UKC

Just a quick question for the UKC masses, would an ear infection cause an increased heart rate while running? I ask because I just went for a 5k run and it felt so much harder than normal and I noticed my bpm was about 176 for most of the run where it would normally be around 130 - 140 at the pace I was going. Twice it went into 180s so I walked a bit to get it back down as that seemed very high to me. Even now about 30 mins after finishing and just lying down its still over 100.
I do have an ear infection at the minute and wondered if this could be affecting me.

In reply to ajsteele:

In a word YES! You're body is working hard to fight the infection. I'd prob just do slower runs for a week or so.

In reply to ajsteele: In principle yes, your body is fighting an infections so doing extra work, so if you push it, it will need to find the extra from somewhere - thats the heart doing its job.

In reply to JamButty and Padraig:

Thanks, thats what I thought but it freaked me a little bit that the difference was so much I was expecting maybe an extra 10 bpm but was getting an extra 40 bpm which worried me a little, I'll maybe rest for a few days instead of pushing it!