This morning I got an ecocardiogram done at the hospital. The good news is that the potato in my chest isn't exploding anytime soon.

Why I got my heart checked is a longish story. I started triathlon training last year, and these two years are by far the period when I have put most strain on my heart (and rest of my body). Last summer, I was arriving late to a training, and I was cycling fast to get there ASAP. There are about 6 kilometres from my father's house to the sports campus. As soon as I entered the city, I came across a closed traffic light, so I suddenly stopped after 15 minutes of extreme effort. A few seconds later, I started to feel dizzy, my sight started to blank a bit and most alarmingly, I felt my heart skip a few beats: pump-pump, pump-pump, pump-pump, ... pump, ... pump, ... pump, pump-pump, pump-pump.... Of course, I freaked out a bit, but mostly forgot about it when the lights went green and I had a completely normal training session. Since then, I've got the same symptoms 3 more times, so I told my mother and her husband, who casually are cardiologists. Even if they thought that could be quite normal in people doing lots of sports, we decided to do some tests just to make sure. I just don't want to collapse one day in the street. :)

On Monday I was auscultated by Adolfo, and he says he found something strange in the heartbeat sound. I had an electrocardiogram done, which didn't reveal anything bad, but hey, now I know I have 45 beats per minute when resting. Finally I got the ecocardiogram done at the hospital. The equipment they use for this is fun. It's nothing new, it's the same technique as the one used to look "inside" a pregnant woman to check the baby. I could see my heart in the monitor from many different angles, distinguishing the ventricles and valves. The two doctors started commenting something at one of the valves, but I couldn't get anything out of their medical speak. In the end, it turns out my aortic valve has a small fault and doesn't close completely, and some blood escapes when it shouldn't. They say it's nothing I should care about (yet?) and I can continue doing sport normally, but I need to keep an eye, and have it checked every two years, as the valve tends to open more as one ages. Someone else in the team had the same diagnosed for his heart, so I guess this is not too uncommon. This evening, to celebrate, I went to the river to run during 50 minutes.