Countdown to Race Weekend but wait...

But First Stress Test #3

This past Monday I was booked in for my, hopefully, last stress test. My last stress test was done when I was in Atrial flutter so the results were skewed and based on my activity it was hard to give me some solid foundation to build to work on in my recovery.

Usually I give myself plenty of time to get to the Heart Institute, but Monday must have been a major appointment day since I circled the lot and streets trying to find a spot. In fact I can't fathom why they don't let patients park on the side streets. Oh wait the residents don't like cars in front of their home in front of a major medical institution that could save lives <insert eye roll> I ended up going to the Civic parking garage and getting Valet parking. Which really means leave the keys and when a spot opens up we'll pull it in. No extra charge. It's just insanity. I had five minutes to spare to make it to my appointment so I briskly walked form the Civic hospital to the Heart institute and made it up the stairs and overshot by a floor and had to double back and go back down to check in. I was definitely warmed up.

Registration took forever as some person was taking their time asking questions upon questions. I finally got registered and sat down. I'm sure I got the looks of me in my running gear especially a guy in compression calf sleeves were pretty sight! I bet!

I got called in right away and headed to the room. I met Bonnie the tech. and pretty much we got set up right away.

Oh and amidst all this I was doing an Instagram takeover of the Ottawa Marathon story so I shared A LOT of my day in that feed.

Similar to my test back in February it was a steady pace and incline every couple of minutes. My BP was like 154/100 when I started. I think that brisk walk and stair climbing gave me the white coat syndrome of high blood pressure! Oh wait I do have high blood pressure! 😲

Seriously it may have helped as I was pumped up to get going. I kept an eye on the screen and saw my time on the treadmill and notice my rhythm seemed steady so it was pretty good IMO.
I pushed myself as I wanted to know if I could hit the high heart rate to trigger any signs of V-tach. Of course I can't tell, but there may be some, but I'm not someone who can read that sort of thing. I did push as far as my legs could go to about 12 mins. I know the incline was pretty high as my arms were pumping pretty good. By the time I called no joy I slowly came down and walked off and then limped my way to the bed to get rid of all the fun electrodes and belt off my body.

Once I finished sweating on the sheets I towelled off and headed back up to the Cardiac rehab to see my Physiotherapist Guy-Anne. This would be my last visit with her as my brief program is now up. I can say that she has been on my team right from day 1 to let my heart heal and take it easy. As well, I'm not one of her normal patients so I definitely challenged her. So the last visit I had to answer a few survey questions and then rate a score on the care. Also I had my stats taken, weight, BP, waist measurement. Once that was done I was given my blood work requisition and headed on my back to the parking garage where I had to go an pay but didn't want to be one of those guys holding up the line when you forgot to pay before the exit.

Just a few pasties

Ready to roll!

My tech Bonnie!

Survey says!

My PT Guy-Anne

TulipFest

After leaving the Heart Institute I decided to head over to the Arboretum and do a quick run to see the Dow's lake tulips and see a portion of the race course. I started out from the Arboretum and headed down from there along the canal to Dow's lake. Then from there I was off to see what tulips were actually blooming. Not very many from what I saw and then I turned up to see if any others and it seems anything getting some sunlight were showing off, but others not so much. This is probably the latest the tulips must be blooming. Which means that for the runners of race weekend should be able to see some spectacular blooms still.
I did an out and back and detoured for an ahem Beavertail mid run. You know because the necessity for carb loading!
I headed back to where I left the car and then headed home.

Probably the better variety of tulips at the moment

Greening up in the Arboretum

there may have been a few stops along the way

Ottawa ComicCon

After not going last year I decided to go just one day because Tom Welling of Smallville and Lucifer fame was making an appearance.
I won't bore you with my geekdom, but it was the best 7 sec of the day!

Always geeking out!

