Return to running’s just heart smart
Many people run to avoid having a heart attack. Paul Dorey took a little different approach.
The 66-year-old retired mechanical engineer, who was born in Boston, had two cases of cardiac arrest, then became a serious distance runner. It works for Dorey.
Dorey ran before his health problems, but he took the unusual approach to avoid another massive heart attack - his last in July 1998 when he was 58. He was living in Citrus Springs then, but has since moved to Hernando.
“I was in full cardiac arrest twice,” Dorey said.
No, he didn’t start running right away.
“It started with a walking program,” Dorey said. “I was walking 5 miles a day. That’s when I met Colon Joiner (former president of the Citrus Road Runners) at the Citrus Middle School track. He kept telling me I ought to be running. Three months after the attack, I discussed it with the doctor, Dr. Sharon Martin, a cardiologist. She said go ahead and do it, take my time and build it up slowly.”
Yes, he had some pain along with the gains.
Dorey said the first time he tried 2 miles, he thought he was going to die. After he began the running program, Dorey went back to a doctor for a nuclear stress test. He said 30 percent of his heart muscles were dead.
Later, those “dead muscles” came back and he became a happy “loser.”
“They used to say it doesn’t come back,” Dorey said. “I also lost 54 pounds. That didn’t hurt. They started using me and Charlie Blaisdell, who has a pacemaker. He had a low heart rate.
Read the rest at St Petersburg Online
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