(And What | Learned From It)

Courtesy of Brightroom.com

TEAMBOAT SPRINGS, COLORADO,

June 1, 2008—It was while riding on

the bus up the mountain to the start of the 2008 Steamboat Marathon that the events of the past year hit me. And what a year it was! Sung to the tune of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” the words would be “Four heart bypasses/three marathons/two broken ribs/ and one other surgery!”

The events started on Tuesday, May 29, 2007. My wife and I are both teachers at Maize High School in Kansas, and this was the first day of summer break. Our plans for the summer were about to change. We had planned to travel to several sprint triathlons during the summer, and I was practicing an open-water swim. After only about 150 yards, my arms were hard to lift and I was getting tired. This surprised me, since on the previous Sunday I had swum for 25 minutes in a pool and then had ridden my bike for 15 miles with no problems. Not anything outstanding, I realize, but good enough for me and my level of fitness.

Alan Birdsell, on his way down the mountain at
the Steamboat Marathon.

I turned around and headed back to the dock where my wife, Becky, was waiting. By using the sidestroke and going from docked boat to docked boat, I eventually made it back to the end of the cove and hauled myself out of the water. We talked and agreed that I wasn’t ready for open-water swims and would keep my triathlons to pool swims—and then I passed out. That was when the great adventure began!

Little did I know that passing out is a big deal. Becky said I was probably out for about a minute, although it seemed more like 10 minutes to her. After I regained consciousness, my theory was that passing out was not that big a deal, that it had been caused by hyperventilating. She did not buy that. Since my German stubbornness refused to believe that anything was seriously wrong, she insisted that I call my OB/GYN.

Perhaps the fact that I have an OB/GYN needs some explanation, since most men do not use one for health-related problems. Dr. Dawne Lowden of Wichita has been a running partner of mine for several years. Dawne is my OB/GYN. Fortunately, she did not see the need to examine me using stirrups, but she did recommend that I contact my family doctor. Most important, she let me know in no uncertain terms that Becky did indeed have reason to be concerned.

More doctors than a guy probably needs

Not only do [have an OB/GYN, but I also have a physical therapist who specializes in women’s problems. She is my other running partner, Pam Palmer. Running together twice a week, Pam, Dawne, and I have put in many, many miles together. Their friendship, encouragement, and patience proved immeasurably valuable over the next few months. We are wonderful friends, and they like to say that they think of me as “just one of the girls.”

My primary physician, Dr. Richard Glover of Newton, Kansas, who has competed in triathlons and other races, arranged an EEG and a stress test. On May 30, I had the EEG. The technician saw no abnormality with the brain waves but said that it was “interesting” that my heart would skip beats, sometimes going two to four seconds between beats. On May 31, I had the treadmill stress test. It went fine except that the physician administering the test, Dr. Yusuf Qamar, also saw the skipped beats. An echocardiogram (sonogram of the heart) followed immediately.

Two interesting findings came from the echocardiogram. The first was that at some time in my life, I had had a heart attack. I have no idea when, but there was damaged tissue at the apex of the heart. The second finding was that my ejection fraction (the percentage of blood ejected from the heart with each contraction) was approximately 40 percent. Normal is between 55 and 70 percent. Dr. Qamar called Dr. Thomas Ashcom, a cardiologist in Wichita.

As a result of the phone call, I was loaded onto a gurney, placed in the back of an ambulance, taken to Kansas Heart Hospital in Wichita, and admitted. The next day, June 1, my 57th birthday, I had a heart catheterization. During the heart cath, Dr. Ashcom and a vascular surgeon, Dr. Philip Bongiorno, asked whether I would like to see a picture of my heart. The image was amazing. The arteries came down about one-third of the way on the left side and stopped. My rhetorical question was, “I need bypass surgery, don’t I?” Their answer was a simple “Yes.”

