Marathon - is it worth the risk?

Marathon: is it worth the risk?

Over the last four decades the passion for long distance races has experienced a spectacular boom. Every day, thousands of runners take it to the streets in cities all around the world seeking to push their physical boundaries. The problem is that many of them are not fully aware of what they are facing. Injuries, addiction to self-improvement and the high priced fees to compete are some of the consequences that people assume when they start running. Despite everything, the hype around the sport continues to increase steadily.

By Jaime Campoamor

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very day at 14:00h the alarm of Alvaro´s iPhone goes off. Without losing a minute, he closes his laptop, gets his bag and goes to the gym. In the car, he explains me why he sacrifices his lunchtime every day and tells me about his “addiction” from the very beginning. It began in London in 2008, where he had worked for a couple of years. As a result of his inability to practice sports due to the very long and stressful work hours in an investment bank, he decided to join the gym that was almost door-to-door to his office and started sacrificing lunch breaks, just to be able to run 25-30 minutes. When he moved back to Madrid some friends encouraged him to run longer distances and to join the Madrid Half Marathon. Acting on their suggestion, he finished it and took him 3-4 days to sign up for a full Marathon. “Once you finish any race you want to go for the extra mile,” says Álvaro. Two full Marathons 2 • DW Magazine • JANUARY 2013

in Amsterdam and Porto, a 40 km Trail Race and the Thomas Cook Half Ironman 70.3 in Mallorca followed the one in Madrid.

In recent years, the interest for running and popular racing has risen dramatically worldwide.

According to Runners World more than 550,000 finished marathons in the United States in 2011, up from 300,000 in 2000 and slightly more than 25,000 in 1976. But why? For what purpose? The reasons to run long distance races such as marathons are varied and often differ according

tivation published in the Journal of Sport Behavior of the University of South Alabama, women run marathons in order to control weight and socialize, while men run to compete and achieve personal goals, either with others or by themselves. In his study Ogles assures that “this need for us to have success at things can be a strong motivational force” and, for that reason, “running a marathon brings a great sense of accomplishment,” he concludes.

Moreover it is also important to point out that the word marathon

“This need for us to have success at things can be a strong motivational force. Running a marathon brings a great sense of accomplishment.” to a person's age or sex; but in the end the human being seems to have a somewhat innate need to do things simply for the sake of seeing if one can do them. According to the Ohio University psychologist Benjamin Ogles, one of the authors of a study of mo-

is usually attributed to sufferingnot only on a physical level: Working long hours and training for a marathon simultaneously can become quite stressful. To the amount of stress from the work one needs to add the stress of fulfilling your training plan. “Imagi-

ne a day where you haven’t trained and you see that you won’t be out of the office earlier than 9.3010.00pm,” says Álvaro. “If this starts to become usual during the week then you don’t have enough days to recuperate trainings and you end up in the race day with far less kilometres than the necessary”, he adds. Hence, most of the times the mental stress is caused by the need to realize a good preparation prior to the competition.

“It is almost impossible to simulate the distance and the psychic stress of a marathon on a daily training basis,” says the German Physiotherapist Sebastian Sohns.

In spite of this, Sohns assures that the optimal training should only focus on endurance running, above 10 kilometres every other day. “If the training is too hard and the body has not enough time to fully recover, micro traumata may accumulate and affect the muscular-skeletal system on the long and short terms. Overtraining may even compromise your psyche and your immune system,” Sohns says, who sceptically admits that such a long and demanding discipline is not the healthiest exercise for the human body. But there are plenty of opinions regarding this point.

According to Dr. María Jesús Núñez Martín, M.D., Responsible for the Area of Sports Medicine at Reebok Sports Club Spain, an amateur runner needs from three to six months of physical preparation including at least three or four days of running a week, dedicating at least one of them to perform a long training. “The number of accumulated kilometres in workouts will condition the behaviour in the race. Therefore,

Running is a sacrificed and solitary sport. Mental preparation plays an important role

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DW Magazine • JANUARY 2013

Photo: Carlota de Andrés

How to train before the race

it is necessary to run in different race modes, as continuous or with intervals, and at least in the first months of preparation leg strength trainings”, says Dr. Núñez. During Álvaro´s training I ask him about this particular aspect and he totally agrees with Dr. Núñez.

“It is not the period of time that you train but the kilometres that you run during that period,” he says. In his own case, for example, he trained for the same period of time for the first two marathons, and he finished them with the difference that in the first he ran 700 kilometres and in the second, due to the higher amount of work, he could only run 560 kilometres.

“Needless to say that I got a better time and far better sensations in the first one than in the second,” Álvaro admits.

More kilometres, less risk

The fact is that, apparently, distances do not only affect the physical and mental preparation of the runners, but they also represent a determining factor when it comes to reducing cardiac damages. In 2006, the assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Malissa J. Wood, M.D., led a study called CirculaPhoto: Maratón de Madrid •

“It is not the period of time that you train but the kilometres that you run during that period.” diac risk. But there are special cases in which they come together along with the stress, the factors of cardiovascular risk or certain cardiac arrhythmias that can provoke a high risk of presenting a coronary isqchemic event", says Dr. Núñez. For that reason, and here is where all the experts agree, it is highly recommended that all running enthusiasts make a visit to the doctor to confirm their good state of health or, in case a problem is detected, thereby can find adequate ways to solve it effectively.

The origin of the marathons The trend and motivation for running long distances has little to do with the origin of the sport. It all started with Pheidippides (530 BC–490 BC), an Athenian herald who ran about 40 km from the battlefield near Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over the Persians. But such a feat would not have made history if not for he died right after transmitting the message. Many centuries later, during the London Olympic Games in 1908, the precise distance from what is now known as Marathon was fixed. The reason: a desire of the Queen Alexandra, who wanted to see the end of the competition from as close as possible, which meant below the Royal Box of the Olympic Stadium, in Sheperd Bush.

From the east wing of the palace of Windsor to the Box the track was exactly 42,195 kilometres long. Curiously, the Daily Mail Olympic chronicler of that Marathon was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, who was in the Stadium and described the last meters of the winner -an Italian waiter named Dorando Pietri- in the following manner: “The glazed and expressionless eyes, the lank dark hair streaked across the brow. Surely he is done now. He cannot rise again.” Immediately afterwards he fell down and had to be helped by other people to get to the finish line and, for that reason, was eventually disqualified.

The price of running

Álvaro Bueso running Madrid 1/2 Marathon

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tion where they found that people who run an average of at least 72 kilometres a week run a significantly smaller risk of suffering heart injuries than those who run 56 kilometres a week or less. The problem is that, in some cases, this type of danger increases the closer the runners get to a race.

"Pre competitive stress can alter the heart rate and blood pressure in a physiological manner and normally does not determine car-

DW Magazine • JANUARY 2013

Running a marathon can be reasonable cheap. If you run your hometown marathon, you only need a pair of shoes -€150-, running clothes -€100- and to sign up for it -average price €50-. The thing can get very expensive if you want to run one of the big ones (NY, Chicago, London) because you will have to add travel costs and a much more expensive sign-up fee. According to the industry association RunningUSA, the average entry fee for the top 25 US marathons has increased by 35% since 2007, to the actual $112 (€82). As an example, in the case of the New York Marathon the registration increased from €80 in 2004 to €255 in 2012, which means 219% more in only 8 years. There is a way to recover the investment, winning. For both the male and female category, the 2013 ING New York City Marathon winners each received $100,000.