Originally Posted by
OldTryGuy
As I mentioned in another thread, a 69yo friend of my wife recent died from a heart attack. He was a ranked marathoner and had a race scheduled for the day after his death. Don't know if his activities prolonged his life or cut it short.
Pays your money, or not, and takes your chances.
There is no "one size fits all" answer to this. While it is probably true in most cases, there are exceptions. Your friend, due to his active athletic lifestyle, may have had a ticking time bomb that went undetected. My dad had such. He was active and healthy all his life and had a heart attack at 70. It was later discovered he had a congenital valve defect all his life. He had a valve replacement, then lived to 83, still active when he was felled by a case of the flu.
I was the antithesis of my dad, having been out of shape and over weight most of my life. Had a MI at 52, that I blame mostly on lifestyle, though there is a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol too. I got serious, lost weight, started eating better, and riding longer and harder, and am now knocking on the door of century rides. It has been six years since my event, and at the time the doc's were telling me that half of all MI victims are dead in a year.