, what can I say the last minute planning of Iceland has its influence never the less it has been a gorgeous day for a run. I started at around 10 am and completed the race in 44 minutes and 57 seconds, this is my personal best and I improved on my previous personal best by 1 minute and 6 seconds. I am pretty happy with my performance and I acheived my goal which was to run the 10 km sub 45 minutes :)

Chicago Marathon 2009: 3:33:54 PB

I ran and finished the Chicago Marathon 2009 in 3 hours 33 minutes and 54 seconds, this was an improvement of 31 minutes and 26 seconds from my previous personal best.




We arrived in Chicago on the 9th and the day we were leaving Reykjavik the weather was interesting, we had winds of about 40 m/sec. There was some doubt whether the flight to chicago will leave on time but all of that uncertainty was put to rest when the plane took off on time and my buddies Villi and Joi were on the same flight and they were running the marathon as well. We reached our hotel at around 12am on Oct 10th, we stayed at the Westin Michigan Avenue, it was a great location for shopping right next to the John Hancock Building, Bloomingdales and Macy's. Our daughter has been so well trained to travel that she took everything in and she was having fun as well inspite of the jet lag and all the shuttling between airports.

Villi, Joi and I went to the Marathon expo center and got our bibs and running chip on the 10th, spent some time looking at all the running stuff. I bought myself 2 pairs of ASICS shoes, Performance Trainer and a Kayano. The Kayano felt like a massage for my feet.  In addition, got all the Nike Chicago Marathon memerobilia. Did some serious damage to the wallet, hey what the heck its not like I am going to run the 2009 Chicago Marathon again.

In the evening we went to Carmine's an Italian restaurant ate some spaghetti with meat balls, this time around I did not over eat just enough to feel full and satiated.  Since the race was starting at 7:30 the next morning we hit the bed. I woke up at 3:00 am as I could not sleep after that, read the book The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown, got some granola with yogurt, nuts and dates my typical Marathon breakfast.

The weather was cold, at 3:00 am the temperature was -1°C. We left the hotel at 6:10 and walked the 2 miles to the start. It was amazing to feel the energy of everyone getting ready to start the run. Villi, Joi and I found our spot near the fountain in the park. I was planning to run with my wind jacket and had my bib pinned to that, Villi and Joi advised me to run without the jacket based on their experience in Boston which was cold to start with but got warmer during the day and Joi had to throw away his jacket. That was slight change of plans, never the less I decided to run with the official Chicago Marathon T-Shirt on-top of my CWX cold top. We deposited our bags and squeezed our way to the front of the pack, we jumped over a fence to reach the 3:50 pace setting group. It was exhilarating to hear the start of the race, 33,608 runners ready to hit the road.

I started sprinting right away, my strategy was to push hard and keep at it until the finish. I think I was running at a pretty good pace at the start and caught up with many runners in the 3:30 pace and ran with them until the end of the race. I was expecting to see my wife and daughter in the half marathon stage but could not find them in the crowd and I slowed down a bit to find them. Never the less, kept on chugging. The weather was still cold and it never got warmer, I started feeling the strain around 27th km, slowed down a bit and walked during the drink stations. I think the saving grace for my run was the initial push that I did in the first half of the marathon, I ran 20km in 1:34:15. There were several instances where my body was ready to give up but I never gave up and kept running and I was delighted to finish in 3:33:54.

The next goal is to qualify for Boston Marathon, i.e. shaving 18+ minutes from this run!

Speed work 4X1600, Cold, Cough and Icelandic Weather

Did my speed work on thursday, I was starting to feel a tickle on my throat usually a symptom of me getting sick with a cold and flu. But never the less completed the training run: here is the summary of the run, it was hard and I think my feeling under the weather must have made it worse... but I did the speed runs at a pretty good pace.


As can be seen my first mile (1600m) time was 6:18 pace, followed by 6:34, 6:48 and 6:42. I would say the average speed for the speed runs were 6:35. This gives me a little bit more confidence that I can sustain a pace of 6:45 for a extended period of time.

