Big wing.

that color…

Little Wing

I was thinking that last week's high HR, high RPE/slow rides might have been related to getting the Moderna booster, but I looked and that was two weeks prior, and in between I'd ridden quite a bit without the same issues.

Who knows? I do know that all last week, while I didn't have what I would call palpitations or other observable heart rhythm anomalies, I did have a slightly off feeling in my chest a lot of the time. Not a fluttering, not even remotely like pain. Just being "aware" of it, when normally I'm not. When I checked it, my HR was always within normal range for me, though maybe at the higher end. I suspect this was mostly anxiety driven hypervigilance, though - nothing drives up your heart rate like worrying about your heart rate!

Arrythmias, including atrial fibrillation, are often asymptomatic and occur with rates in the normal range. This is easy and worthwhile to check out.

Beyond the EKG and echocardiogram, what else? PCP suggested "might not be a bad idea to see cardiologist", but her primary reasoning was my brother who had stents put in at 61 and is on statins. But his lipid metabolism sucks, whereas mine is pretty good - cholesterol 167, triglycerides 45, HDL 69, LDL 88.

Wordle 403 6/6

"Stevie Ray Vaughn is dead and we can get Bon Jovi near a helicopter."--Denis Leary

Stress test is a big one. Exercise can trigger arrhythmias.

Guys our age who complain of chest symptoms generally get sent to a cardiologist who will do an echo, a stress test, and maybe a 24 hr EKG monitor. The lipids are predictors of coronary artery disease, but arrhythmias have other major causes, including a lifetime of heavy exercise.

For anyone mystified at the day to day variation in how they perform on the bike or process exercise stress, this is an excellent paper reviewing well-established data on the stress axis and showing that there is no useful distinction between mental/emotional/cognitive and "physical" stress. It's all the same thing and mental states directly affect the response to exercise.

Ask for the nuclear stress test if you want to know what it feels like to be dying.

Best predictor of CAD to get in your 50's or 60's is NOT an EKG nor echo nor even a lipid profile. It's NOT a stress test. It's a CAC Score (coronary artery calcium score). It's done by a low dose CT scan, and although insurance typically won't cover it, the cash pay (in my area at least) is typically $150-200. It's worthy of consideration. If your score is zero, you are at extremely low risk and need not worry.

On today's ride, one of my friends who is usually slogging up the hills decided to attack. She had an uncontrollable urge.

It made me think of the DEVO song, "Uncontrollable Urge," which I think is actually a good song....but the riff is clearly a rip-off (riff-off??) of Led Zeppelin Misty Mountain Hop.

You can listen and decide:

Which tune?

Beast of Burden. Listen now and thank me later.

So on today's ride, one rider hit a pothole and had a pinch flat. I typically stand by and observe people fixing flats and only jump in if they are really screwing the job up. I think one learns best by doing.

He was using the WRONG end of the plastic tire iron to get the tire off the rim (the little hook part that is designed to hook onto a spoke). I was going to yell at him, but it actually worked out ok. I still don't know if I should have said something.

BTW the rider with the uncontrollable urge knows our very own indyfabz .

#smallworld

Isn't this the kind of scientific revolution Thomas Kuhn wrote about?

Except that coronary calcification seems to be accelerated in athletes for unknown reasons and with no known connection to clinical outcomes.

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1...aha.117.028750 (complete with Rolling Stones quote)

I had a bit of bone in one of my carotids picked up on a neck CT many years ago. Bit of a "yikes" moment.

Yeah we really need a scan or assay to see soft/vulnerable plaque as the CAC might overstate hard plaque. But I still think it is more valuable for risk assessment than the expensive tests like stress tests and echocardiograms that the cardiologists love so much.

I agree. The stress test and echo are not diagnostic, not predictive. The echo can pick up atrial enlargement, though, which might increase the suspicion for occult AF in a tired athlete with a funny feeling in the chest.

water heater and flood from outside. Yes.. mom and dad's sump pump went out and flooded it. 3 ft deep. My water heater leaked . I threw out tobs of my R/c airplane hobby stuff. It sucked.

Mrs datlas and I are plotting a trip for the fall. Top 2 choices are go to LA to visit Heidi with a one-week side trip to Hawaii (we have never been) vs Europe (likely Spain, which we love and have not been since 2018.

Either way, there should be plenty of cycling involved, I hope.

yeah, every once in a while I quote someone while on my phone and I get multiple quotes from different people. So then I have to go back and delete the bonus quotes from the reply. I've tried going back and turning off the multi portion of the quote but it doesn't always work.