Video: Runner finishes 5km race despite suffering heart attack

eep fit enthusiast Glenn Davies, 51, was taking part in his 122nd Park Run when he began to feel a “dull ache” in his chest about half a mile from the finish line.

Unsure what the unusual discomfort was but determined to get to the end, Mr Davies, slowed his pace to a walk and forced himself over the line.

After the race his wife insisted he go to hospital, where blood tests revealed he had suffered a heart attack - and eventually underwent surgery where doctors fit stents to repair his narrowed arteries.

Mr Davies, from Brickholes, Huddersfield, said: “It didn’t feel like anything that I had experienced before but I did feel very strange. It wasn’t a sharp pain but my chest felt very uncomfortable.

“I didn’t ever think it could be a heart attack because I associated heart attacks with clutching your chest and falling over in pain and there’s never been any history of heart attacks in my family.

“If my wife hadn’t encouraged me to go to the hospital to check it out, I’m not sure I ever would.”

Mr Davies’s wife, Samantha, 47, a clinical podiatrist who works for the NHS, became worried when Mr Davies had not finished the race - that she also took part in - and went back to meet him.

Samantha noticed that he was “grey” and complaining of discomfort in his chest and seemed more breathless than usual.

Knowing her husband was due to take part in his first marathon a week later Samantha insisted he go to hospital but it wasn’t until 12 hours after his admission that doctors declared he had suffered a “silent” heart attack.

Mr Davies, a product manager for a security distribution company, said: “The race started at 9am and I was in the hospital having an ECG by 9:45 but the results came back negative so we all thought that I was fine.

“The doctors said, as a precaution, that I had to stay in for 12 hours and I was laughing and joking throughout the day thinking that nothing was wrong.

“However, after a few more blood tests the doctors revealed that I had had a heart attack and I was sent straight to resuss before being transferred to a coronary unit in Halifax.

“I had an operation the following Monday and the doctors put stents into one of my arteries that had become slightly blocked.

“It could have been much worse and I’m so glad that I went to the hospital to get checked over.”

Mr Davies, who has two stepsons, made a quick recovery and has eased himself back to fitness with recommended gentle exercise - completing his next park run, at a walking pace, less than a month after the incident.

Mr Davies suffered his heart attack almost exactly two years to the day since marathon runner Sean Doyle collapsed at the same Park Run after a massive heart attack.

The pair have since got together to share their experiences and Mr Davies recently got back in his shoes to run a 10k race alongside Sean.

On the advice of Sean, Mr Davies has also joined the Cardiac Athletes Facebook group, which unites heart patient athletes from across the world.