Angela is a V60 Giffnock North athlete based in Carlisle, supported by her dedicated coach John Birkett. This is her amazing recovery story, in her own words. Angela takes to the track this weekend (6th April) at CSSAL Match 1 at Crownpoint Sports stadium, Glasgow.
Monday evening December 4th 2023 down at the track with the training group doing a session as usual said to John had a slight pain in chest but I put it down to a cold frosty night and never got the pain again, later that evening after tea sitting in the chair shouted on John that got another pain in chest and breathing not to good so John rushed me up to A&E and they took me straight through and doctors and nurses attended to me, after a few tests later informed me that I had a heart attack spent a week in hospital after they had carried out there various tests.
After Christmas and the New Year 2024, I started my rehab in the back garden by walking 80meters round it 3 times a day for a few weeks then slowly we started to build it up by walking round the estate for 15mins and by end of January the walk was 30mins, also middle of January I had started my 6 weeks hospital heart and physio rehab in the clinic, a great Physio who new John and I through athletics started to put me through the 6 week recovery period, after 3 weeks I was allowed to be back on the track walking 50m the jogging 50m with a 100m walk recovery and this continued for another 3 weeks along with my hospital rehab and making good steady progress, now end of February and hospital rehab had finished and consultant had signed me off hospital care, and returned to work March 4th 2024.
Once I had got signed off by the consultant, we set about building my plan off what I wanted to achieve as to rebuilding my strength on and off the track and may be some track races in 2024 ?.
Now in my 64th year it was not going to be easy and would take some time to fully rebuild my strength and feel confident to race again, training was going well along with my swimming and gym work could feel myself getting stronger and more confident in myself as the weeks went by, and said to John wanted to race in a local meeting coming up in May as usual John backed and supported me along to the meeting and with slight anxiety about racing after the heart attack I set about it, the morning of the race nerves and butterfly’s where building up which is understandable after the heart attack, and just said to myself on the starting line it’s just another 100m race nothing different from the past 30 years of racing, gun went off and reacted well and finished the race in 16.0s as John congratulated me he said what’s wrong Angela I said to him I wanted to break 16.0s he just said athletes never happy and with patience it will happen for you. In the 2024 race season I competed in 24 races overall from one 200 m race down to 60m races indoors, in that season competed for the Club in the CSSAL last match at Scotstoun and help gain a few more points, also I did achieve to break my target of 16.0s at The Scottish Masters Championships at Dundee in 15.93s and as John said I had a smile that day, but reminded me about patience.
The new 2025 season has got under way, had a couple of indoor races to stretch the legs after some good sound winter work on the track and grass hills which set me for the 156th New Year Sprint Handicap at Grangemouth Sunday 16th February first up was the 110m Open handicap race and got to the x/ties of the 110m handicap race for the first time, also picked up a 3rd place in Ladies 90m Open Handicap and 5th place in 90m Masters Open handicap race and collected £70 in prize money from both races so a good day all round.
As well as the few races in 2025 so far, I have continued to build my strength up and slowly build my training up ready for 2025 outdoor season as I go into my 65th year in July 29th and this also moves me up into a new age category of W65, my main targets will be the British Outdoor Masters Championships in Derby in September and then onto the European Masters Championships in Maderia October 6th for 14 days which will end the outdoor season hopefully in the sun.
In between the Championships I will race at some open races to test myself and gauge my progress from the training to be ready for the Championships, will once again compete and support the club at the CSSAL Matches in 2025 which is always a great pleasure.