I had to miss my long run this weekend as I am down with cold, cough and body joint aches. Friday I left work at noon and slept maybe 8 hours and continued to sleep on Saturday. I think this has been the longest sleep bouts I have had for some time. I woke on Saturday with a back ache due to lying in bed for an extended period of time. Anyway, I think I am feeling a little bit better today, took the dog out for a 6 km walk in the hale and wind. I have already started counting down the days till the Chicago Marathon on October 11.

Gave up after 35 km...

I was very disappointed after a horrible run last sunday. I managed to run 35 km in 3:06:54 @5:19/km... I think I have to blame myself for the dismal performance. The weather was horrible, it was windy, rainy and down right depressing when I looked out the window when I woke up around 7am. I was quite surprised with the games my mind was playing I have never been intimated by the weather before and I have run in much harsher weather so I don´t know what the issue was. I guess mentally I am getting tired of training, I need to start running with a group to keep up the training regime.

To get down to the specifics, almost 8 km I was running against the wind, which felt horrible and I just could not push myself to keep up a good pace. It felt like the wind was 10 to 15 m/sec, of course it feels horrible when your mind tells  you all that is wrong with the run. I am more motivated than I have ever been to get back into doing more speed work and tempo runs to improve my speed.

Core Workout

I found these exercises to be very useful... they basically work your abdomen and back, I have started doing Rope Yoga which is excellent for the core as well.

Core Exercise 1
Core Exercise 2
Core Exercise 3

Running & Reading...

I saw this clip with Will Smith, I thought it was so simple and yet communicated a very strong message.

Reykjavik Half Marathon 2009 in 1:36:10 PB

I had decided that I would run the half marathon in Reykjavik in 1:45:00 which is 5 minute pace. The day started very early as I got a call from India at 5:45am and I had my alarm at 6:45. Never the less, got ready, Alok and An our friends from Amsterdam had come to visit us and also to participate in the Marathon. Alok was running the half marathon and An was running the 10k. We took a cab from our house to the start line, got there about 40 minutes before the start warmed up by running around the lake in downtown Reykjavik.

I started out a brisk pace and kept at it till the finish, I felt very good all through the way and actually I pushed myself to run hard at the end of the run. The strategy seem to work well and I ran the race in 1:36:10, which is my personal best and this was the fastest average pace that I have ever run even taking my practice runs into account. Here is the official result

The average pace was 4:32/km, I am very happy that the hard training is starting to kick in but the ultimate goal is Chicago Marathon and Boston qualification. I need to keep this above pace if I want to qualify for Boston. It is going to be hard but I feel confident that I can train hard for the next month and be best prepared for the marathon in Chicago.

No diabetes!

I did my yearly blood sugar and urine test and my doctor says I don't have any symptoms of Diabetes... whew! that one is out of the way. He also recommends that I do this every year so that we can monitor the development. I guess keeping my weight off by running has really changed my body's internal workings and I am very glad that I don't have to worry about this at-the-least for a another year...

Running update before Reykjavik Half Marathon 2009

Reykjavik Marathon 2009 is next week and I plan to run a half marathon with a time goal of 1:45:00. I have posted an update until end of July and my training plan, the running stats in August so far stands at:

Distance (km): 130.05
Time: 10:56:06
Avg. Pace (min/km): 5:03
Avg. Speed (km/hr): 11.9
Calories: 11,416
Avg kms per day: 8.1


Image by skipio in Flickr

How lucky am I?

I ran 8.2 km yesterday with my buddy Villi at 10 pm in Heidmork, around a beautiful lake and the sky was such a beautiful sight, I was thinking I must be blessed and lucky to be able to view this sight. I have been amazed at the colors that get displayed in the sky over Iceland, it is purple, red, pink, orange, green, blue and all hues in between.The picture is from SportTracks, a software that I use to track all my workouts it is free but brilliant. It was written by runners for runners. If you want a log book for your running I would highly recommend this tool.

For those interested to see what I am talking about look at the photo stream of fredschalk in Flickr.