Arrhythmic Running
Running in
Times of Despair and Hope
Figure 1a/b Running along Willamette River in Portland/Oregon – a city with a high ‘runnability index’ and my daughter Xenia pointing at a ‘heart’ mural in downtown Athens
My last running blog goes back to the running events in Afghanistan, while advising the government on urban planning issues for Kabul, its capital metropolis. This was end 2015. Since then I did not engage in competitive racing anymore, so I thought there was nothing to share and to inspire. People only take inspiration from winners and good mood stories I thought, knowing deep inside it’s not entirely true. The truth is that I simply did not have the courage to accept life-changes that busted the running bubble I was inhabiting for the last decade, since I started running back in 2005. Since my first marathon in Radenska/Slovenia in 2007, my running and overall fitness performance curve remained in the uphill mode with some hard-fought achievements on the marathon and ultra-marathon distances - until you realise you can’t keep up the appearances anymore.
Main reason: the last two years my heart was seriously beaten up. - By the ‘election’ of Trump of course, and seeing this real-estate mogul trampling the constitution and international conventions, as well repealing the few progressive civil right legacies of the Obama administration. – By the downfall of social-democracy and reason in Europe, my home-continent. – By EU’s financial failures in general and the ‘financial waterboarding’ of my home-country Greece in particular – a testing ground for ‘hyper-austerity’ as Yannis Varofakis accurately framed it. – By the rapid environmental degradation of the blue planet and its protective shield, jeopardising future generations and the invaluable biodiversity. – By religious 'fanatism' of all kinds spreading as a cancer throughout humanity, trampling the merits of science and common sense. But in all honesty – at a personal level – most by some family and health kickbacks, including the death of my father (albeit in a very peaceful and remarkable way); a permanently mutilated shoulder (thanks to an unfriendly encounter with a brainless driver in my home-city Athens, parking his car on the pavement I was running); permanent ear damage or tinnitus (thanks to a popping ear during one of my long-haul flights to China last year) and last but not least Arrhythmia or Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) of the heart.
This ‘heart-injury’ - a runners most important muscle - was first
diagnosed in highly polluted and overstressed Kabul/Afghanistan after the last
races I reported on. The arrhythmic beating of the heart goes with an overall
higher pulse - beating up my heart literally to a point that stripped my
running abilities to jogging level – something I thought I would never
surrender to. My heart doctor advised
not to run/walk more than 5-10k! After a period of denial, I just had to settle
for a more sporadic and non-competitive jogging life, joining the growing
league of ‘young AFib-ers’ that might be co-induced by intensive sporting. My
decade-old mantra ‘Run to Live’ needed a humiliating but life-saving update:
‘Jog to Live’.
But there was also excitement
the past two years. - Excitement to draft a global handbook on the application
of the International Planning Guidelines (tampered by the uncertainty of
publication). - Excitement to experience the birth of a first and healthy
granddaughter (tampered by the realisation of my own ageing). – Excitement to
see my youngest daughter ‘graduating’ from pre-school followed by entering the first
grade in the local municipal school (tampered by worries about the educational
downfall in Greece). – Excitement to spend more time with my lovely spouse and
daughter at home in Athens (tampered by the degradation of street-life-quality
in our neighbourhood). – Excitement to transform our flat roof into a green
paradise enjoyed by many friends and family members. – Excitement to host my
son and his girlfriend, my sister and her husband, and finally my widow mom, sharing
my preferred city gems with them in Athens and Attica region. – Excitement to
undertake some new professional adventures by travelling and advising countries
from China over the Arabian Peninsula and Africa to the Caribbean and the USA,
ending 2016 with the active participation in the Habitat III Summit in Quito/Ecuador
and ending 2017 with a keynote lecture at the Balkan Architectural Biennial in
Belgrade - and winning an award for work done in Wuhan/China (overall tampered
by a downfall in income and job security as free-lance consultant). – And even
excitement to watch Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and the likes
testing the first amendment of free speech against Orange Hitler in the White
(Nationalist) House. But in all honesty
again – at a personal level – the greatest excitement of all was the successful
ablation (operation) of my heart, by forcibly restoring the rhythmic and low
pulse beating of the heart. While a first electro-shock intervention early last
year failed, a more serious ablation was executed during the summer, complemented
by a medication regime to keep the heart in check – so far so good.
