I’m a 30-something girl with a congenital heart condition who has taken up running. And let me tell you, a leaking mitral valve and a high heart rate does not make it easy to exercise. It costs a lot of energy and a lot of oxygen at that. Mainly because my heart rate gets up to about 210 without very much effort.
So, why this blog? It’s not that I felt the need to have a blog about myself, because I didn’t and I still don’t. But when I started running I could only find schedules on running for people without any heart problems. And I could only find some general stuff on exercising while you have a heart condition, but no realistic schedules. And that frustrated me, because the only guide I had on running was not realistic for me.
So, I wanted to share my journey with anyone who might be interested. Maybe you have a heart condition yourself or you have a loved one with a heart condition or maybe you are just curious. I am not saying that every heart patient should take up running, because everyone is different and so is every heart condition. I just want to share my personal experience hoping that it might be useful to someone else, because I personally would have wanted this kind of information to be out there when I started, but it wasn’t. Or maybe you don’t have a heart condition at all, but want to take up running or want to exercise more, well, if I can do it, so can you.
Heart Runner Girl 
If you can not find a good cushioned shoe then I suggest looking for insoles to give you the padding you need for your arch support
Thanks Steve. I’ve thought about this before, but unfortunately I’m still unsure where I could find good insoles.
Hi, I’m Markus (still 44) and I have an imposantes Artificial heartvalve since 2007. For 2018 I have startet a special Project. I will Run an official half Marathon in each Federal state of germany, so in totally 16. You can follow my Project on Instagram #eineHerzklappeläuftWelltrekord2018