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.