WSJ: Running more than 30mpw might kill you

Which is more dangerous: long distance running or crossfit?

Running. That is running insane amount of miles. We all know this but don't want to own up to it. Think of your body as a car. Even the best car will wear down if you drive it everyday for 100 miles. Just look at the all the crazies who ran crazy miles. Sometimes you don't need science to tell you what is common sense. Look at the all the elites that had cancer over the years.

???? Crazy article

I haven't been following scientific developments, but is it still the general consensus that running a marathon will make my uterus fall out?

The Wall Street Journal has a bizarre interest in the dangers of running:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3898568

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4928790

The "mounting evidence" discussed in the article, looks like it is just anecdotes, the O'Keefe study, and the Williams study. The O'Keefe study has been thoughtfully rebutted here:

http://www.runnersworld.com/health/too-much-running-myth-rises-again

And the Williams study discussed at the end of the article doesn't seem to have much relevance for runners who have not already had heart attacks or strokes.

Also, nice strawman: "[S]ports medicine is debunking the myth that distance running confers near-absolute protection against heart disease"

And driving your car to work in the morning might kill you.

I'd rather live while I'm alive than obsess over extending a life that I'm not really living to the fullest anyway. I run significantly more than 30mpw because there is no better feeling in the world than kicking away from the field as they fade at the end of the race. I'll enjoy my passion and take my chances with whatever minor health risk may come of it.

This is a really thoughtful troll post by Taco Truck--would-be trolls take note:

The key to a good troll is to use logical fallacies. First, the poster begs the question ("Think of your body as a car") Then he just has to follow this to it's natural conclusion ("Even the best car will wear down if you drive it everyday for 100 miles")

Even accomplished trolls might stop here, but this poster tops it off with an ad hominem ("Just look at the all the crazies who ran crazy miles"), an appeal to tradition ("Sometimes you don't need science to tell you what is common sense"), and a little post hoc, ergo propter hoc ("Look at the all the elites that had cancer over the years").

Nice work.

What percent of runners actually go over 30 mpw? Maybe 5%, probably less. So yes, there might be a link between decades of high mileage and certain heart problems. But why obsess over that risk when it's not relevant to the way most people actually train?

It seems like WSJ and O'Keefe are really just giving people an excuse not to exercise.

Lap short wrote:

???? Crazy article

Normann Stadler's name is spelled "Standler" in the article. Using an iron man triathlete to back up a theory regarding 30 miles per week is absurd.

That's like saying a candy bar will kill you and then using an 800 lbs obese person as the proof.

As a subscriber to the WSJ, I'm starting to wonder if the quality of their reporting is on the decline. This is basically a recycled version of the same story they posted 3 or 4 months ago. The one 3 or 4 months ago stated that intense interval work was dangerous and now it's duration that is the killer. Very little evidence to back up either story.

"A high resting heart rate, such as 10 - 20 beats higher than your normal resting rate, may be a sign that your training too hard and as such a rest may be good for your heart."

I'd suggest the whole study is based on runners who regularlly over-train, rather than running high-mileage.

How many elite distance runners, without existing health conditions, do you know that died prematurely

"The O'Keefe study has been thoughtfully rebutted here:

http://www.runnersworld.com/health/too-much-running-myth-rises-again

"

RW did not debunk anything. The writer, Alex Hutchinson, has zero understanding of how research is done. I'm surprised they even let him publish this article. Then again it is a popular magazine for the masses. Anybody who took the most basic course in statistics will tell you the Cox regression was properly used. All of these types of studies, including those that showed positive benefits of running, control for "other" variables. That is how you extract the independent effect of the variable in question. This is the standard practice in any of these studies.

Alex Hutchinson is an idiot who must felt brilliant for a second. This is why internet breeds stupidity. One idiot writes and others morons chime in.

Research shows that people who have less metabolic expenditure over time tend to live longer. Running increases metabolic expenditure, plus you have to eat more to fuel the body, which further increases metabolism.

Intense prolonged exercise also causes oxidative stress to the body, increasing the number of free radicals. Can you at least see how the article has some credibility with its point? Can we at least see that there is a level of exercise at which it no longer benefits the body and could even be detrimental? Not just running. You could say the same for cycling, cross training, etc.

