Last time this happened to me, the paramedics from the fire engine building had come over to help me.

I started my run a little late today – slightly after 11am. I was thinking of putting in 3 miles. Started a Youtube video on my airpods – Bertrand Russell’s original paradox of Set Theory and headed out merrily. It was a bit warm but the trail was mostly shaded.

Around the three quarter mile point, I suddenly felt very dizzy. Instinctively, I pulled my feet apart to not lose balance. After, what seemed like eternity – but, in reality it could not have been more than 3 seconds since I must have taken no more than 5 steps further, I realized that it was not a passing thing. I often get dizzy for a second when I get up suddenly or sometimes during a run if I lift my head up very quickly. This was not one of them.

At that point, I took all evasive actions to not fall down and if I did fall down, not on my back. Bent forward as I tried to walk out of the trail and then lowered myself down on all fours. I stayed that way for about a few minutes. Spotting a bench nearby, I slowly walked up there while keeping a low profile.

Got up after a few more minutes. First thought was to walk back. But I realized that if I did so, I would not know why it was happening. Coming from programming background, I had to recreate the problem to understand what was going on. So, decided to continue with the run and stay in the popular parts of the trail such that if I needed help somebody would be nearby. Also, decided to abort and go back if the problem came back soon.

All the time, I started isolating the variables in my mind. It was 80 degrees. Not that hot. My heartbeat was at 158bpm. For somebody 56 years old, that is well within the exhaustion limits. I had a lot of water the whole morning. I had only a fruit and two cups of tea like every morning but I was not feeling that hungry. Besides, I had the problem within 7-8 minutes of running. I was not feeling hungry or thirsty. But of course I did not know my sugar level.

At about the 2 mile marker, I felt it again. It seemed like I was getting dizzy. Without thinking twice, I sat down in the shade immediately and ran thru the few checks I was prepared for. Heartbeat was still under 160. And it dropped by 25 within the first minute. So, all was seemingly good on the heart front. Vo2 max was at 33.6 which is above average.

Now my worries went to whether this might be something bigger going on inside my body. Including internal bleeding. I could not see any discoloration of skin anywhere that I could visually inspect. Of course, years of hospice volunteering started scaring me about Parkinson’s and worse.

Convinced that I need to separate out more likely variables before jumping to bigger conclusions, I tried the systematic approach again. I noticed that when I took the hat off, it was dripping. My scalp was very warm. Well, my scalp felt the palms were very cold. This is a new hat. Maybe they were not wicking hats? That would heat up my head quickly.

Started the next segment of the run without the hat on. This time, I turned around and commenced towards the starting point. It was a miserable run. Without the hat, the sweat was dripping all over my face and eyes. And lo and behold! I had another attack. It was milder. But sure, I felt dizzy.

Did the next round of tests. Stood one one foot for 30 seconds with either foot. No issues. This is one of the tests my doctor had done when I had an attack of BPPV three years back. This rules out any major underlying neurological issues.

One more bout of run to the starting point.

Then I had another idea : Could it be my sunglasses? Well, it is a polarized clip on that I use on top of my prescription glasses. And this is a new one. Those polarized glasses (prescription or clip on) messes up peripheral vision for most people and for people like me, it can cause issues like dizziness.

In a bit of sheer lunacy, I went for yet another mile – no sunglass, no hat. The whole mile felt good. But there was this mild sense of not everything was alright. I was afraid to make quick shifts of the neck. Just kept looking straight ahead and ran. Not sure whether it was just fear or a real feeling of instability at that point of time.

Unless there is something major going on with my body, I suspect I either had a mild heatstroke OR my old BPPV problem has come back. (It is fairly benign and will go away with time). I will not know till I go out and run again tomorrow early in the morning in cooler temperatures.

Meanwhile, tonight I am going to load up on carbs!!