The human body is truly amazing. An artery from the backside of the heart had come to the front side and taken over the work of the three blocked arteries on the left side. It was gigantic. There is no doubt in my mind that this artery from the back of the heart came to the rescue because of my running. Keep in mind that “gigantic” is a relative term, since heart arteries are approximately the size of uncooked spaghetti noodles.

The next step was bypass surgery on June 4. Although not terrified, I was concemed. I did not get nervous until Becky had given me a good luck kiss and sent me on my way through the doors to the operating room. Then I was terrified. I said a quick prayer: “God, please help me.” Immediately my fears were calmed. Faith helps.

Four bypasses were performed. Three of the blockages were rather significant. The left descending artery, also called the “widow maker,” was 100 percent blocked. If someone has a heart attack caused by that particular artery and happens to be standing in the midst of a group of cardiologists, he is still a goner. The circumflex artery was 99 percent blocked. Another artery on the left side of the heart was 90 percent blocked. These three bypasses were no-brainers. An artery on the right side of the heart was 50 percent blocked. A bypass was done on that artery primarily as prevention.

No rest for the incapacitated

Recovery from the quadruple-bypass surgery began almost immediately. The surgery was on Monday afternoon. The nurses got me on my feet on Tuesday afternoon. I am proud to say that I was able to walk, by a generous estimate, almost 12 inches. And that was without GU or a water stop.

The distance quickly increased, and by Wednesday evening I was being either a “motivation” or a “royal pain” because I was walking the hallways as much as possible. During the surgery, Dr. Bongiorno, rather than merely wiring my sternum together after the bypasses, had also attached three titanium plates to the sternum. When my wife asked him why, he said, “I don’t trust him. He’ll try to do more than he should.” Someone must have clued him in.

On Friday, I was dismissed from the hospital. Before I left, I asked the doctors about continuing marathon training. I had already entered the 2008 Disney

World Marathon. It was scheduled for 32 weeks after surgery. Their answer: “Go for it!” And so I did.

The training started slowly. One of the first steps was to begin a cardiac rehabilitation program. It was one hour a day, three days a week, for six weeks, and it consisted of riding a stationary bike plus walking (and eventually jogging) on a treadmill. In the last two weeks, light weightlifting was added. The staff kept a close watch on blood pressure to measure appropriate exercise level. On the alternate days, I began a self-designed walking (and eventually jogging) program. At the beginning, the cardiac rehab day was an easy day; by the end of six weeks, the cardiac rehab became challenging as the intensity increased.

Shortly after I began cardiac rehabilitation, another challenge hit. While in intensive care following surgery, I had taken pain medication (morphine). After I got out of intensive care, I took large doses of Oxycodone. Both of these medications certainly help control pain, but they also tend to lead to constipation. Without going into the details, on June 22 I had finished an extended session in the bathroom and was making my way back to the bedroom. This journey might be, at most, 20 feet. As I got to the doorway of the bedroom, I thought, Only two more steps and I’ll be on the bed. The next thing I knew, Becky was kneeling beside me. I had passed out. As I fell, I hit her vanity and managed to break two ribs in my lower left back.

But a small inconvenience such as broken ribs would not interfere with getting back to running. I walked the next morning. During July, the distances increased. Beginning with short walks, I progressed to short jogs. I would walk for two minutes and jog for 30 seconds. I gradually increased the jogging time. By July 22, one month after my broken ribs, I was ready to run my favorite long route. My strategy was to walk even the slightest uphill, and I do mean “slightest.” So seven weeks after surgery, I ran and walked 6 1/2 miles.

As the summer came to an end and school resumed, the mileage kept increasing. At Maize High, I am assistant cross-country coach. This allows me to run with the kids a few days each week. Running every other day, I worked up to where on the Sunday before Labor Day, I ran and walked 12 miles, using the same walkthe-uphills strategy. This was 13 weeks after surgery. The next two weeks went well, and then it was time for inguinal hernia surgery on the left side.

