Specifically, his severely stenotic aortic valve — the kind of abnormality that has caused sudden death in marathon runners, basketball players, all kinds of athletes who push themselves — needed to be replaced.
He had known about it for a few years, but didn’t get concerned until it became life threatening. Finally — on March 23, 2009 — Colavincenzo underwent open heart surgery.
As he sat at the kitchen table of his Kettering home the other night — his gray NAVY T-shirt hiding the long scar down the middle of his chest — he said he was doing fine:
“I asked my cardiologist more than once, ‘Do I have any restrictions?’ He said, ‘Noooo ... not unless you do something ... crazy.’ ”
He let the last word hang there for a while, then shrugged:
“Maybe he’ll think this is crazy.”
And rightfully so.
In three weeks, the 50-year-old Colavincenzo will compete in the difficult Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, an event that starts with a cold, grueling 1½ mile swim through the rough waters surrounding the infamous island known simply as The Rock.
For nearly three decades — until the early 1960s — Alcatraz housed a federal prison from which no one is known to have made a successful escape to freedom.
Over the years, 36 men were involved in 14 different attempts. Many were caught, several were shot dead, two are known to have drowned and the remaining five have forever been listed as missing. They are presumed to have been caught in the treacherous currents of San Francisco Bay and swept out to the sea and their demise.
“Yeah, but unlike us now, those guys didn’t have wet suits. They were swimming at night and they didn’t know which way the current was going,” Colavincenzo said.
True, but those guys likely hadn’t just undergone major surgery to have a defective valve replaced by one made of a cow’s pericardial tissue.
Nor did those guys — once they finished their swim — have to jump on a bicycle and pedal 18 miles over San Francisco’s hills, then do an eight-mile run that included a leg-numbing churn up 400 steps through deep sand.
After a couple of seconds thought, Colavincenzo smiled:
“Did you ever see that movie ‘A League of Their Own?’ There’s one line — the best line of the movie — that goes: “The hard ... is what makes it great.”
That’s how I feel about this.
No limits
After a career in the Navy — that took him coast to coast in the U.S. to Japan and to the Al Kibrit air base near Saudi Arabia — Colavincenzo and his wife, Peggy, settled in Kettering, which is close enough to her hometown of Cincinnati and his of Clyde.
Along with his medical practice, Colavincenzo has been a prominent Alter High booster — daughter, Annie, graduated from there, son, Joe, played football for the Knights and 13-year-old Molly will soon be there — he’s a pilot and has been an active local cyclist.
Four years ago, he competed in his first triathlon at Miami University, survived a few moments of panic in the water and decided afterward to try more. He’s done 15 to date.
“It’s a release for me,” he said. “Some guys golf, some tinker with cars. I’ve always been into physical activity. I’ve never considered myself any kind of great athlete, but I do have more than my fair share of drive.
“And that’s one of the appeals of triathlon. You might be pretty good at cycling, running and swimming, but not great at any of them. But with the triathlon, you do one after another. And with some drive you can be better than the average athlete.”
Yet, as he built his triathlon resume, his heart problem intensified.
“I have a bicuspid aortic valve which means I have two leaflets instead of three. It opens like a fish mouth instead of being like a Mercedes sign. Over time it degenerates because it can’t handle the kind of pressure your heart generates.
“I didn’t know about it until eight or nine years ago when my family doctor told me I had a heart murmur. At first, like most people, I ignored it and attributed my problems to something else.
“I knew I’d need a replacement down the pike, but I thought that wouldn’t come for several years. My mom had the same thing, but her valve wasn’t replaced until she was 71.”
About two years ago, though, he began having trouble running and said it became clear he needed the replacement soon:
“You’re at a much higher risk for sudden death — where you just drop dead. I kind of felt like that guy — I forget his name now — the one from the ancient myth. The guy who told the king, ‘You have such a great life.’ So the king switched places with him for a day.
“And the guy’s having a good time until he looks up and sees that sword hanging right over his head by a single thread. Then he realized what the position was like.”
He was talking about the Sword of Damocles — that oft-told tale from the fourth century BC.
For Colavincenzo, averting danger first came with a decision. Would he have a mechanical valve installed that would last a lifetime? Or, a valve made of animal tissue that would need replacement in around 20 years?
“A mechanical valve mandates you take some kind of blood thinner the rest of your life,” he said. “But that limits what you can do afterward. If you’re at risk of a hard fall — and that eventually happens to anyone who cycles — you could (severely) bleed. So I chose the animal tissue and now I don’t need any blood thinners.”
The only thing he does have to endure are the jokes of comedian Robin Williams, who had the same surgery just 10 days earlier at the Cleveland Clinic.
“I’m pretty sure Robin Williams has a valve similar to mine — a cow’s valve — because he keeps making jokes about eating hay and how he’s mooing.”
Going the distance
Last year, for the first time ever, Colavincenzo — who was born in San Francisco during his dad’s Navy tour — entered his name in the Alcatraz Triathlon lottery.
Because they have one of the world’s most popular triathlons, Alcatraz organizers allow only 2,000 participants or so each year.
Colavincenzo made the cut, then found out he needed surgery. He wrote the organizers, explaining his situation, and asked if he could carry his 2009 entry over to this year. They told him no, forcing him to drop out. He made the field through the lottery again this year.
And after his surgery, as he began his slow but steady road to recovery, he admitted thoughts of competing this year seemed a bit extreme.
“Physically, my rehab was what I expected, but mentally it was challenging,” he said. “I didn’t go to work for five weeks and that was hard. But in the beginning, just walking to my mailbox tired me out and I needed a two-hour nap. Mostly, I just wasn’t used to being dependent on other people.”
After six months he began running again and since then he has adopted a training regimen that includes swimming twice a week at the Kettering Rec Center pool, running through his neighborhood and biking down through Bellbrook and Waynesville or over around Yellow Springs.
“This will be a big step up,” he admitted. “It’s like going from your local par-three (golf) course to Pebble Beach.
“The only thing that makes me a little nervous is the water. Then again, like they say, ‘if it was easy, everybody would do it.’
“I guess if there are two lessons to be learned here, one is don’t ignore chest pain. And the other is that you can be very active after you have your surgery. Now I consider myself perfectly normal and I’m challenging myself again like I did before.
“Now I know I won’t set any records or anything like that out there. But I’ll be competing against my age group and I should be able to finish. And I think I should be able to put forth a good effort.”
He doesn’t need Alcatraz for that. He’s already doing that here.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156 or tarchdeacon@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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