Two months ago, Dana Lavertu was shaking off the long Maine winter and enjoying the bare roads that made preparing for his eighth Boston Marathon a much simpler task.

One run changed all that.

“I had done a five-mile pick-up where I did six-minute pace for five miles,” Lavertu said. “The last hill in the last mile, I felt a little winded. That was the first indication that something was wrong.”

Something was, indeed, wrong. But when he began to feel better a few minutes later, the 46-year-old Veazie man did exactly what runners always seem to do.

He kept on running.

“When these episodes happen, they’re over in 10 seconds,” he said. “So I finished [the final repetition] and ran another five miles as a cool-down. Runners are nuts.”

When the problem continued to crop up – but only during extreme “anaerobic” periods of exercise – Lavertu went to his doctor.

The diagnosis: Right bundle branch block.

On April 11 doctors installed a pacemaker in his heart.

According to the Texas Heart Institute’s Web page, bundle branch block occurs when an electrical impulse cannot travel through the heart because part of the heart’s conduction system is “blocked.”

Right bundle branch block can occur in a healthy heart, as was the case with Lavertu. Causes vary, but may include Lyme disease, Lavertu said. Lavertu underwent tests for the disease, which is carried by deer ticks, earlier this week.

Lavertu was assured that his condition was not life-threatening, and said doctors told him he didn’t have to have a pacemaker put in.

“This is what they told me: ‘You could go without this surgery and lead a normal life. You probably won’t be able to climb a mountain, and won’t be able to run up stairs quick,'” Lavertu said.

The problem: Lavertu likes to climb mountains. And he’s a runner.

He had the operation.

After the first episode – but prior to the operation – Lavertu experienced another incident that told him something wasn’t right.

While out on a long run, he again ran out of steam in the middle. … and this time, he was wearing a heart monitor, which many endurance athletes use to check their pulse rates during workouts.

“We were doing like 81/2-minute pace, and my heart rate says 140 [on the monitor],” he said. “Then it just drops out.”

The heart rate monitor couldn’t keep track of the sudden drop, but by the time it came up with another reading, Lavertu’s pulse was 95. The result, he said, is that blood pumps only to essential areas of the body, like the brain. He likened the feeling to “hitting the wall” in a marathon.

Two weeks after his operation, Lavertu began running again. Not the 70 to 80 miles he had been logging each week. But he managed 25 miles last week.

And he plans to continue racing, though he knows the pacemaker will change some things.

The problem: He used to have a maximum heart rate of 192. The pacemaker can’t tolerate that kind of activity, he said.

“I know it’s not accurate for running,” Lavertu said with a laugh. “When you get up to 180 [beats per minute] with it, the pacemaker drops back so it doesn’t burn out.”

And in shorter races, Lavertu says, that just won’t do.

“I won’t be able to do three- to five-mile races, because you redline in those races the whole race,” he said, pointing out that in longer races, an athlete’s heart rate typically remains lower. “It’s gonna be 10 miles or longer now.”

Orrington 10K opens Sub 5 series

The popular Sub 5 Track Club Road Race series, sponsored by Applebee’s, kicks off this weekend with a brand-new race for area runners.

The Orrington 10K begins at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Center Drive School.

A children’s one-mile fun run is set for 9 a.m. The entry fee is $10 for the 10K, $1 for the fun run. Registration begins at 8 a.m.

Race director Glendon Rand said the event, which is sponsored by FinishLynx and the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co., will fill a void in local road racing.

“I can’t think of a 10K that’s within 60 miles of Bangor all year long,” Rand said. “We wanted to bring back the 10K distance. It seems like every race out there is a 5K.”

Rand said he’s convinced runners want to compete at the 6-2-mile distance.

“My feeling is that most races out there is that most races are 5Ks because they’re easy to put on for the people organizing the race,” he said. “Not because people don’t want to run them.”

And if runners head to Orrington, Rand can guarantee one thing: They’ll like the course.

“it’s a super-fast course,” he said. “There’s not a hill on the course.”

O’Keefe, Tarpy sizzle at Penn

Two former Maine schoolboy stars proved they can run with the big boys over the weekend when they helped Brown University to a sixth-place finish in the championship division 4 x 1-mile relay at the prestigious Penn Relays.

Brendan O’Keefe of Prospect Harbor, who ran at Sumner Memorial High, and Yarmouth’s Pat Tarpy ran the second and third leg for the Bears, who clocked a collective time of 16 minutes, 39.93 seconds.

Tarpy, a freshman, ran a speedy 4:09 leg, while O’Keefe, a soph, turned in the fastest Brown split of the day with a 4:08.

Finishing kick: The competitive season is picking up steam, with no fewer than six races scheduled for this weekend.

In addition to the Orrington 10K and fun run, runners have these races to choose from:

On Saturday: The Nurse Day 5K will be held at the Northern Maine Technical College in Presque Isle at 10 a.m. Walkers will start at 9:30 a.m.; In Belfast, the Healthy Living Project 5K is set for a 9:30 a.m. start. The race will be held on the cross country trails at Troy Howard Middle School; The April Amble 4-miler is set for a noon start at the University of New England’s Westbrook campus; The Rocky Coast road race starts at 10 a.m. in Boothbay.

And on Sunday, the YWCA Run Against Racism 5K will be held in Portland.

John Holyoke can be reached at 990-8214, 1-800-310-8600, or by e-mail at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net