saw a guy die at triathlon this weekend
 

Collapsed at end of swim portion. Deaths during triathlons are becoming more common and apparently they always occur during the swim. My guess is cardiac issues.

Sad to see.

The consolation is that the competitor was doing something they enjoyed doing.

Age?

apparently he was 48

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_2...each-triathlon

This is so sad to hear and all these stories are scary to new triathletes like me. I'm doing my first race in July.

Does anybody know details such as the water temp and whether he was wearing a wetsuit\what kind?

water temp was about 63-65. I actually don't remember if he was wearing one. he was covered up quickly with blankets. how old are you ? if you are worried about cardiac issues its pretty cheap and quick to go get a basic CKG or even more sophisticated testing. just might save your life.

"More common" is a relative term. An average death rate is 1.5 deaths per 100,000 participants. One recent study reviewed all sanctioned triathlons in 2006-08, nearly a million participants. There were 14 deaths: 13 drownings and 1 fatal bike crash. 6 out of 13 drownings occurred during short-distance (<750 m) swims. One might think that there would be more deaths in longer distance races and further down the course, but apparently not: susceptible people are most likely to have a heart attack shortly into the race.

In marathons, the odds of a heart attack is 0.5 to 1 cases per 100,000 marathons. There's a pattern: people over 45 have heart attacks because they have ischaemic heart disease; they stand a good chance of being resuscitated because there are usually volunteers with defibrillators all over marathon courses. (Of course, this isn't of much help if you have a heart attack in a triathlon during the swim portion.) People under 45 have heart attacks because they have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (a congenital condition) and defibrillators aren't of much use for them.

To put these numbers in perspective, your odds of dying during a single triathlon are about as good as your odds of being murdered in the next 3 years if you live in an average American city.

where did you get your numbers from ? I recently read a study that said odds of dying during a marathon was 1 in 8,000

These guys report 59 heart attacks among 11 million marathon & half marathon runners in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010

http://www.fichier-pdf.fr/2012/05/04...-atletas-1.pdf

1 in 8,000 can't be right. You'd see an average of 3-5 people dying every year during a typical high-profile marathon (e.g. Boston or Chicago). This would've been pretty bad for publicity.

ill have to check where id seen those numbers before. the studies ive read show that your chances of dying from a heart attack WHILE running a marathon is much great than if you don't run a marathon. I need to find the study though.

Running a marathon killed the original guy, after all. :p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon#Origin

I'd guess that shorter distance races are more likely to attract beginners doing their first race ever. Some people are very unprepared for the swim portion and get bad advice ("You don't have to know how to swim well - your wetsuit will let you float through the swim leg!").

I'm 24 with no real concern of heart issues. But what I'm more interested in is that people are experiencing things like this without having any at all. The shortness of breath mentioned in the article about this guy makes me think it may have been another case of Swimming-Induced Pulmonary Edema (SIPE for short).

I have never found such a statement consoling. No one enjoys dying right after a swim. When I die I hope I am old and asleep.

I didn't say he enjoyed dying. I said he was doing something he enjoyed when he did. There is a very significant difference.

Not to me.

You can also die in your sleep when you're old having lived an unfulfilled life.

I'm sure given the option anyone would choose to live over dying.

Further specify that you can live to 100 if you never engage in any risky behavior whatsoever, or you can live your life and die at any moment, and I'm sure most will choose the latter.

I've got a theory on why this happens. Let me first say that I have a personal rule that I will never undertake any physical exercise in a competitive situation. I am over 50 and I have learned that competitive situations can easily lead to over doing it. In my case I have plenty of cardiovascular health but am prone to musculoskeletal injuries in those situations. It does not have to be an actual race, rather any situation when you are in company and can be tempted to show off or keep up.

What I now do is simply announce to everyone that I do not allow myself to get involved in such situations. Better still make inquiries beforehand.

My guess is that this poor chap was making a bit of a personal come-back and pushed himself. It's ok to do that when you're 30 but inadvisable for some of us older folks. Such a shame for wife or kids who might have been spectating.

Interesting point.

I was just talking to a neighbor at our Iowa home. She was a host to Ragbrai riders back when the ride went through her town, maybe 10 years ago. She came out of her house in the morning and one was on her porch swing, dead.

I like long rides. But not long hard rides in the stinking heat.

Terrible, back when I used to race flattrack, I was flagging some of the quad races (always a S*** show) to help out the club, and was right there for a seemingly minor wreck between 2 brothers that ended up being fatal. It's a sobering thing.

If you read read the article linked to in the first post, the opposite is true.

There have been various athletic people with high profiles who have died of heart attacks. Ed Burke is one of the better known cases. A small number of soccer players have collapsed on the field and died.

One of the reasons that has not been explored sufficiently in sports morbidity rates, in my opinion, is the influence of air travel and the resulting effect that deep vein thrombosis has on cardiac function in circumstances like this.

It was only after Machka developed a case of DVT after a long, uninterrupted flight from Canada to Australia, that we gained a better understanding of what can happen through the research she did, and what the blood specialist told us.

She was a fit, a long-distance cyclist, but it was discovered that she has a genetic predisposition for developing blood clots that then can break away, make their way to the lungs and heart and cause death if not caught in time.

Of course, there may well be other factors at play in the deaths being discussed. Unfortunately, while an autopsy reveals what actually was the cause of death in the triathlon case, we are unlikely to ever find out.

If someone died of overeating hamburgers, he would also have died doing what he enjoyed doing.

Likely true. And sad that social mores now make it so.

Sad news. The NYC tri has lost a person for the last two years. All in the swim.... Sad day.

That is a very good point about DVT. I travelled from Taiwan-East Coast North America four times in one summer...on the 4th flight...developed DVT which broke off and formed an embolism in my right lung. I'm was 36, healthy and fit. Turns out my genes for "protein s" make me susceptible to clots.

However, in many cases, SIPEs are not related to blood clots. Instead, swimming deaths in triathlon seem to be related to water temperature, pressure from the suit, adrenalin in the body pre-race, and going out hard to clear the pack. Fitter athletes have a higher rate of death from SIPEs than less fit athletes.

There will always be risks. To manage the risks...get in the water before the swim if possible and put your wetsuit on last minute. Too much standing around fully zipped up in high ambient temps...then a plunge into cold water and a massive and sudden increase in physical exertion...that is not a good thing regardless if it ends up being the cause of SIPEs or not. Warming up in the water will help. Race directors should also let athletes start from the water so that the body can adjust more slowly to the temp difference. And I always try to keep my pace down for the first few hundred meters until I can feel my respiratory needs increasing and I know my body is clicking over into performance mode. Sometimes means I can stuck a little at the front edge of the pack...but hey...part of what I love about triathlon is the chaos of a group swim! If I go out hard...I'm such a porpoise in the water I won't get that experience! ;)