Beth Reese Cravey|Florida Times-Union

In 2004competitive endurance mountain bike racer Todd Hatfield fainted while riding.

Hatfield, then 29,was out for a few seconds andcrashed into a residential driveway in Jacksonville. He was scraped up,but quickly got himself together and rode the few miles to his home.

A year earlier he had been diagnosed with a heart murmurbut was told it was "not necessarily a big deal" or a sign of heart disease and did not need treatment. So he thought himself the epitome of fitness. Until he fainted.

"I was scared … because I had no clue what could have caused it," he said. "I never in a million years would have thought I had heart issues, especially with how many sports I have always played, how active I was and how well I took care of myself."

But Hatfield was wrong.He was later diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle that can make it harder for the heart to pump blood.

Now 45, the East Arlington resident isa heart disease survivor andadvocate for the American Heart Association. The nonprofit observes February asHeart Month to raise awareness of heart disease; also,Fridayis the association's Wear Red and Give Dayto raise awareness ofheart disease and stroke in women.

"Heart disease remains the number-one cause of death for both men and women,"said Amber Wilson, executive director ofAmerican Heart Association's First Coast chapter."More than 125 million people, or roughly 50percent of all adults in the United States, have cardiovascular disease. The good news is that an estimated 80 percentof cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, are preventable through lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise and quitting smoking."

Hatfield said he is an example of how an otherwise fit person can have heart disease but can also overcome heart disease.

"There were some difficult times but one of my strengths is pushing through adversity, which Im sure is why I do well with endurance racingI dont stop until Im done no matter how much it sucks," Hatfieldsaid. "I'm glad I didn't let it defeat me."

He is also an advocate for the Ironheart Foundation, an organization that bringscardiac patients together to regain a healthy lifestyle through sport.

"It helps to know that other people are thriving who may have had it worse than you or tolearn how they have coped," he said.

At firstHatfield himself did not cope well.

After the 2004 fainting incident, the doctor who diagnosed his heart murmur and specialists he was referred to suspected he hadhypertrophic cardiomyopathy and put him on medication.

"I started dealing with anxiety and panic attacks not knowing what was wrong with my heart or thinking that it could stop at any time. The whole ordeal was so stressful," he said."I now know that I very easily could have died of sudden cardiac arrest."

Eventuallyhis heartcondition stabilized and he resumed bike racing until he ran into trouble during an eight-hour endurance race in Gainesville.

"As the race progressed, I felt weaker, a little dizzy, disoriented," he said. "I had never really felt this way in a race. It felt like my body was shutting down. In hindsight, I was either dehydrated or … possibly had too much potassium in my system.

"But in my mind,the issues were totally related to my heart," he said.

Mayo Clinic later ran a "full battery of tests," confirmed what his doctors suspected in 2004 and recommended an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy "often goes undiagnosed because many people with the disease have few, if any, symptoms," according to Mayo.But in some people the disease "can cause shortness of breath, chest pain or problems in the heart's electrical system, resulting in life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms or sudden death."

Hatfieldwas told to stop all racing and training.

"I was devastated," he said. "Racing bikes had somewhat become my identity."

Hatfieldand his wife started playing golfandhe extended his college studies. He hadjust obtained an associate's degree from Florida State College at Jacksonville and later received a bachelor's in business administration from the University of North Florida.

Meanwhile, his doctors tried to convince him to get thedefibrillator, a small battery-powered device placed in the chest that monitors heart rhythm, detects irregular heartbeats and can deliver electric shocks to fix an abnormal rhythm, according to Mayo.

Hatfield finally agreed in 2011.

"I need as much information as possible before I can make decisions. I was worried about all of the 'what-ifs' that could come with having it," he said. "I was also not totally convinced I needed it. I thought for sure my heart was thick because I had an 'athlete's heart.'

"Mayo was so awesome in working with me through these things and agreed to run all tests after I had taken a long period of no activity to 'rest'my heartand see if anything would change," he said. "The testing proved… the walls of my left ventricle and septum were thicker and there was scarring in my heart."

The final push was that his daughter Riley was to be born in December 2011. He had the device implanted in September 2011.

Hatfieldslowly rebuilt his lifewith the help of wife Char, Riley, 9, son Caleb, 7, and Avery, his daughter from a previous marriage who isaUniversity of Central Florida junior studying pre-clinical health sciences.

In 2015he became a project manager at Mayoafter 15 years working for a local manufacturing company and an earlier six-year stint in the Navy. He coaches Little League baseball andbasketball and helps his children with flag football, mountain bike racing and BMXracing.

He started working out again andlight running and riding and eventually increased his riding and racing. Over the last five yearshe hasaveragedabout 6,000 miles and 12 races a year.

"Being able to ride again was huge," Hatfield said. "Being on a bike, disappearing from everyone and getting lost in your own mind, maintaining a very high level of fitness, lining up and fighting through all of the battles in a bike race, it's such a recharge. It's therapy and a hugesense of accomplishment. …and to come out on top when you cross a finish line, there are not many feelings like it, especially when you had it all taken away and was told you'd never be able to do anything physically competitive again outside of golf."

In 2019 he completed the Pisgah Stage Race in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina, a 5-dayrace that covered 150 off-road miles and included about 20,000 feet of climbing.

"It was such an emotional experience," Hatfield said. "All I could think was that 'I did it, I really did it. I'm not supposed to be here racing bikes, but I just did this.'Not many people sign up for races like that and not all people that start the race finish and probably none do it with a 'bad heart.'"

As for his defibrillator, "I honestly forget it's there most of the time," he said. "I know it's simply an awesome insurance policy."

Beth Reese Cravey: bcravey@jacksonville.com

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION

To donate,get more information about heart disease risk factors and symptoms and find out more about Heart Month and Wear Red Day, go toheart.org. The First Coast chapter is at7751 E. Baymeadows Road, Suite 106F, Jacksonville, FL 32256; (904) 903-5205; AHAFirstCoast@heart.org; andheart.org/en/affiliates/florida/first-coast.

IRONHEART FOUNDATION

For more information, email info@ironheartfoundation.org or go toironheartfoundation.org.

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'I really did it': Jacksonville man beats heart disease to return to mountain bike racing - The Florida Times-Union