Sunday, 23rd Nov was a depressing day for me and a new low in my life. The previous day, I had returned from an exhausting tour to Bangalore, where I'd eaten junk food, tippled daily and the only time I exercized was when I had to climb the stairs one day at the hotel, when the lift was under repair. Not a very healthy state of affairs for a fitness-freak (not in terms of diet, please :-)) like me. So, I was looking forward to this long run at Kharghar with the Colpal team. I needed to run for my physical and psychological (my work life, as usual, was getting more dreadful) well-being, as also to connect with friends at Colpal.
We arrived at Kharghar to be met by Shailendra (at whose instance we were invited to run) and Saurabh. No sooner had we eased into a warm-up, Shailendra stopped and sat on the side-walk. When I queried him in alarm, he replied that he had a dizzy spell and would rest a bit. I advised him not to run and that he could go to where I'd parked my car. As I went ahead with my routine of running a 3K loop that Shailendra had shown me, I realized that he was not at the spot that I'd last seen him and assumed that he was waiting by the car. Towards the end of a 2 hr run, I egged on Saurabh for an additional 3K, which worked out well for both of us. We both jogged back to the parking lot and caught up with Madhu and Roshni on the way. When we found just T R Ravindran (our enthusiastic run-walker) but didn't find Shailendra waiting for us, we realized something was amiss and went about contacting his home.
There was bad news waiting for us; Shailendra was taken to hospital for a possible heart condition. I felt a shiver up my spine as I realized what this would mean for me as the "coach" and for my possible alternative (ahem...:-).. post-retirement coach) plans. I wasn't to blame for this situation as it wasn't as if we had gone on a "speed work-out" and I'd taken his heart rate over the brink. This incident occured during a bloody warm up! We went over to the hospital to check on him and got all kinds of discouraging news about a heart-attack, clot etc, which I mentally discounted as I know Indian doctors to get defensive on such matters.
As it turned out (based on a recent mail sent by Madhu), Shailendra has apparently no heart-condition from the 2D-echo-cardiography that was done. This brings us to the puzzling question as to what caused him to feel dizzy and uneasy?? I am awaiting that bit of news so that I can add it to my repertoire of experience in coaching; but meanwhile, the Colpal people were very kind to clear my name internally and in fact thought the world of me; especially some of the runners I train. So much for a depressing Sunday:-))))))))
We arrived at Kharghar to be met by Shailendra (at whose instance we were invited to run) and Saurabh. No sooner had we eased into a warm-up, Shailendra stopped and sat on the side-walk. When I queried him in alarm, he replied that he had a dizzy spell and would rest a bit. I advised him not to run and that he could go to where I'd parked my car. As I went ahead with my routine of running a 3K loop that Shailendra had shown me, I realized that he was not at the spot that I'd last seen him and assumed that he was waiting by the car. Towards the end of a 2 hr run, I egged on Saurabh for an additional 3K, which worked out well for both of us. We both jogged back to the parking lot and caught up with Madhu and Roshni on the way. When we found just T R Ravindran (our enthusiastic run-walker) but didn't find Shailendra waiting for us, we realized something was amiss and went about contacting his home.
There was bad news waiting for us; Shailendra was taken to hospital for a possible heart condition. I felt a shiver up my spine as I realized what this would mean for me as the "coach" and for my possible alternative (ahem...:-).. post-retirement coach) plans. I wasn't to blame for this situation as it wasn't as if we had gone on a "speed work-out" and I'd taken his heart rate over the brink. This incident occured during a bloody warm up! We went over to the hospital to check on him and got all kinds of discouraging news about a heart-attack, clot etc, which I mentally discounted as I know Indian doctors to get defensive on such matters.
As it turned out (based on a recent mail sent by Madhu), Shailendra has apparently no heart-condition from the 2D-echo-cardiography that was done. This brings us to the puzzling question as to what caused him to feel dizzy and uneasy?? I am awaiting that bit of news so that I can add it to my repertoire of experience in coaching; but meanwhile, the Colpal people were very kind to clear my name internally and in fact thought the world of me; especially some of the runners I train. So much for a depressing Sunday:-))))))))
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