3:35 old guy here to your answer any question. Don’t overly expect a serious reply.

1991premilechamp wrote:

It is primarily caused by putting your heart at or near the max for extended periods of time. You actually develop scar tissue on the top of your heart.

It is more prevalent in tall males.

How near the max, and how long of a time?

Doper Therese Johaug just won the skiathalon gold medal going nearly all out for 44 minutes. Scar tissue likely?

Bad Wigins wrote:

1991premilechamp wrote:

It is primarily caused by putting your heart at or near the max for extended periods of time. You actually develop scar tissue on the top of your heart.

It is more prevalent in tall males.

How near the max, and how long of a time?

Doper Therese Johaug just won the skiathalon gold medal going nearly all out for 44 minutes. Scar tissue likely?

Great questions. Since I didn’t decide to do 12 years or so of intense academic and practical training to become a cardiologist my answer to this question does not come from an educated position. My best answer is for you to look into the book, “ The Haywire Heart - how too much exercise can kill you, and what you can do to protect your heart.

One of the case studies in the book is Dave Scott, the famous triathlete.

My layman’s answer is 44 minutes isn’t going to do anything, pretty much all the cases involve decades and decades of pushing your heart to the max.

This thread is amazing, thank you for answering all these questions, I love hearing old war stories. The last time I had this opportunity I squandered it; I was a freshman at a Canadian university at the time. I was cooling down with some older guy who was in town with his wife. He mentioned he was pretty quick back in the day and offered me some advice, which I immediately forgot, because I kept talking about my dreams of breaking 4:00 in the 1500m and generally being a self-involved 18 year old.

This is tragic because my coach later told me how good he, Graham Hood, was. What a wasted chance to chat with such a beast! His mile PB is better than my 1500m PB ended up being. Sad day.

Anyway, in an effort to not squander such a change again, I have a couple questions for you:

1. What do you think about the current practice by the Ingebritsens and others to do two hard workouts in a single day? Double runs sure but quality sessions both times seems like it would impact recovery... maybe this is why I never was very good.

2. Related, what was a workout you did in college or pro that you always dreaded?

3. As a high-strung type-A nerd in university I always got stressed about partying too much and a bad sleep and how it would impact training - but clearly you had a good time in university. How did you strike the balance between a good university social experience but still getting the work done for your sport?

Hopeful Bump

Graeme Hood is a great person, as is his wife.   it is totally normal to be self absorbed as an 18 year old, but yes, you missed a good chance. It also doesn’t surprise me a bit that Hood was willing to share his knowledge with fellow runners, regardless of ability.  

A similar thing happened to me in the fall of 1988.  I was at some cross country high school invitational just after the Olympics handing out medals at a request from my high school coach.  Before the race some young 16 year old comes up and starts talking with me. We actually had a good conversation and I said I would cheer for him in the race ( he was a big guy too for a runner). Well he won and we talked more when I handed out awards.   I became a fan of his and we stayed in contact especially when he was in college and I was a grad assistant at Auburn. We ended up becoming good friends and despite him now living in Norway, our families still vacation together on occasion ( our kids are the same age ). Some of you may know him, it is Bob Donker of West Virginia fame.   interesting the only reason he first talked to me is because he coach pointed me out, told him who I was and then dared him to go speak to me.   Bob did.  

1) double sessions do seem pretty intense. I never specifically did that, but doubling or tripling at a meet is probably similar. And I have done say a 4 mile hard steady state followed by a track workout.   we do have a much better understanding of recovery and recovery aids now so perhaps this is sustainable for very special, elite athletes. 

2). The only workout I ever really semi dreaded was mile intervals my first year at Arkansas. They were partially uphill and I wasn’t really strong enough to be able to conquer the hill so it ate me up.   can’t say I really dreaded them, but I just knew they would be tough. I wasn’t a real workout guy. I didn’t relish or dread them, I just did them. I did enjoy the group companionship of workouts and the warm down after a killer session was always something to cherish. Coach told me what to do and I did it. I didn’t need to know what it was until I showed up.  

the only time we really partied in college was AFTER we won a national title. Then it was a late night affair for most of us. But during the season, the serious guys would shut things down by midnight or so.   me and my roommates would even host parties and may have a few light beers but by 11pm or midnight we were re hydrating. We would be social and have fun, but there was a limit. 