Tom Welling

Custom made case

Orienteering 101

Well let me begin by saying that orienteering is not exactly easy. I'm not exactly used to using a map since technology has taken over so heading out with a map, compass and a whistle was definitely different. So I connected with the Orienteering Ottawa crew at South March Highlands to give it a try. I met up with the Raz fam and Mike gave me and a few others a 15 min intro. But before that lesson I have to say the registration progress was intense, but pretty organised. Of course I didn't realize that there was a fee attached...oops. Anyhow Mike loaned me $15 SO I owe him.
I decided to start out and Mike was going to come with me, but then he sent his boys with me to get started. So while I grilled Evan and Luke on the finer points of orienteering I set out on my way. It's almost like a game of Amazing Race mixed with trail running/hiking.
It took me about 20 minutes to find the first control. It could have been longer, but lucky Kristi came and rescued me for the 1st couple and then she was gone like a bat out of hell. So much for lesson 101 in orienteering it was every man and woman for themselves. I had help with 5/13 so I was on my own for the rest. I took a moment and decided to try and stick to the path and hope I can figure out the symbols and compass. However, there was a lot of bushwhacking off the trails so trying to figure out where one was and the next was pretty tricky, but by the end I think I figured out some, but sadly I missed one as by the end of the session (two hours later from the start) I found the last and made it back to the finish. Of course I missed the turn so it was tricky to figure the scaling to the map to where the control was.

That is a control that I'm supposed to tag!

Trilliums are blooming

Mossy

The lake effect

the map and the control stick

Final tally and an MP for my first outing. Oh well.

5 Month's Post Ablation

5 Month Report

In a span of a few days since the echocardiogram I've been contacted by my PT and we've discussed next steps. Coming off a very whirlwind weekend after running two races. Report below for those needing to catch up.

I got a call from my cardiologist office to book my follow up, but of course the appointment that they were going to schedule me for would be mid-June and I would be in my 2nd holter. So they have to call me back with some availability in July. 😞 But as I've been told and reminded that if there was cause for concern they would see me right away so I continue to monitor as always and make sure to go easy. BUT now my PT has requested, with approval from my cardiologist, that they are going to put me back on the Stress test treadmill. The last time I was on the treadmill I managed to keep up with the pace until my legs said no more. However, I was in Atrial Flutter so I wasn't able to provide the necessary data to calculate the heart rate zones properly since my HR was elevated. So I go back with a normal sinus rhythm next week and cross my fingers for some interesting results.

So life is moving along. In fact, it's all leading up to race weekend. Go #TeamHeart

So if you could sponsor me that would go a long way to help out other heart patients like me.

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/FundraisingPage.aspx?registrationID=4402977&langPref=en-CA

1st May Weekend of races

(cut and paste from Facebook)

Race 1 - Fort Town Night Run aka May the Fort be with You.

Well this weekend has been a whirlwind to say the least. I ran two races both Saturday and Sunday. I wasn’t sure how my body would feel let alone my heart ❤️ but I was on a bit of a high because my Rehab PT has been constantly checking on me. The care from the Heart Institute has been amazing in my rehabilitation. If you saw my blog you may have seen my post about a recent echocardiogram (still waiting on results) but according to my PT she doesn’t have concerns. So with that news I was supercharged and went into my races with newfound enthusiasm.
First up a fun run in Prescott called the Fort Town Night run but aptly named the May the Fort be with you since it just happened to land on May the 4th and if you don’t understand that saying and you’re not a fan of The Big Bang Theory then crawl back under your rock. I entered the 5K and there was a 1K and 10K option.
I felt comfortable sticking to the 5 only because I wasn’t sure what this course would be like. The race started off fairly gentle with a downhill from Fort Wellington that allowed us to run the boardwalk along the lake. The evening sunset 🌅 was amazing. Little did I know that running the town of Prescott had so many hills 😳 but I only slowed down for the one water station near the end and then picked up my pace. I managed to have a nice kick near the end. Something that I have not done in quite some time. I met a few of the running room gang along with Run Ottawa and even a Frontline ambassador who I’ve known on the Twitter for some time. He was doing the 10K but it was nice to finally meet IRL. I also met Joanne from Twitter also. Once I got my geek 🤓 medal I headed back to my car as I had to be up to be ready for race 2 in the morning. The drive to and from Prescott is about an hour. The race started at 8:20p so it meant I made it back to Stittsville around 10:20p.

If you’ve read this far then up next is my 2nd race of the weekend. Thanks for reading along.