This surgery, unlike the bypasses, was planned. In fact, it had been recommended for over a year. But I had put it off, always having one or two events planned. So far, 2007 had been busy and was going to remain busy. Taking time off for surgery was too inconvenient. First it was the Houston Marathon in January, then a 43-mile relay from Kansas City to Lawrence (Kansas), then the Lawrence Half-Marathon, and then a series of summer sprint triathlons. The bypass surgery had replaced the triathlons. Now it was time. On September 21, the hernia was repaired.

A Alan (far right) with the state-bound Maize High School girls’ cross-country team.

And yet another hernia

Recovery was surprisingly quick. This was my second inguinal hernia repair, having had the right side repaired two years earlier. Recovery from the first surgery had been, in my mind, slow and painful. However, this time I was back jogging short distances within two weeks, running within three weeks, and had worked my way up to six miles within a month. But my patience was wearing thin.

One of the medications I had been taking since surgery was Lopressor, a beta blocker. Lopressor is prescribed to slow and regulate the heartbeat. Lopressor also slows running approximately 10 to 20 percent. I had accepted that my previous slow pace would now be even slower. On October 11, I was eating lunch when I experienced what can best be described as “strange” feelings in my chest. It was not quite a tightening or a compression, but it was as if I could not expand my lungs to catch a breath, almost as if the breath were being sucked out of me. Of course, my first thought was heart attack. That was also my second thought as I regained consciousness after once again passing out.

My wife took me to see my cardiologist. He was out of the office, but after I described my symptoms to two physician assistants, they said that I had trouble with the vagus nerve. Sometimes if food is eaten too fast or if cold liquid is drunk, the vagus nerve will cause the heartbeat to slow. Their theory: I had passed out because of my heartbeat slowing too much.

oa § = S ze

Two things were recommended by Dr. Ashcom’s staff: one, to stop taking the Lopressor; and two, to come in the next day for a radioactive stress test. During a radioactive stress test, a dye is injected and approximately 20 pictures are taken of the heart. Then, the stress test is administered. During my stress test, the treadmill reached an angle of approximately 18 degrees. The speed was fairly fast. My pulse rate reached 172. Since I was 57 years old, it made me feel good when my pulse rate was recorded at 106 percent of maximum (using the 220-minus-age formula). Following the stress test, the same set of pictures was taken, providing a before-and-after comparison.

After the stress test, recovered quickly. Following lunch, I was feeling rested and surprisingly strong, so my wife took me to my favorite running route. Much to my surprise, my pace was much quicker than it had been. It was still not what Thad run before surgery, but it was not nearly as slow as with Lopressor, even though I had stopped taking it just 24 hours before. I had accepted logically that my times would be much slower, but emotionally it was difficult to accept. Now things were looking up!

During this entire episode, my biggest fear was not that I had suffered a heart attack, not that something had gone terribly wrong, but that I would be restricted from running. Even though my marathons were constantly in the front of the back of the pack—my PR was 4:45—I take great satisfaction in how marathon running had changed my appearance and, until now, my general health. I had been a moderately successful high school athlete during the late 60s. Using 1968 terms and distances, I had a best of 22 feet, 8 inches in the broad jump, had approached 51 seconds in the 440, and had run 10.2 for 100 yards. And then I took about 30 years off from physical endeavors.

Keeping it all in perspective

Marriage and raising a family had been a priority. By 1997, I had managed to top the scales at 210 pounds. My blood pressure usually tested about 140/90, which is borderline hypertension. My resting pulse rate was usually in the low 70s. My waist was 38 inches, and the size 38 pants were starting to get snug. On November 22, 1997, I decided to do something. I went to the Maize High weight room, lifted a few weights, and got on the treadmill. The treadmill was quite an experience. I walked for two minutes, jogged for two minutes, walked for two minutes, and was done—absolutely gassed.

The weight started coming off, the time on the treadmill got longer, and I worked up to running for 30 minutes. When spring came, I moved my running outside. It was as if I were starting over, without a treadmill belt to move my legs. Thad to move them myself! Over the next six years, I entered local races, starting with 5Ks and working up to a 10-mile race. But there seemed to be more to do.

