First as a history, I am 19 years old and I swam year-round from the time I was 6 until I was 17, so I was very very physically fit in high school, but once I got to college, my physical fitness started to deteriorate. I would run occasionally but nowhere near the regularity of my swimming days.

This past year I was extremely stressed from school and stopped exercising almost completely for the entire school year. I also suffered a great deal of anxiety. Mostly related to my heart. This past winter I was convinced I had a heart problem. Chest x-ray, echo, ekg all turned out fine, except for a minor murmur. One doctor called it mvp, other doctor said it was absolutely nothing and you can barely even call it mvp. Either way, my heart seems to be healthy. They put me on beta blockers and lexapro, but I didn't take either of them.

My question is lately I haven't been able to run a long distance at all, maybe 2 minutes of brisk jogging, not even exerting myself that much, and my heart rate reaches about 180 bpm and I have to start walking. This has only happened twice because it scares me enough to stop exercising. My heart also takes a little while to get back down to resting rate. Over an hour sometimes. I know that this could be related to anxiety, but does this sound normal? Could the massive amount of deconditioning have done this to me and I just need to work my heart back up to where it used to be slowly?

Obviously since I swam for my entire life I may be very sensitive to this sort of thing since I haven't ever been in a situation where I haven't been at peak physical condition.

Thanks for your help.

-stephen