That's great news! But why did you end up needing a pacemaker? Heart block? I have been dealing with palpitations my whole life, but the solution is ablation (but I'm only on meds). My dad has a pacemaker for heart block, though. I'm going to share your triumphant return with him!
Four issues:
1. My heart, while at rest, skipped every third beat. When I ran I had no problem getting the rate up to where it needed to be. But at rest, every third beat was lost.
2. My right bundle branch is dead.
3. My resting heart rate was 33, and 25 while sleeping.
4. My upper and lower chambers would sometimes get out of synch, even while running, which was like getting punched in the chest.
Basically what started happening is I could run fine, except for the rare synch thing, but when I stopped my rate would crash really really quickly from say the 150s or so all the way down to the 30s.
I was under a cardiologist's care, and even had the surgery scheduled for the week I got back from W&D, but that race was the one that really convinced me there was something wrong. The other issues had been ongoing for a few years, and I ran marathons with them w/o any issues. But I guess things got progressively worse.
After both the DL 1/2 last Sep and the W&D in Nov, I almost fainted, and at the W&D I spent over an hour in the medical tent until some color came back into my face. I looked like a ghost in the post race photos, although I still felt fine at that point. Only after stopping and getting changed did I really lose it. Thanks to some helpful runners in the changing tent and the great medical staff for all your help!
So the pacemaker does several things for me.
1. It's set with a lower limit of 50 so I don't have that super low rate anymore. The upper limit is not controlled by it, so I can still get my rate into the 180s while running.
2. It allows a more gradual adjustment from the higher running rates to that 50 resting rate.
3. It synchs up the two chambers on those occasions when they don't do it on their own. This is where I feel better while running in the past couple of months. I don't have the punch in the chest if I go max speed which got my heart all crazy in the past.