Runner
For fifteen years Jim Fixx, author of the 1978 bestseller, The Complete Book of Running, ran eighty miles a week. He appeared to be in tip-top shape. It didn’t seem possible that a man his age could be in better condition. Yet at age fifty-two Fixx died of a massive heart attack while running alone on a Vermont road. His wife,
Alice, later said she was certain that Fixx had no idea he suffered from a heart problem. Why? Because he refused to get regular checkups. After Jim Fixx’s death, doctors speculated that his heart was so strong he may not have had the telltale chest pains or shortness of breath that usually signal arterial heart disease!