Figure 2a/b Hiking up Pinchincha Mountain in Quito in Afib-mode, grasping for air / Reaching Pinchincha peak at 4,700m altitude before 'running' back downhill
A memorable moment though during the Afib period occurred
during a city run in Tehran/Iran, while attending a conference as ambassador of
ISOCARP (International Society of City and Regional Planners). When cresting a
hill in a nearby park, struggling to sustain the running mode, I suddenly felt
a surge and flew up the mountain and all the way back to my hotel. After
measuring my pulse, I realised I had relapsed into ‘rhythmia’ and out of Afib,
in a natural way. Some days later however, while cresting a longer and higher
hill back home, I relapsed back into Afib and felt like Icarus as he approached
the sun with his waxed wings and fell back to earth. My joy was short-lived.
And yet, I kept on running whenever and wherever possible.
Often more out of fear or remorse for the expanding waistline than out of pure
joy as previously experienced – the ‘runners-high’ was on a record low these
days!
After my last successful races in Afghanistan, a second
place in the Bamyan Marathon and a first place in the Kabul 24h Marathon (in a
multi-storey building!), I ran or jogged – I consider running at speeds of
10k/h and more - much shorter distances in all places I have travelled and
lived since then: Dubai, Nairobi, Kenya’s Rift Valley, Minsk, Antwerp, Durban,
Wuhan, Bogota, Quito, Athens, Willemstad, St Lucia, Kingstown, Chios, Shanghai,
Abu Dhabi, Portland and Belgrade. I ran with heath, rain and frost. I ran until
I had to walk and walked until I could run again, with average speeds below
10k/h, so technically no running at all. Through social media, I kept following
my running friends their enduring and inspiring races and achievements, with a
mix of admiration and jealousy. There were days I was in peace with the Afib
state of running; overruled on other days with anger and disillusion.
This thus changed with the successful ablation of my heart
in an Athens private hospital, taking the risk of a substantial out-of-pocket financial
investment. The intervention lasted some hours and resulted in burning/freezing
‘tattoos’ around the synapses of the heart, to deflect the ‘bad’ electrical
signals causing the arrhythmia (and also ‘heart flutter’ as they discovered
during the operation). The operation was declared technically successful, but
it remained to be seen if the heart would stay into rhythm of relapse into Afib
again. Daily medication for the next 6-12 months should support the status quo,
with the side effect of reducing my VO2 Max or lactate threshold – practically
capping my pulse in the medium range.
Figure 5a/b
Successful heart ablation in Athens hospital in June 2017
This ablation happened in July 2017 and now we are 6 months
further down the line and so far, so good. After a recovery period of a month I
started rebuilding my lost running fitness on the island of Chios, a wonderful
place to run, bike and swim, culminating in finishing the local 10k race in
less than 60’, meaning it was a run and not a jog! A small but meaningful
achievement. Upon my doctor’s recommendation I kept running distances and
speeds at bay, not to provoke a relapse into the fold. Yet I could finally
enjoy running again and go out more often. Without pushing too hard, I could
finish a second 10k race, here in Athens, in 53’. Slow compared to my best-time
of 38’ but better than in Chios and a PR since Afib-diagnosis. Even more
glorious was crossing that finish line in the Agios Kosmas Stadium together
with my youngest daughter Xenia, who earned her very first 2k race medal at age
6. Xenia is training 4 times/week – two days running and two days gymnastics – passing
the baton to the next generation.
Figure 6a/b Finishing the Athens/Kosmas 10k race and crossing the line with daughter Xenia - November 2017
Of the non-competitive training runs since the heart
ablation – and apart from the aforementioned runs in Tehran and Chios, four
stand out in this difficult period - Glyfada, Portland, Belgrade and Chortiatis/Thessaloniki.
