Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Heatstroke

Most days I do pretty well with the weather, whatever it brings. In fact, at times I enjoy the extremes - frigid cold and broiling heat. Kinda weird..after all, as a runner I guess I have to make peace with the outdoors. Last Saturday was another matter.

I followed John and his Hyper Gila Cycling Team to Putrajaya for a change. While waiting for them to complete their 3 hour cycling routine, I decided to run around Putrajaya for as long as I could. Tony suggested that I should just enjoy myself and try jogging around the huge lake to check where it leads to and I did that.
By the time I finished, it was about 11.30am - the sun was intense but I was still okay. Or so I thought. I chatted with some guys who arrived earlier and learned that Michelle got crash and landed in Putrajaya Hospital. The whole team was with her. Later when John arrived, I was perspiring profusely and wondering why? It was cold sweat but I did not feel unwell.

Just as I was going to change into dry clothes, the world suddenly turned grey and the scene in front of me became vaque and then vanished. Panicked, I almost collapsed and called John who was nearby. He advised me to squat down. I obeyed and until I felt better, I got up. When I began to walk, everything that I could see quickly became blur again, as if I was being covered by a large white cloud. I squat down once more - this time slightly longer. When I felt better, we headed straight home. I looked at myself in the mirror and was quite shock to see how pale I've turned..seriously, I thought I saw my own corpse!!

I swear that this has never happened to me during my entire running life. In the end, I concluded that it was a heatstroke that occurs when the body's thermoregulatory system shuts down from excessive heat buildup or excessive dehydration. In my case, it could also be my raging hormones where I lost a lot of blood via a 10day heavy menstruation. I recovered by resting and doing nothing. I tried hydrating myself with fluids throughout the day.

Well, it's just another chapter in 'Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah' (Today in history) for me! A good reminder for me to seize the day and enjoy everyday - Carpe Diem!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i can truly understand how u felt. i experienced the same many times during my teenage n early 20s until i ran actively (but i never push myself too hard but just enough to sweat it out and increase my heart rate).

i am also born with low heart rate n experience low blood pressure. please do a check up and monitor your blood pressure to ensure it didn't drop too low. you had it once, likely will repeat if u are not careful.

it is scary . . i can testify to it and will avoid it from recurring.

take care

The Runner, Dreamer, Observer, Seeker said...

Hi, Julie!
Thanks for visiting my blog. Actually I have high blood pressure. So, that incident at Putrajaya came as a shock to me. But I'll take extra measure to run safely in future.
Thank you for your sharing.