I have being training for several running races for 5 months. Before going into a preparation for a half marathon training, I went to the cardiologist to do a check up, as I know my BP always was borderline to be considered high. I did Echo, Stress tests and 24h BP measurements. Echo and stress went all right, but BP was slightly high, my mean systolic pressure was 133 and mean diastolic was 83, with the maximum during the test being 148 an 100. The physician recommended for me to take 20mg of benicar. I'm on it for a week, but I realized after 30 min of running, my performance goes down, and a finish my 10k really really tired, with difficulties to breathe, which didn't happen before. My resting pulse rate was between 50 and 60, now with benicar is above 70. My question - Is this really the medicine side effects ? which drug could be better to not affect my running performance? Am I really with high blood pressure, because I've read some people saying that for people who are very active, it's common to have low pulse rate and relatively high systolic pressure?
Thank you in advanced,