The motivation came in June 2003. My wife was diagnosed with and had surgery for kidney cancer, all within a span of 12 days. During her summer of recovery, an idea began growing in my head. The previous year, two fellow teachers had run the San Diego Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon with Team In Training, which raises funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Although Becky did not have leukemia or lymphoma, she did have cancer. Helping defeat one cancer helps defeat all cancers. My thinking was, Jf they can run a marathon, so can I. And who better to run for than Becky? And thus, my marathon career began. I turned 54 on June 1, 2004, and ran my first marathon on June 4.

I was scared that the doctors would say that marathon training was too much and would tell me to stop running. As I returned to the doctor’s office following the radioactive stress test, my fears were alleviated. In fact, Christine, the physician assistant who had worked with me during my hospital stay, said, “That is the last thing we want you to do! Keep running, and have fun.” A few days later, Dr. Ashcom told me to “Go for it! Your tests are fine.” My injection fraction was now over 60 percent and my heart was beating along fine.

With a scare and the good news, I ran the Route 66 Half-Marathon in Tulsa in November; this had been planned since early October as a training run for Disney. My primary goal was to work on pacing. Running conservatively, I ran fairly consistent 10:45 to 10:50 miles. The Route 66 course is almost entirely flat for the first nine miles. Miles nine through 12 are primarily uphill, but mile 13 is a steep downhill. My time was approximately 2:15. I was thrilled. I had run the uphill portion of the course without walking. In fact, I had not walked during the race except for the aid stations. This was a first for me. Normally, I have to walk periodically starting about mile 10.

And then it was off to Orlando to see Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and all the rest of the characters. Traveling with my wife, my OB/GYN, and my women’s physical therapist, we joined other members of the Kansas chapter of Team In Training for our pilgrimage to Florida and the Disney World Marathon.

This was seven months after quadruple-bypass surgery. The trip was fantastic. The four of us used it as a celebration. Travel day was Thursday, January 10. We three runners headed off for the expo as soon as we got settled in our rooms at the Coronado Resort. To quote the good doctor: “It’s serious shopping time!” She and Pam certainly used it. After returning to the hotel and sampling mojitos, it was, at 11:00 p.M., finally bedtime. After all, we had been at the Wichita airport at 5:00 that morning.

A short run to keep the legs loose

Friday was an early-morning two-mile run around Coronado Lake, scouting our resort, and the Team In Training pasta party. After the party, the four of us headed

to Downtown Disney. Dinner was at Wolfgang Puck’s. Entertainment was the Cirque du Soleil. After Cirque came more shopping at Downtown Disney and then back to the hotel. It was truly a night to remember. Saturday was another two-mile run followed by a late breakfast. Seated at a nearby table were runners who had just completed the first half of the Goofy Challenge. They had run the half-marathon that day and were running the marathon the next day. Another idea was hatched! Saturday evening was dinner at Fulton’s Crab Shack in Downtown Disney followed by an early bedtime at 10:30.

The wake-up call was at 2:15. Disney knows how to handle crowds. However, they do like to get you to your destination early. The last bus leaves the resorts at 4:00 a.m. Since the Team In Training team leader wanted a group picture and wanted to make sure that we got to the starting area at Epcot in plenty of time, a 2:15 wake-up call it was. And this was after some negotiations. She originally had wanted us in the hotel lobby at 2:30 for the picture. Cooler heads prevailed, and the picture was at 3:15.

The morning was perfect running weather: slightly cool and misty. The last time I had run without tights was at Tulsa. Kansas weather had been unusually cold, icy, snowy, and, in a word (or rather three words), crappy for running. Florida, we knew, would not be like that.

The race started at 6:00 a.m. with wonderful fireworks against the dark Florida morning sky. The first part of the race went well. Cool and misty soon ended when the sun came up. Fortunately, until somewhere after the Magic Kingdom at mile 11, the clouds remained. All good things come to an end, however, and thus, the perfect running weather evaporated under the sunshine. The clouds vanished and it became hot, and hotter, and hotter still. Even before heart surgery, [had trouble with heat. That certainly did not change. I finished in a personal worst time of 5:17.

