Heart Foundation’s annual fitness challenge, MyMarathon, is a go! Participants have the entire month of October to run or walk the distance of a full marathon (42.2km).
They can do it in one day or take the whole month. All that matters is boosting their fitness, while helping to raise funds and awareness for lifesaving heart disease research.
One tough Canberran excited to flag the cause is young Maddie Ashton, a former sportswoman making her way back to athletics, one year after her heart surgery.
“Sport has always been a huge part of my life,” said Maddie. “I grew up in Jindabyne, in a family that did lots of skiing and snow sports.”
Hiking to Mount Everest Base Camp had always been on Maddie’s bucket list. Two years ago, she travelled on her own to Nepal with a mission to complete the 15-day hike.
Even as three of her fellow trekkers got airlifted off the mountain due to altitude sickness, Maddie took great pleasure in the escape from technology, and made it all the way to the camp.
Upon her return to Australia, she decided to donate blood, as she had multiple times before. This time, however, she received some unsettling news.
“’Your heart is out of rhythm,’ the nurse told me.”
Maddie’s mother, also a nurse, ensured her results were seen by a cardiologist, who recommended further testing. Again, her heart rate was inconsistent, with around half of Maddie’s heartbeats not actual beats at all. She was diagnosed with premature ventricular contractions (PVC).
It all clicked into place. At high altitude near Everest, her heart rate was surprisingly low: what she assumed was her fitness was probably related to an undiagnosed heart condition.
“It was hard for me to grasp at first, because I didn’t feel any different to how I had growing up, how I felt every day,” she said.
“You just feel sick when someone tells you that you have to take medication twice a day. Every couple of months I got scans on my heart to make sure things weren’t getting worse. Spending a lot of time at the doctor just makes you feel like a sick person. For me, that was the hardest part.”
At just 25, Maddie felt she couldn’t speak to her peers about her condition. Her friends were supportive but weren’t aware of what they could do to help, or of her new limitations.
“The scans showed that the frequency of the PVCs was getting much worse. I was told that I couldn’t play sport, which was a massive thing for me.”
Maddie had been training for AFL and was crushed when she was told she had to slow down for her health. The feelings of isolation grew during lockdown, until she found the Heart Foundation.
“When I started going to see the cardiologist, I must have been put on some kind of mailing list,” she laughed. “I started getting emails from the Heart Foundation, which was good because there was a lot of helpful information, and other people’s stories.”
Through emails, she eventually found the Young Hearts Facebook page, connecting the couple of hundred youths with heart conditions across Australia.
She found solace in shared stories. “The videos shared about their experiences helped me process what had happened in my own time,” said Maddie.
The last time Maddie had raised money for the Heart Foundation was in primary school, skipping for Jump Rope for Heart.
Now she wants to give back to the organisation that she found so supportive.
“I want to raise awareness about young people with heart conditions. I know that if mine wasn’t found out, I was at risk of going into cardiac arrest while playing sport. It’s a common story, that more people should pay attention to.
“I’ve signed up to support the thousands of people living with heart disease in Australia, because I am one of the lucky ones who gets to continue living an active life!”
To join Maddie in MyMarathon, visit mymarathon.com.au
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