Flat Dan ready

Arrival at the "Jedi Temple"

5K bling

10K bling

This is not the dog you're looking for

Queen Amidala

Met Yves from Twitter IRL

Race Director - Mike Larose

Kids 1K

View along the boardwalk

Fort Wellington

Quite the nice course

The lighthouse

post race selfie

Race 2 - Manotick 5 Miler

Morning came way too fast and I had intended to leave early to see the 10K folks running at the start but by 8a I wasn’t moving quickly. So I got there about 9:10a once I found parking at GT boutique.
I checked in on social media to kill some time but I could hear the excitement so it sounded like the 10 milers were already coming in. I made my way and caught some photos of Amanda, Clark, Alexandra, Mireille and Jennifer. I also saw Vicki and Gesine but wasn’t paying attention and didn’t snap some photos. I met Kim from IG and my Hamilton loving spirit guide Lindsay. Also saw Chad and Christine who also did the Fort Town night race (10K) and they were doing the challenge. 😳 now that is amazing.
I connected with Michelle who I knew would be able to run with me. Well at least I thought so 😉 she did amazing with her 2/1’s she was focused! We kept leap frogging each other until the last turnaround and she took off 😁she was determined.
The course had changed the last time I ran this race and it was definitely so cool seeing these houses and people along the route cheering us on. It’s definitely a community builder.
But along this course change was some hills which I’m sure they put in on purpose. 😉 but it didn’t phase me and just kept chugging along. It was a beautiful day for a run and even warmer than I thought. Also the distraction of beautiful mansions didn’t help 😂. The last hill was not something I expected but I took it as character building. Once I made it back to the Main Street I opened it up and picked up my pace. That’s two days in a row and 2nd time I was supercharged to make it to the end and finish strong.
That was my weekend. Nothing too crazy. 🤪

Flat Dan

Clark

Amanda

Alexandra

Jenn

Lindsay

Start/Finish

Michelle

1st beer in like 5 months

Post race selfie

Echo One to New Ink

Echo One

Early in my April posts I eluded to wearing the 2 week Holter and then getting the results AND waiting for an official follow up. Of course when your cardiac rehab is calling you wondering if you've heard back from them and you've been told by your cardiologist in a nice way..."Don't call us we'll call you." then you're left in limbo in trying to figure out what next? Then this past Wednesday, May 1st I got a call from the Heart Institute saying I need to get an echo-cardiogram. So I asked when they had an opening and they said oh we have a cancellation can you come at like 8:30a tomorrow? Of course I said yes! 

So off I went to the heart institute Thursday AM. and I brought Mei-Ling with me as we both had another appointment of mine which I'll talk about in the next section. So we arrived in plenty of time and we registered or rather I registered. Met with a nice tech who obviously was bilingual or maybe more, but he literally sang instructions in both official languages which I found highly entertaining. Having the ability to see on the monitor how your heart works is truly amazing at the technology and apparently handles 3D and 4D modes. The 4th if you're wondering for trivia questions is flow. Blood flow in this case. 

Echo-cardiogram - May 2/19

The session was about 40 mins or so as I banked on being there a lot longer, but it seems that the tech was able to gather enough images and mentioned to me that my heart beat was strong and a good steady rhythm. (I didn't see AFib, but I'm not an expert) Overall, from the tech perspective, everything looks good. Of course I'm not exercising hard the past couple of weeks so it's been very low volume. In any case I was able to leave feeling relieved hearing things were ok, but of course still need the appropriate interpretation.
Ironically enough as I was at work I saw a voicemail left by my cardiologist's office and I finally got a call, but not sure what to do with that news as she was going to book me in for mid-June and now they want to push it back to July once she gets some dates from him so it will be like 7 months since my Ablation and I may see the cardiologist for the first time. 

