Is Running a Marathon Good for You?
EmailABC's Bradley Blackburn reports from New York:
Nearly 45,000 people laced up their running shoes and ran the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, completing a 26-mile race takes real dedication, particularly on windy Chicago day with sub-freezing temperatures. A few of the marathoners were running to claim some of the $500,000 prize, but most had no intention of crossing the finish line first. They were running to achieve their personal training goals and improve their health. Which begs the question… Is running a marathon actually good for you?
The Wall Street Journal picked up that question recently reporting that "Fitness and dietary experts say marathons increasingly are the exercise equivalent of crash diets, with similarly disappointing results." Once they've reached their goal, most marathon runners don't keep up the grueling training regimen. And sometimes, they even pack on pounds, because runners keep eating high-calorie diets after they've switched back to couch-potato lifestyles. "A good number of runners do a marathon and don't come back to it," Ryan Lamppa of Running USA told the Journal.
With more people running in marathons now than ever before, dieticians warn that the only roadmap to good health is through a lifetime of exercise and controlling diet. It's a task that might take even more endurance than a marathon.
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As someone who’s run marathons, and ran and coached running sports for decades, I can say without doubt that the doctor (can’t remember his name) is correct who once said, “If you run more than three miles per day, you’re doing it for reasons other than health.”
This is especially true if you’re not of small build and weight. The wear and tear on the muscles and joints of people, particularly in the knee, foot, ankle, and hip, can experience long-term damage -especially if you often do intervals and other high-stress drills.
Posted by: The_Mick | October 14, 2009, 12:26 pm 12:26 pm
Are we really writing articles questioning whether or not high intensity exercise is good for you, when according to peer reviewed journals, an estimated 10% of the country participate in a regular exercise program? And according to these same journals, more than half of Americans are obese or overweight. As an individual who studied Exercise Physiology and now a medical professional, I’m curious which experts in fitness and nutrition you are talking to? I find it hard to believe any one of those experts would compare a marathon to crash diets citing that they both have “similarly disappointing results.” What results are you looking at? There is a difference between people who run a marathon and people who are marathon runners. Marathon runners are amongst the 10% of Americans who participate in a regular exercise regimen, who are more likely to maintain a “grueling training regimen.” And how does citing an individual from Running USA support any of your statements? The individual is probably right that many people who run a marathon don’t come back to it. But that doesn’t mean those same people aren’t maintaining a regular exercise program.
I find this article to be irresponsible. You are putting marathons under scrutiny, when the real issue that needs to be addressed is the 90% of Americans that don’t engage in regular exercise and the 50% who are overweight and obese, who try and perform high intensity exercise after years of neglecting their fitness and health. Of course exercises of long duration and high intensity place an individual at a greater risk of injury. But these injuries can be limited by maintaining one’s fitness level, and utilizing sound technique and mechanics. A reasonable person can see that if you live a sedentary lifestyle and want to starting working out more, starting with a marathon probably isn’t a good idea.
Posted by: Greg H | December 3, 2011, 12:00 pm 12:00 pm