Athletes beware! We're more at risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT)

"About 85% of air travel thrombosis victims are athletic, usually endurance-type athletes like marathoners. People with slower resting blood flow are at greater risk of stasis, stagnant blood subject to clotting. Also, they are more likely to have bruises and sore muscles that can trigger clotting. No other risk factor comes close to this. Age over 60 is supposed to be a risk factor, but these victims are younger, 82% of them under 60".

So.. it's not the overweight, unfit-looking type sitting next to you on the plane who's more likely to get DVT: it's you! And the same goes for athletes like us sitting in vehicles on our way to races, or those of us with desk jobs.

I got this quote, which is from the airhealth website from the health and fitness blog of Gary Moller (brother of Olympic marathon medallist Lorraine Moller). Gary's blog on DVT here is well worth reading...just for now scroll past the other distractions such as a mouth-watering picture of NZ's Routebourne trail and a great pic of Derek Turnbull "the fastest old man in the world"...to find really useful info on DVT and how we can avoid it.

Gary's piece was stimulated by a batch of athletes turning up at his clinic. "Over the Christmas period, I encountered three cases of suspected deep vein thrombosis (DVT, phlebitis) among apparently healthy men, two of whom were training as endurance athletes (running and cycling). They had come to see me for help with calf pain. Two required hospital specialist treatment. One developed a blood clot on his lung. A fourth person was sent off to his doctor with a suspected silent heart attack. It has been a busy Christmas, I can tell you!" he writes.

Coincidental with finding his article, I was reading over at Masterstrack.com that according to race announcer Peter Taylor our sub-5 miler Dave Albo's journey to Ithaca, NY, for the target="_blank">Hartshorne Mile took 16 hours!