Strange day
A good – but odd – day.
We left Edinburgh early to get to Glasgow in good time for the Great Scottish Run – I was running the half marathon. This was to be my first ‘proper’ half marathon although I actually ran a further distance in training last weekend.
The great news is that I felt fine, fit and strong and even managed a sprint finish to come in (according to my watch) at 2 hrs 8 minutes and 25 seconds (the offical time was a second longer). This was about 8 minutes faster than I had been anticipating and could have been faster if not for the usual bunching and congestion at the start and a quick bathroom stop at around the 10 mile mark. I ran 1hr 04 for each half of the race so it was consistent too.
It was pretty damp and chilly for most of the run which on the one hand kept you cool but on the other hand was, er, damp and chilly. Still I kept going, drank plenty of water and had fun. It took a while to find Kirstin and my dry clothes at the end but eventually I did and after changing and the usual stretches and cooling down we wandered off to find something to eat which we did – Beef and udon noodles washed down with green tea. When we finished Kirstin went off to the bathroom, shortly after which the waiter came over to ask if we wanted the bill and found me unconscious.
I was out for between 5 and 10 seconds I think and came to feeling decidedly out of it – light headed and dizzy, not talking properly and with muscle spasms in my arms which led to both of my hands being clenched tight into fists which I could not open and Kirstin could not either. She did the sensible thing – I slid myself into the recovery position and she phoned an ambulance.
Along came the ambulance very promptly and Jim a friendly and very professional paramedic who did all the proper things (middle age man, half marathon, pale and perspiring profusely and not completely coherent? what would you think?) and got me into the wagon and promptly hooked me up to ECG and other devices, took a blood test, chatted for a while to gain personal details and assess how coherent I was, gave me some oxygen and then off to hospital – where they repeated all the same tests plus a couple more.
So far so scary: but the great news is that my heart is fine, my Oxygen conversion level in the blood is very, very close to 100%, resting heart beat fine and blood pressure fine as well. The diagnosis was that I had simply fainted. The cautionary tale is why I had fainted and this was a combination of two things.
Firstly – it turns out that I had over-hydrated and had diluted the electrolytes in my system and specifically I was way down on potassium – remedy was a 1Litre intravenous drip of saline/isotonic solution. This had been compounded by the cold and damp, getting slightly chilled looking for Kirstin for my dry clothes, and then going into a warm restaurant and heating hot foods. The doc gave me a fairly full explanation and was quite keen to say that she saw it quite a lot at these kind of events – that it was not an issue of fitness.
So a cautionary tale about electrolytes and over-hydration which I shall need to consider carefully since isotonic drinks and I have a fraught relationship – and much as I like the attentions of attractive young doctors, I wouldn’t recommend it as a way of celebrating a good day’s running. What’s more she suggested that a celebratory bottle of beer this evening would be a Very Bad Thing Indeed. I do have to go to the doc later this week to check my potassium levels are back up (once I’ve got hold of some potassium tablets tomorrow) and that I can keep on with the training.
And I love the NHS – the response was fast, professional and caring and, of course, did not cost me a penny at the point of use. I believe in New York at the moment the ambulance bit alone would have set me back $470 or so, before the drip, ECG, and blood and urine tests.
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