I had faithfully showed up at the Starbucks to meet the Chalupa (Bengali runners) group this morning. What I did not know is that there is a baby shower in the community (I am woefully unaware of these things) – and therefore nobody was going to show up for the run.

As I was waiting, I saw somebody enter the Starbucks who reminded me a lot about my old running buddy from 15 years back – Russell Shaw. He has moved to Durham ever since and we keep in touch once a year on his birthday in April.

My first reaction was to see if I could take a picture of the gentleman and send it to Russell telling him that I had met his doppelgänger. My second reaction (fairly stupid, now that I think about it) was to approach the gentleman and ask “Are you not supposed to be in North Carolina?”

Well, turns out it was indeed Russell!!! He was in the area to sell off his house!!

Eventually, Mrinal-da – who realized that I must have been sitting at Starbucks by myself – decided to show up and give me company too!!

So there you go – two of my runners friends from two different groups … and me – in one frame!

The idea was to put in a quick 5K (3 miles) run. The problem was instead of listening to songs while running, I made the mistake of listening to some Youtube videos on Time. (basically, is time a fundamental thing or have human beings simply conjured it up? Is entropy a real thing – the only time we need time to explain a physical equation – or is it how our brains process it? ).

In the confusion, I completely lost track of time. By the time the talk ended, I was nearly 2.5 miles away from my starting point. ergo, was forced to complete a 5 mile run.

Absolutely made sure that I listened to music on my run back. Else, I was afraid I might have breezed past my starting point!!

Checking my blog, I was astonished to find that the last time I ran a 5K race was 6 whole years back!! I could have sworn that I ran a couple every year before Covid hit. Turns out that is not true.

So, after 6 years then, I ran a 5K race today. Heart and Sole 5K run (for special learning kids). It was to start from Avalon. Which is a walking distance away for us. I used that to get my warm up run done. Registered on the spot.

The environment was electrifying. Lots of folks – young kids, elderly persons, cute dogs, folks who clearly looked like they run some 20 miles every day and there were those who probably thought they said “Rum” instead of “Run”!

The run itself was very enjoyable. The adrenaline rush of police escorts, people cheering from the side and photographers everywhere was enough to make most runners shave off quite some time from their normal pace. My thrilling moments of passing other runners (especially uphill) were often supplanted by folks with two dogs attached to them breezing past me!

I was fairly surprised that the first mile was at 9:03 pace. That is nearly 2 minutes faster than my normal pace. The second mile slowed down to 9:28. But the third one speeded up to 9:16. The final piece was at 8:16! Total 29:14 mins. My apple watch showed that we covered a little more distance than 5K (3.17mile instead of 3.1) – so I have to wait for them to post the final chip times on their website.

I have no doubt in my mind that the reason for so much better performance compared to my usual pace is because of the excitement of the crowds.

Apr 26 Update: Out of 369 runners, I came at the 65th position. The chip timer showed 29:19.

Nice run in the trail today. The allergies later were a bit of a bother. I just need to run faster than the allergens.

Quickly came to miss the flat trails of Fowler Park.

(so is my running speed – for one day at least)

After over 10 years of running in this trail – with a lot of history including snakes and paramedics – I had to finally stop since they shut down the trail. It was under construction for over a year and then Covid hit. Which meant all the supply chain problems.

While wishing Bill happy birthday the other day, I found out that the trail had opened up a couple of days before. Went back there today for a great run. The wooden planks are all new and felt so much better on the feet and knee.

Somewhat swept up by the moment of running again in this trail that I know so many details of, I posted a sub-30min 5K (3.11M in 29:30). I have not done this – in about 4 years or so.

Good to get back to the old trail.

The pains and aches are a constant reminder that I am not getting any younger…

Got thoroughly drenched. The run in the rain was very enjoyable. The occasional lightning and thunder? Not so much!!

It was 28 degrees (negative 2 Celsius) and the high winds were biting. All the more reason to go out for a run. The trails were very empty today.