Micah True aka “Caballo Blanco” missing in Gila Wilderness.

[Luke Schmidt]

Can someone break that quote down into plain English and explain the jist of it. Enlarged heart I get, not sure what all the rest meant but its sounds like "we don't know."

[John S.]

At autopsy they found the left ventricle heart muscle to be thickened (thicker wall than normal) and dilated (internal volume larger than normal). No evidence of clogged arteries was found.

They labeled it a more general term of cardiomyopathy (pathological condition of heart muscle) because he had no known diagnosis of high blood pressure or electrical problem of the heart. He probably died from a sudden abnormal heart rhythm due to the heart condition.

[Kerry Rodgers]

I found this analysis interesting, though I don't have the chops to evaluate it:

http://sock-doc.com/2012/05/micah-true-death/

[Mike M]

very interesting article

a couple of years ago a doctor (ER surgeon) I knew from racing (car racing that is :)), was also a very avid cyclist, died suddenly on a bike ride. He was very fit and very health conscience. He was out for one is his typical long rides and died of a heart attack 2/3 of the way through. He was in his early to mid 50's. Besides the grief over the loss of such a nice guy, I remember being bothered by the fact that he was so fit, a medical doctor and relatively young. Heart attacks are for guys (gals) that are overweight, smoke and don't exercise is what I thought. Obviously not always so.

I think that article makes a couple of good points, aerobic activity will make you healthier and typically longer lived. That we need to train smart and eat healthy. That despite all of the above, when God calls our number, we're going :)

[Greg Mihalik]

I'm reasonably fit – 250 miles a week on a bike, 200 miles hikes in 10 days or so a couple of times a year, lots of lesser stuff all year long ….

Recently a couple of weird "episodes" got me into a cardiologist for a work-up. (Blood, Stress, and Echo) He said "You are fit, we see nothing wrong, we see nothing suggestive, we could do more, but usually all we turn up is a bunch of False positives."

And although not very comforting, he then said "This is why you read about someone running a marathon and then having a heart attack the next week. It's an imprecise science. Go ride, go hike, and enjoy yourself."

So I am.

[BlackHatGuy]

I've been considering one of those body scans that seem to be popular these days. Ostensibly they'll turn up stuff that would never show up at your yearly physical – building blockages and such.

[Greg Mihalik]

Doug,
All a scan will show is "areas of concern". Then, if you are already fit, at a good weight, eat well, and keep the "excess to minimum", the only course left is to prophylactically start taking a statin, "just in case", and basically for the rest of your life. And statins have their own problems.

You could be one of very few having an occluded artery somewhere that is life threatening. But those numbers are low, and the consequences of the false positives are severe.

[Eugene Smith]

Being thankful for each day and being a steward of the body that I've been blessed with is all I can do, the rest is out of my hands.

In the words of Andy Dufresne, we can either "Get busy living, or get busy dying".

[Greg Pehrson]

Great pictures; beautifully written memorial of Caballo Blanco:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/sports/caballo-blancos-last-run-the-micah-true-story.html?pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1337608862-7xYjXwmZUDXjPmx0FvN25A

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