In Glyfada, my
home-city in the Athens metropolis, I ran countless runs but the one with
Martin Cordoba stands out because it brought back the special memories to the
Spartathlon race, possibly the most enduring foot-race on this globe. I attempted
twice to cover the 246k-long race from Athens to Sparta, but failed – mainly
due my inability to run with heath. It was a watershed-race in the sense I
finally found my limit, something my body could not digest. Of course, I could
have tried again and again, but instead I accepted the red line, maybe because
my heart was already sending coded messages, who knows. The day before the 2017
edition of the Spartathlon, I caught up with age- and soulmate Martin Cordoba,
a passionate ultrarunner from Argentine, who achieved two completed races out
of five attempts. This was his sixth participation and eager to get the balance
right. He accepted my invitation for a last training run the day before the
great day. We ran 10k and I hardly noticed the time or distance while talking
the way ultra-runners do: about everything and nothing. To my great amusement
and admiration, two days later, Martin crossed the finish line for the third
time. I ran the entire distance on his side in the virtual world. 
In Oregon Portland (USA), while attending the World Congress
of ISOCARP on ‘Smart Communities’ last Septem,ber, I enjoyed a 20k run with a
Canadian and Polish friend/partner in crime. We ran at dawn with crisp air and
blue skies along both sides of the Willamette river that runs through
Oregon/Portland. Despite being seriously undertrained and overweight I felt
like running in my better days, finishing fresh and ready for a long day of
speeches and events. With Michael and Slavek I also share a passion for
comparing runnable cities and writing about it. With Michael I co-authored an article
on Running Wuhan, soon to be published in a magazine. Running with running
soulmates is great and running with professional running soulmates is a real
blessing. Portland proved to be a quite runnable city, making the transition
from car- to people-centric city I would like to see happen one day in my home
town Athens – currently a sacred place for motorized four- and two-wheelers.
Running in Portland reminded me of my Boston Marathon – the year of the
pressure-cook-attack – and the joyful training and recovery runs along the
Charles river. Runnable cities are just great for everyone!
In Belgrade, where I attended the Balkan Architectural
Biennale, I had the chance to run along the Sava and Danube river, from and to
the old city district, through the famous Kalemegdan city park with its
medieval fortress. But most of all I was thrilled by a train run in the
metropolitan forest park just outside the core-city. On a crispy Saturday
morning I joined the Belgrade Runners Club to run a 10k loop in the muddy
forest, ending 3rd place in a competitive training run. The 3rd
place is in this case totally irrelevant but being able to maintain a certain
pace on the uphill’s is no less than a great feeling since the heart ablation. Also,
the spirit among the Belgrade runners, in a society drained by socio-economic
downfall and backward nationalism, was more than heart-warming and promising
for the future of this beaten up Balkan city.
If both Belgrade and Athens, the two main Balkan cities could learn from
e.g. Portland how to turn down toxic cigarettes and cars, I would be glad to ad
a Balkan tier to my already multi-layered identity.
Figure 8a/b Running
in Belgrade's Kalemegdan Park at the bifircation of Sava and Danube / Finishing
3rd in a training run of the Belgrade Road Runners in Topcider City Forest,
making Belgrade a decently runnable city
Of cigarettes and cars I did not suffer on my last run of
last year, a 35k hike/run from the valley to the peak of Chortiatis Mountain
northeast of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. The day before I
seduced my spouse to undertake a 16k reconnaissance hike to the refuge just
under the peak, rewarded by a great meal around the fireplace. The next day I doubled
the distance in a walking and running mode, not to trigger a relapse I would
definitely regret, with blue skies and a caressing sun, awarded by a superb
mountain view overlooking Thessaloniki city and bay all the way up to the sacred
Olympus Mountain, which I have crested and raced multiple times. I arrived back
in the valley at the time of a sunset combined with a rising orange supermoon –
magic and a happy end of my longest walk/run of 2017. Two days later, I started
the new running year with a beautiful 12k run at Volvi lake, at the base of
Chortiatis mountain, rewarded by a rejuvenating thermal spa-treatment in
Apollonia. The new year could not start better.
Figure 9a/b
Hiking/running on Chortiatis Mountain (with my spouse Maria) and along the
shores of Volvi lake nearby Thessaloniki in northern Greece
So, on a final note I could say ‘we’re back on track’,
albeit in some different modus. I am saddened by the realisation there is no
way back to the previous level and running life, not of racing my beloved
marathons let alone ultra’s, but its good and important to set new goals and
ambitions within my healthy perimeter. As I long as I can run, I exists. What
will 2018 bring? We don’t know but it helps to be ready and open-minded to seize
opportunities within reach. Meanwhile, let’s hope all the world problems will
be solved in 2018. Have a good year too!
Frankly Runner