But I was not disappointed. In fact, I was elated. In the last two miles, I was running with tears in my eyes, realizing what I had accomplished. It was then that I truly understood the purpose of a marathon: not the race, but the journey. Pam and Dawne met me at the Team in Training tent, and then the tears really started. I had done something none of my doctors had ever heard of: I had run a marathon seven months after quadruple-bypass surgery!

So what to do next? Two things came to mind. First, the Goofy Challenge. So on Monday, I sat in the hotel’s computer center and dedicated myself to the next year. I entered the 2009 Goofy Challenge as soon as entries opened: no sense in taking a chance on being shut out. As soon as we returned to Wichita, Dawne did the same. We had talked about it over the weekend and, as with most of our decisions, concluded “Why not?” A few days after Dawne entered, so did Pam. The three of us will be in Florida on January 10 and 11, 2009, putting in our 39.3 miles. To make it a complete weekend, I have also entered the Circle of Life (held at Animal Kingdom) 5K on Friday, giving me 42.4 miles for the trip.

Second, a marathon in the first part of June seemed appropriate. On June 1, Thad had my heart catheterization and learned that I needed bypass surgery. On that same date, a funeral was held for a good friend and fellow teacher at Maize High. Joe Phannenstiel, whom I had known for over 20 years, had been diagnosed with lymphoma in March and had died in late May. The San Diego Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon was scheduled for June 1, 2008. That also happened to be my 58th birthday. With three motivations, I signed up with Team in Training again. My plan was to raise funds for both races, but life got in the way.

Fund-raising was going well, but not great. To go with Team In Training to both San Diego in June and Disney the following January, I would need to raise approximately $7,500. When the recommitment date came for San Diego, my wife was having headaches, and pituitary cancer was a real threat. Not knowing what the next few months would bring, we decided to apply all of the donations to Disney. Fortunately, Becky does nothave — © candid Color Photography pituitary cancer, and my fund-raising obligation for Disney has been met. Now I could concentrate on the training. But I still wanted to run a marathon on June 1. One in particular caught my attention—in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The Steamboat Marathon was fairly close to Wichita, it was in the mountains, and it received a good review in both Marathon & Beyond and on MarathonGuide.com. Also, to prepare for San Diego, I had planned on running the Oklahoma City Memorial Half-Marathon on April 20. Training continued, and the mileage kept getting easier and easier. In late March, I ran 22 miles, so when I registered for Oklahoma City, it was for the marathon, not the half. As long as I was challenging myself, why not make it two marathons six weeks apart? Oklahoma City was on

The author heads toward the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon finish.

April 20 and Steamboat on June 1. This would also give me three marathons in less than six months. So the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon it was. Marathon & Beyond had reviewed the race in the November/December 2007 issue, and it sounded like a wonderful event.

The morning of April 20 was cool, rainy, and windy. Aside from the shuttle bus being a little late at the hotel, which caused many of us to miss the 168 seconds of silence remembering each death in the Oklahoma City bombing, things went well. Running at my 4:45 marathon pace, I finished in 4:48. I was actually slightly ahead of that pace for the first 23 miles, but my calves cramped up during a porta-potty stop, and I had to walk part of the last three miles. Overall, I was pleased with the race.

For the last of the three marathons, my two sons, Derrick and Chris, went with me to Steamboat Springs. Becky was with her mother in Charlotte, North Carolina, on a planned vacation. Derrick and his wife, Amy, were getting ready to have their first child (and our first grandchild) in the last part of June. Chris and his wife, Mary, were getting ready to move to Springfield, Missouri. So this was one last trip for the three guys in the family. Plus, neither Chris nor Derrick had seen Dad run a marathon. It was special to have my two sons, ages 27 and 25, go with me. After the kids leave home, the times together get more meaningful.