New Ink

Since ML and I had a lot of spare time we decided we would have breakfast at the Heart Institute. They have a cool cafe called "Tickers" 😊

Big Breakfast - 2 eggs, bacon & home fries

You're probably saying that doesn't look healthy! And you would be correct, but I have to be realistic and not cheat myself. #YOLO and if I keep myself active and honestly eat this way moderately then really it's not going to be so hard when one day this will not attract me as much.
Also I was allowing myself to have a good meal before I was off on our next adventure. I was heading to the village of Rockland to have a concept tattoo piece I envisioned myself getting. I had ML draw it out for me and then gave it to Jodi's favourite artist Nelson of Espada Tattoo who took ML's drawing and somewhat re-imagined to a tattoo like piece.
So for those who haven't been following this blog or just tuning in I was trying to mark the occasion of this piece with more of a rebirth (Phoenix) and the heart embedded inside the Phoenix as the proverbial the beat goes on; and the words Rise Up that is somewhat fitting for the role of the Phoenix and of course for those that admire the music from Hamilton the Broadway musical. So somewhat dual purpose.
Nelson did a great job in putting the piece and made it fit with what I have already on my shoulders.

New Ink to mark the rebirth after my Ablation

What do you people think?

April Showtime

Montreal Getaway

For Christmas I gave the girls tickets to either Broadway style show or concerts.

So early on in April and in my April Awakenings post I talked about meeting Nicole and a trip to so Lia could attend a concert, but I didn't post some other photos of us and the condo and exploring churches in Montreal.

So this is the cafe I met Nicole at.

I do know the girls had an amazing time at the concert and it was her first real experience in a venue where it was her and one of her BFF's

No concert photo but here they are as we figure out the Metro

So while the two girls went on a shopping excursion Kiera and I went and walked our legs off and explored a whole bunch of churches. I took too many photos but will not bore you with them as I don't remember all the names anyways so here's just a couple of pics.

Each church had amazing architecture

1st church we saw just outside the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth 

Rare selfie

Photos do not do this justice

Fun trip, but definitely if the traffic/construction was better we would enjoy it more, but we didn't want to be stuck in downtown chaos. As it was there was an accident as we were leaving and we managed to be stuck in the jam.

Toronto Getaway

The final series of the showtime was for Mei-Ling seeing Dear Evan Hansen and a date night with her mother so we took the opportunity to give ourselves a bit of a getaway and head to another AirBnB and enjoy the family time. As it was we discovered that I need a AirBnB lesson in checking out places in where we go as this was in a high rise apartment and reminded me so much of when we lived in Toronto. Don't get me wrong the apartment was just fine for us for sleeping, but definitely not a hotel and the price was somewhat appropriate for what was provided. Especially since we had parking included and with a hotel that would have been an additional cost. Needless to say it was enough to get us through the weekend even if the kids had a bit of a wake up call on trying to get away from hotel luxury living. 😜 

Part of the itinerary also was that we flew ML down to the Island on Porter as she finished her last exam and is now done Year One of University. So this was her first solo plane ride and even though it was just like an hour flight it was solo while the rest of us braved driving to Toronto through rush hour. ML handed it like a champ, but really it was pretty uneventful.

Another adventure we did was visit The Cheesecake Factory so we indulged and had to see what the big deal is all about.

Sure add a skinny menu to make it better

I had to make room for this Reese's PB cheesecake

While Kiera and ML went to see Dear Evan Hansen, Lia and decided to watch IT. I had never seen it but she wanted to so it was quite entertaining. Sure there were some scary parts, but it was more entertaining watching Lia squirm. 😊

After the movie I went out and picked up the theatre goers at the Royal Alexandra and heard how amazing the musical was. Lots of tears, but definitely worthy of all the musical awards it received.

#YouWillBeFound

Oh and of course I went for a quick jog out to burn off some of the awesome food we had!

still maintaining the turtle pace

Lower Don River bridge and yes this is the bridge the bloor/danforth subway line is

finish at the sketch apartment

Our drive back we also stopped in Kingston as someone had a craving for gourmet grilled cheese. So we pulled into K-town and stopped at MLT DWN and enjoyed some good eats with waffle fries.

Delish

So after indulging ourselves I finally had the chance to explore the Brockville Railway tunnel. I've seen so many people post this in the past and I needed to check this out myself.

It was quite amazing what they've done.

difficult to capture what this experience is like

I'm a caboose runner and this is my support 😃

One end of the tunnel