It’s not a good sign when, after running a 1.5 mile run, you collapse to the track and someone has to apply a defibrillator to your chest to shock your heart back to life. It certainly isn’t an indicator that you should be running the Rite Aid Cleveland Half Marathon less than two years later. Tell John Bechtel that.
I met John, a 34-year old East Cleveland Police Officer a couple of days ago and conducted his fitness evaluation. He’s one of the eight folks I’m working with as they prepare for the half or full marathon to be run this May. Over the years, I’ve had many opportunities to work with people recovering from major surgeries, but never one that came as close to dying as John. He was completing the SWAT entrance physical exam…a 1.5 mile run…when his troubles began. He told me that the last thing he remembered was starting the race…and nothing again until he was in a hospital. He collapsed after the run and had a doctor with an AED not been present, he would have run his last mile. Instead, he went to the Cleveland Clinic where he had open heart surgery to replace the valves in his aortic artery with those from a cow (pig and mechanical were his other choices). He started his rehab at the Clinic barely able to walk ten minutes. He’d been running before the incident and had been planning to run a marathon and so as his recovery continued, he again began to dream of bigger things.
John completed the fitness test, scoring 398 out of a possible 1,000 points, which is low average. He knows he’s got work to do…running, losing some more weight, and strengthening his core…if he is to achieve his goal. He has been through adversity though, and something like running 13.1 miles should seem relatively tame for him at this point.
I was in the car with Marla heading back from completing two fitness tests on other contestants. We were sitting at a light on Madison Ave. on the west side of Cleveland when we heard the sirens blaring. Marla was looking in her rearview mirror when suddenly her eyes bulged. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed as a yellow mustang flew past her, crashing the light and continuing on. Three of Cleveland’s finest squad cars were in hot pursuit and also sped through the light and made the turn in hot pursuit. I leaned forward to see one pull alongside the mustang while the other two closed on its bumper.
“Go, go, go,” I said, wanting to follow and see the action. I hate chase scenes in the movies…but this wasn’t the movies.
“The light’s still red,” she said…law abiding citizen that she was.
“So…who’s going to care? Everyone’s still pulled over and every cop is chasing that mustang,” I said…law abiding citizen that I wasn’t. But…she did the right thing and ignored me. I returned home and had just gotten in the door when Marla called. “Turn on the news!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Our yellow mustang is on…and it robbed a bank!”
I turned it on and she wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t surprised to see it smashed into a telephone pole and to learn that it had crashed into at least two other cars during the final chase. Thankfully, only the driver seemed to be badly injured. His girlfriend and an infant in the back seat seemed to be okay…and the cash strewn over the interior of the car would clearly be recovered. The commentator kept making comments about the wisdom of using a bright yellow mustang to make a getaway. “They’re pretty easy to spot,” she said again and again. I’m not too sure robbing banks in any colored getaway car makes you the sharpest knife in the drawer.
After the excitement of the chase, I made my way to the park where I completed a fast (for me) 4-mile run in 30:24. It was only 30 seconds slower than my pr for the course on a day when I wasn’t really pushing and the footing was treacherous at best. I went home, hopped on the trainer and rode for another hour to complete the double.
Run Duration: 31 minutes. Bike Duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 running and 120 bpm.Calories burned during workout: 500 running and 850 biking.
No comments:
Post a Comment