The big problem with these studies is that they cannot control for people who had unknown heart conditions who should not have been participating in endurance sports. The study about the heart attack survivors is a perfect example. If you have had a heart attack, you have a compromised heart and should limit activity accordingly. Duhhhhh. But the study throws all those people in with those who have perfectly healthy hearts.

Also, the studies are only epidemiological and have not identified any causation or logically narrowed cause of death to any particular condition, unlike what studies of smoking that found a prevalance of lung cancer and emphysema.

There certainly are issues worthy of further study, especially when it comes to people who are doing ultras, ironmen and multiple marathons in a year. But, to say that there is a "safe" dosage of running is just silly at this point.

Taco Truck wrote:

"The O'Keefe study has been thoughtfully rebutted here:

http://www.runnersworld.com/health/too-much-running-myth-rises-again

"

RW did not debunk anything. The writer, Alex Hutchinson, has zero understanding of how research is done. I'm surprised they even let him publish this article. Then again it is a popular magazine for the masses. Anybody who took the most basic course in statistics will tell you the Cox regression was properly used. All of these types of studies, including those that showed positive benefits of running, control for "other" variables. That is how you extract the independent effect of the variable in question. This is the standard practice in any of these studies.

Alex Hutchinson is an idiot who must felt brilliant for a second. This is why internet breeds stupidity. One idiot writes and others morons chime in.

The thing is that there is a growing number of studies that show a connection between marathon/high-mileage and heart conditions and other health effects. Here's a different one published in the AHA Journal "Circulation" that they didn't mention and which involves arterial stiffness (a known risk factor for CHD) and marathon runners:

As for comments about elite athletes, many such athletes do not keep running high mileage when their careers end (see: Bob Kennedy), and the real risk seems to be chronic high mileage as you see from posters on this site.

Doesn't bother me, as I train as a sprinter and probably run the same whopping 5 miles a week as Bolt. Probably doesn't affect the majority of running club members in the 20-30mpw range, and they seem to get 100% of the available health advantages of running by keeping their mileage in that range.

But with the evidence coming out about health effects of high mileage, if you are not running for money (or scholarship) and doing this, I respectfully suggest that you have a screw loose.

"Williams just completed a study of 2,377 runners and walkers who had survived heart attacks. Over 10.4 years, 526 of them died, 71.5% of them from cardiovascular disease. What Williams found is that the more they ran or walked after a heart attack, the less likely they were to die of heart disease—until they exceeded 7.1 kilometers of running or 10.7 kilometers of walking daily."

looks like the population this article is geared toward are people who have suffered at least 1 previous heart attack.

The heart attack survivors study did not commingle any subjects. It drew a line WITHIN those survivors and said at certain point, more exercise did not do any good and may have detrimental effect.

This is from the beloved RW article foolishly critiquing the O'Keefe's study:

Cox regression was used to quantify the association between running and mortality after adjusting for baseline age, sex, examination year, body mass index, current smoking, heavy alcohol drinking, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, parental CVD, and levels of other physical activities"

They did a good job of controlling for other variables. Parental CVD is often used to mark known or "unknown heart conditions" you've mentioned. This is the de facto method in this type of studies.

I think they did a good a job as they can w/o turning runners into experimental rats housed in a cage for a number of years.

"But with the evidence coming out about health effects of high mileage, if you are not running for money (or scholarship) and doing this, I respectfully suggest that you have a screw loose."

The old adage too much of a good thing comes to my mind. Anything in excess will kill you in the end. With this and many elites taking hormonal medication to recover, you know in your heart that this may not be all that good for you. Having said that, I wished I ran 120 miles per week when I young. Just to see how far I could have gone. You choose poison and vice in life. You take the one that gives you most joy.

Coach D, from your study:

[quote] A subgroup of the study comprised 49 marathon runners (14.97±3.67 hours/week for 11.6±9.1 years) (42 males, mean age: 38±9yrs) and 46 matched controls (aerobic exercise

Ah, Letsrun cut off my post for whatever reason. But anyway, that study looked at marathoners running 15 hours a week, which is around 130 miles. That's VERY high mileage, so calling these people "marathoners" as if they're representative of the group as a whole is pretty misleading.