My roommate Dan Gabor had the brilliant idea to hide a huge bottle of Vodka in the fridge that was actually full of water and not Vodka.  It was not unusual to see me and Gabor yelling at each other around 11:30pm to man up and drink some vodka.  We would pass the bottle back and forth acting like small sips were burning our throats. We would eventually finish the bottle doing large gulps to cheers from onlookers.   So, while appearing as “party animals “ we were actually re hydrating our bodies with water.   Then we would sneak off to bed and get our rest ( although Gabor typically had to privately show some female admirer his hockey card collection in his room before he fell asleep). 

I have something similar and did the running to cycling conversion too.  I found it especially prevalent after doing hard rides in cold weather.  It got to the point where I wouldn’t ride when it was less than 30 F.  I haven’t had ablation yet and I’ve been taking a small dose of a beta-blocker and anti-arrhythmic and haven’t had any issues in a while.   I mostly do weight training now and hope that I won’t need a pacemaker later in life.

I'm back and downvoting you just because someone downvoted me, and it was probably you the bumper of this old thread.

I just up voted your last post  so it went to zero now.   I guess that is how it works.   I thought your question was very relevant.  The more endurance athletes know about this the better. Thanks for posting. 

Sorry for the delay. I got caught up dealing with a big financial issue, but back now! 

Did you have much intersection with Freddie Williams? I worked with him a bit in Abilene.

Someone’s deep in your head.  Could you not try to hijack this thread and make it about nonsense?  I was really interested to learn some cool stuff about 1500 runners that I idolized.  Thanks.

As a guy who once had exceptional physical and sporting attributes, do you resent aging or see it as an opportunity to experience things in a different way?

Interesting. I know another very good distance runner that can’t eat cold food like a slushy on an empty stomach or he goes into Afib. Cold is a trigger for some. As can be caffeine. Hopefully we won’t need a pacemaker. I know two ex runners with them. One got it 30 years after several open heart surgeries due to all the scar tissue that developed. Other one I don’t know all the details but he goes for 20 mile runs with his in.

I haven’t seen Freddy in a long long long time. He seems like a nice guy, but we never hung out or were friends. Last I heard from him he contacted me through a mutual friend 25 years ago to get involved in some phone long distance cards that kinda looked like a legal Ponzi scheme. I just don’t do stuff like that. selling to your friends quite often leads to having no friends. He was a great runner though. I think 5th or so in the world champs once?

Great question. I really don’t think I was that exceptional. I just worked hard and did what I could do. Aging is an interesting topic. People use Botox, plastic surgery etc to fight it.   it is a natural progression for us all.   I think the key is to enjoy each aspect in life. I just can’t do what I used to be able to do. That’s life. But life gives you new challenges with each stage, and it is good to embrace them.  Did I enjoy my time as an elite athlete?   Sure. But I don’t think about going back, as I can’t.   I have no desire to chase age group records or the such. Why would I? I did that stuff, time to move on. now I worry about my family, Freind and if I have enough money presently leveraged into oil assets so when Ukraine gets invaded I make a ton. 

If they are in fact deep in my head they will see it is a barren wasteland!   Which 1500m runners do you want to hear about ?

I hope you didn’t think I was replying to you.  This up/down vote thing is out of control this weekend.  In a couple of days the chuckleheads will get tired of it and everything will settle down.

I don’t know if this will be fair to ask, but I’ve always wondered about the 1988 Oly 1500.   But if you can answer any of the below, I’d be grateful. 

1) Were you surprised when Jeff Atkinson went when he did in the final?

2) Did you ever see any other races like what Tom Byers did in the Dream Mile?

3) Did you enjoy the 3:35?  Were there any races that just floated right by and you ran well?

4) Did you ever have to run around a dirty water 🌭 cart when you were running indoors? 

Now there's a blast from the past. Freddie was a classmate/good friend of one of my best mates, when they were at high school in Cape Town in late 70's. My mate used to pace him for the first lap. Due to lack of competition/sponsorship he defected to the apartheid govt aligned athletics association. When Freddie yawned at the start line ( a nervous quirk), you knew he was ready to race.

A few years ago my mate caught up with him when he came to Sydney when he came to an expo, and bought one of those Kangen alkalyser water purifier snake oil machines he was flogging to friends for over $3,000.

Yes, a good way to end friendships

I heard he got into water purifier “ snake oil “ machines. This made me run further away from him, although like I said we really were not friends. I hope he is well. I think he is still in Canada. Last I heard he was trying to raise money to open a running store. hopefully he did that. Might be a better way to build long lasting relationships.