I know that this sort of thing uncommon but it has got me thinking about my own health. After long distance cycles, say over 300km, my heart beat is higher than normal and beats a little harder. It takes about a day to get back to normal.
I have always put this down as "normal" but after being so close to this tragedy it has got me thinking.
No doubt - paying attention to your heart rate during exercise can certainly help you pace yourself or determine how much exercise recovery you need.
Whenever I hear another "heart attack story" - I always wonder why other important factors to overall fitness, like blood vessel health and life style histories are seldom mentioned.
The heart is only one part of a complicated vascular system that can have many defects
that do not necessarily affect exercise capacity.
In any case, I believe endurance exercise in general - even "ultra-endurance exercise" - is on average more beneficial to cardiovascular health to most cyclists. I don't read much in to the
exceptions.