Elephants and sudden death in runners

I was very saddened to read of the death of another young man (i.e. younger than me) in John Kynaston's blog.

As John says, maybe running prolonged his life, but we'll never know. The question that really needs answering is did he ignore any warning signs that might have saved or prolonged his life?

There's been a very big "elephant in the room" about the death of Dario Melaragni, the previous organiser of the West Highland Way race who died suddenly whilst out running in the hills with friends. Why Dairo died is a question that must surely trouble any distance runner as we all hope to prolong our lives by participating in such a healthy sport.

Sometimes heart attacks (if that's what it was) do just strike out of the blue but one almost certainly anecdotal but believable figure I came across on the net was that over 80% of runners who had had a heart attack had had symptoms beforehand but had either ignored them or played them down.

There are many causes of sudden death in athletes and if anyone is feeling so inclined, have a look at this. http://www.sportsci.org/encyc/suddendeath/suddendeath.html


Whilst running probably doesn't make conditions predisposing to heart attacks worse, runners are inclined to ignore or play down symptoms because we're used to tolerating discomfort and expect running to hurt sometimes.

I want to go on enjoying my running without worrying about whether I'm going to leave my wife widowed and it would certainly put my mind at ease to know if Stephen or Dario had any symptoms beforehand that they might have mentioned in passing. Not just chest pain but things like episodes of racing pulse, irregular heart beat and aches in neck, shoulder or arms when running.

If you knew Stephen or Dario and know of any symptoms that they might have had but ignored, sharing that knowledge might help to prevent others from ignoring potentially serious warning signs.