A Tale of Two Treadmills
Stress Echo report
In my life, I’ve run on many treadmills, for many reasons. Last week, I ran on a new treadmill, for medical reasons. The experience brings to mind another treadmill, a strangely comforting connection to a different phase of life, like an old friend.
January 2025, any given Tuesday, Early o’clock
Outside, it’s pitch black. Temperatures are well below freezing, but even in my cutoff t-shirt and running shorts, I’m drenched in sweat. Through one ear I can hear the whirr of a treadmill belt, in the other, Scott Stapp’s voice, in an earbud, urges me higher, promising a place with golden streets.
Over the past weeks, I’ve found myself in this same scenario often. Trying to improve my ability to run up mountains whilst those mountains are covered in snow, I’ve developed the habit of incline treadmill running. I wake up, jog to the gym, crank the treadmill until 5mph starts to get difficult (~15%), and run 4.5 miles. Then I flatten out the treadmill, and coast along at 8-point-something mph until I hit 9 miles and jog home. The goal: condition my body to the particular demands of uphill running; become a mountain runner.
June 2025, Monday the 23rd. 12:05pm-ish
Again, I am sweating on a treadmill, same shorts, no shirt. The cutoff is replaced with a 12-lead EKG and a blood pressure cuff. It’s been several months since my heart has beat faster than 156 bpm, the monitor on my right reads 173. The treadmill is at 18% grade, speed 5.0 mph. This is not what I had in mind that Tuesday morning, but it feels oddly familiar.
I am 15 minutes into a Bruce protocol stress test.
This morning, I woke up at a similar time to those winter treadmill days. I ate my last meal before the required 4 hour fast. I try to get back to sleep after breakfast, but I’m too excited, or nervous, or something.
Emily and I leave our house around 9. We get into the clinic almost 30 minutes early. I change into running clothes and check in. Emily can’t come in to the test with me so she sets up camp and tries to get some work done. I sporadically alternate between standing at the clinic door and sitting next to Emily, worried I might miss my name when they call it.
A nurse calls me back: “to the first door on the right”. In the room is an exam table, an ultrasound machine, and a treadmill. It’s a treadmill, but it looks nothing like the ones at the gym.
The test begins with baseline Echoes, pictures of my heart from all angles: front, left, right, even some from below while I suck in my diaphragm. While lying on the table, I get the chance to ask why I needed to refrain from eating for 4 hours and drinking for 1 hour before the test. I figure they don’t want you to throw up. I find out its mostly so all your blood isn’t in your digestive system, and in case they need to take you down to the Cath lab. That doesn’t help my anxiety, I’ve seen enough Cath labs.
With the baseline images taken, I begin the stress test. To my right, all my biometrics are displayed on a big screen. I know more than I used to, but I still don’t understand several of the numbers. The only letters that aren’t attached to a number form a single word: “Bruce”.
“The Bruce protocol is a standardized exercise stress test used to assess cardiovascular function and physical fitness.” Wikipedia tells me.
A table from Wikipedia outlines the plan:
The first few stages are a “walk” in the park. Stage 4 is that weird place in between jogging and walking. In stage 5 I start jogging. I feel more like a bendy man toy than a runner. I have to keep my arms resting on the treadmill handles to allow the pulse-ox, and blood pressure sensors to work. Without my arms to offset the motion, my legs flail awkwardly behind me.
Somewhere in stage 6, I reach the target heart rate, 90% of max or 175 bpm. From there, I can stay on until I want to be done. After I few minutes, I’m getting tired, sweaty, and uncomfortable.
The nurse stops the treadmill. I jump off and, with the nurse’s help, finesse myself and all my wires back onto the exam table. The tech takes as many images as he can before my heart rate returns to normal.
Overall, the test went well. We wont know much about the results until after my bubble study in a few days. I’m still kicking myself for getting off the treadmill at the first sign of discomfort rather than gutting it all out. It will be a while before I can do that again.
So until next time, I’ll keep running on the cardiac rehab treadmills, and trying to stay upright on the proverbial treadmill: recovery.