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Feeling in trachea/esophagus while running

I'm a regular runner and had a weird sensation he other day that I'm trying to nail down.  This occurred on a very hot afternoon after a day full of yard work in the sun, so I don't know if that plays into this.  I've been getting over a cold and have had a decent amount of drainage/snot in my post-nasal cavity, which tends to be worst in the afternoons.  A couple days ago I was running, with everything fine and about 2.4 miles into my 3.4 mile route.  I stopped briefly because a driver had stopped to ask me for directions.  At that point I had kind of a weird sensation on some of my inhaled breaths once I stopped running (still breathing heavily from exercise) in either my esophagus or trachea (I think), on the midline if not slightly to the right.  The only thing I can think of similar to this is the sensation of drinking far too large a swallow of water too quickly and feeling the mass of water go down.  Once I started running again this continued occasionally for the next mile.  Once I got home and got my breathing and heart rate back to normal, the feeling went away.  I should emphasize that a no point during this was there any pain in my chest or anywhere else, no squeezing or anything that I've read about as being a cardiac symptom.  I was never lightheaded, and though I was breathing pretty hard while running in 90 degrees on a humid day, never had any loss of capability to exercise.  Once I was home I did notice that my sinuses and behind my nose felt clear (they did not before the run).  I'm assuming based on how all of this went was that the heavy breathing from running dislodged a large amount of phlegm and as that was swallowed caused the sensations.  For whatever it's worth, I'm 35 with a normal BMI, blood pressure of 122/66, 70ish bpm resting heart rate, no history of heart issues in my family and usually run 15-25 miles per week.  I ran the same route this morning intentionally hard with no abnormal feelings.

My questions are, has anyone experienced anything like this?  Does my logic check on the likely explanation?  Based off of what I experienced, I don't believe there was any cause for alarm, but I wanted to see what others would say.

For whatever it's worth, I've got an FAA physical including a routine EKG scheduled for Friday, so I'd assume that if there was anything truly wrong, it would be apparent.
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Avatar universal
Just to clarify, the sensation occurred with breaths in, and was not a continuing sensation.  Not sure if this was the esophagus and the trachea during inhalation competing for the same space or what.
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Arlington, VA
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