Sudden Cardiac death

Don't run marathons?

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Its very sad but unfortunately these things can and do happen. When I was growing up my next door neighbor was an avid marathoner and while training for a race he passed away one night after a hard training run. Turns out he had eaten some sushi with a dangerous bacteria in it and his hard run had weakened his immune system. I don't intend to stop eating sushi because of that though.

Some of the causes of these things don't even come up in physicals. Ultimately, the risk is incredibly low.

I'm not a marathoner, but I can see where you might be a little scared. If you do schedule that doctors appointment, write down each of your concerns about your prior drug use,health history, and anything else, that way when you go in you'll have a specific list of concerns that the doctor can address and put your mind at ease. I'm sure I'm not the only one who forgets to ask my doctor important things when I'm in there if I don't have it written down.

Dr. Al Sears explains why this happens and is one of the reasons he developed PACE interval training. The heart and lungs want to be efficient and can decrease in capacity for long distance runners. Dr. Sears developed his training program for heart and lung patients in order to increase heart and lung capacity.. My daughter is a marathon runner and she does progressive interval training as part of her program.

It's definitely worrisome, but it's extremely rare. The ultimate cause could be something completely unrelated to long distance running.

But, I do agree with the above poster that the best way to not die from running a marathon is to simply not run the marathon! :laugh:

My husbands 40 something year old co-worker dropped dead of a heart attack in the parking lot of his gym after a work out.
Makes ya wonder.

I worked with a doctor who suddenly died of a myocardial infarction without any kind of warning. One day he was fine, totally healthy with no problems, the next day he was dead. It was shocking, but that kind of thing just happens sometimes.

Rule Number One: EVERYBODY Dies.


It's how you live that matters.

BTW enlarged hearts and heart scarring is generally seen in extreme athletes, i.e. people who have run 100+ marathons, and long distance rowers, it's not something that a casual exerciser, or even a casual marathoner would need to worry about.

it is becoming more and more common and popular to run marathons, as more people do it the stats will increase for these kinds of things. Likely these people would have died of a heart attack anyway at some stage it just happened to be then.

Your comments are freaking me out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The other day I did a vigorous work out for the first time and i had a few heart palpitations and thought i was going to have a heart attack. im only 26 so it was scary. Im keeping it moderate for now on. my heart wasnt ready for that type of work out. SCARY SOMEONE MAKE ME FEEL BETTER!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH

hydration...


But if you're scared go get checked out by doc. If you're gonna have a sudden cardiac arrest it'll probably happen anyway despite exercise... if there sno reason to suspect anything then you're in a much better position working out than not and staying healthy. Its just one of those things, nature. Chill, relax and enjoy or the stress you'll get might just kill ya!

My wonderful brother in law passed away of a heart attack in the middle of dinner one night a couple weeks after having passed a cardiac stress test. Point is it is not always predictable no matter what you are doing. A coworker did her first half marathon without really training for it and did NOT follow my advice on how to hydrate, collapsed near the finish line and had a trip to the hospital to rehydrate - she does not remember her friend helping her across the finish line.

My thought is that these deaths could be from undiagnosed issues, poor training and lack of hydration. I use the Jeff Gallagher method that allows periods of heart recovery DURING the run. Works for me - or it will once my knee finishes rehabbing.

There are some heart conditions which potentially can go undiagnosed in otherwise fit people. http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/medical_conditions.htm which someone mentioned, is a brilliant organisation, as is www.cardiomyiopathy.org.uk. My own partner died of Dilated Cardiomyopathy a couple of months ago. It is less likely to cause sudden death - with my partner it caused chronic heart failure - but it is one of the conditions listed on the CRY site. If you are concerned ask your doctor for a checkup. It's also important to note that often these conditions will produce symptoms, but it's always possible to be asymtomatic. Some of the conditions have a hereditary component so if someone is diagnosed with it, their first degree relatives will be tested.

I seen a television program (I can't remember which one) just a few weeks ago. As it turns out the majority of the runners that have died had underlying heart conditions, most had dialated (enlarged) or ischemic (heart disease) Cardiomyopathy, something I am all too familiar with since my husband at the age of 38 was working out in the gym and fainted, an ambulance was called and he was taken to the Emergency room, he was later diagnosed as having dialated Cardiomyopathy. An echo of his heart and another test where they went through his leg veins to see the inside of his heart showed that my husband at one point in his life, (they said most likely childhood) had a bad virus settle in his heart and left him with horrible amounts of scar tissue inside and on the outside of his heart.

The doctors explained to us that my husband was a walking dead man because the scar tissue was causing his hearts electrical system to miss-fire and that this is why so many athletes die of sudden cardiac arrest with very little or no warning or symptoms. They said my husband was a miracle and he should have died years ago.

The doctors immediatly installed a Pace-maker/Defibrillator device and put my husband on a rythm drug so that sudden death would not happen to him. My husband is now 48 and has Zero plaque in his arteries since he grew up the first 18 years of his life a vegitarian and always ate a very clean diet since he was a bodybuilder. He did everything right but even he could not stop a simple virus that settled in his heart.

My 15 year old son a year ago peed a large amount of blood, we rushed him to the urologist and guess what it was, a Cold Virus that he had had 2 weeks earlier had settled in and attacked one of his kidneys causing a kidney bleed. We also could not have prevented that. This stuff happens and it is not as rare as you think.

I was 30, weight 315 pounds, had a history of smoking, and a family history of heart issues when I ran my first marathon. I'm now training for my 3rd and I'm healty. The amount of people that die from heart attacks from running is much less then the number that are hit by car running. High school kids have heart attacks on the basketball court too, some people have heart issues sthat they don't know about. The only thing you can do is follow your training program and if you start to see issues go to your doctor. Several people suggested getting a physical before running a big race, I think that is a good idea. I should have done that.