People running marathon without trying to improve

oh good grief wrote:

I had a tear welling up in my eye reading this until you started talking about your weightlifting. You sound like a meat head.

I won't deny being a meat head :) Glasses aside I look like one too these days. In real life I'm a quiet guy who likes to be left alone. Historically people tend to interpret me as a nerd who's always up for an intellectual or cultural chat... as a super introvert I actually try to come across as a brute in public so people leave me alone and give me space. Anyways I guess I'm glad you liked the rest of my post.

Can't believe I'm wasting my time and energy on a high school troll, but here goes:

Most golfers don't improve, but they're out there 2, 3, 4 or more times a week playing 18 holes over and over. They just enjoy it

Everyday shufflers wrote:

Marathon finishing fitness is not particularly useful for any real fitness aspects.

I agree with you. Having some cardiovascular fitness is good, and a couch potato who trains to be able to run even one good mile will improve. Beyond a couple miles you run into diminishing returns.

As for marathons, I think it starts to become detrimental. You're breathing more crud, using more heartbeats, and impacting your joints more, while not getting any cardiovascular benefit.

Run marathons because you want to run marathons, but if you're running to help with fitness, you don't need to go over 4k.

My personal opinion is that being able to run a good 800m or mile is best for general fitness. It's a good balance between the speed/strength of sprinting and endurance. Whatever you can run at a good pace for 3-4 minutes. Also helps with flexibility somewhat. In the Olympics, the 800m has the longest average stride (7'9", 236cm) while the marathon has the shortest (6'2", 188cm). Shorter strides all the time like in jogging, if you don't stretch regularly, are no good.

OldXCguy wrote:

Can't believe I'm wasting my time and energy on a high school troll, but here goes:

Most golfers don't improve, but they're out there 2, 3, 4 or more times a week playing 18 holes over and over. They just enjoy it

In the long term it's actually impossible to improve. Considerable improvement only means that you have unoptimal periods of training and lifestyle in your life or you are training excessively for a short period of time and it is impossible to maintain long term. Aging means that you are only going to decline if you are not in bad shape due to not training and unhealthy lifestyle..

EyesSkata wrote:

oh good grief wrote:

I had a tear welling up in my eye reading this until you started talking about your weightlifting. You sound like a meat head.

I won't deny being a meat head :) Glasses aside I look like one too these days. In real life I'm a quiet guy who likes to be left alone. Historically people tend to interpret me as a nerd who's always up for an intellectual or cultural chat... as a super introvert I actually try to come across as a brute in public so people leave me alone and give me space. Anyways I guess I'm glad you liked the rest of my post.

I'm trying to rid the world of meat heads. They too often confuse effort with results. Sitting in the gym all day when it's beautiful outside, lifting heavy weights with bad form, looking out the corner of their eyes staring at the other meat heads' reflections in the mirror. But at the end of the day they take off their shirt and look like - - well, meatheads.

You sound different. I still have hope for you. Think about ditching the weights and do more running with body weight exercises. You won't get the nerdy hulk look you're going for, but you'll look and feel better.

EyesSkata wrote:

Everyday shufflers wrote:

Marathon finishing fitness is not particularly useful for any real fitness aspects.

I agree with you. Having some cardiovascular fitness is good, and a couch potato who trains to be able to run even one good mile will improve. Beyond a couple miles you run into diminishing returns.

As for marathons, I think it starts to become detrimental. You're breathing more crud, using more heartbeats, and impacting your joints more, while not getting any cardiovascular benefit.

Cardiovascular fitness is not even that important. Cardiovascular health is a totally different thing. The required fitness level from the standpoint of health is very modest and being much more fit than that really doesn't bring much additional health benefits. Cardiovascular health is mostly about cholesterol(LDL) and blood pressure levels.

Just stop wrote:

How about you worry about yourself and stop being so insecure

Either that or quit wasting your time trolling

+1. OP- GFYS

I'm with the OP. If you truly don't care about time and just want to finish, why pay to be a part of a marathon? Why not just run one for free on your own?

hobbyist wrote:

I'm with the OP. If you truly don't care about time and just want to finish, why pay to be a part of a marathon? Why not just run one for free on your own?

You're fundamentally asking, I think, why race marathons if you don't have any realistic chance of making Worlds or Olympics and at least a decent chance at going podium there, right?

Sure, men who can't break 2:15 in the marathon and women who can't break 2:40 in the marathon really have no business racing, from that point-of-view.

But surprisingly, some of the rest of the world turn out to enjoy running the marathon anyway; humans are funny.

I say shit or get off the pot, none of this half-ass effort.

The big downside is the injury. They ALL get injured and some end up getting serious surgeries. Puttering along at a slow pace is not winning if you end up getting your knee and hip busted in the process but RW has to sell subscriptions.

Seems I'm not your definition of a "meat head". I use moderate weights and focus on form, cues, and execution rather than on emotion, since those seem to be more effective.

To be fair, I didn't specify my goals— I'm trying for thrower/bobsled type power, and a lot of it. 45 feet in shot put is possible with merely reasonable strength if your form and power are optimal. I'm currently building the strength.

Outdoor, athletic plyometric/throwing exercises were in the plans— but not until next year; you cannot build the second story (power) bigger than the first (strength).

The 40 lbs lighter sprinter-type build was fun at the time but I prefer my current build for now.

You bring up an interesting difference, I didn't think about that. Still, I think that from a standpoint of cardiovascular health, it's better to be at least somewhat fit than not fit, even if it's only one piece of the puzzle along with diet, genetics, and lifestyle. Agree?

Physical activity does have positive effect on beneficial HDL cholesterol and at least a correlation with lower blood pressure.

It's the experience of being part of something, especially with a big marathon. Running your own route is easy, but running through a big scenic city where the roads are blocked off for you and thousands of others is a special experience. There's also a feeling of kinship of being around hundreds of runners who share your goal.

As with not caring about time and wanting to finish, anyone can finish a 5k with just a little training. But even finishing a marathon is a big accomplishment for your average Joe simply because of the distance. Average Joe can go home and say "I officially fought the road for four straight hours and won". Fighting the 5k course for 20 minutes doesn't give you that.

Okay if you have goals and are training for something you are not a meat head. Good luck

I don't think any reasonable person would begrudge you for running a marathon at a pace you choose. In fact I don't begrudge anyone who puts in work to finish, even if it takes 6 hours. I think what annoys people and what OP is alluding to are what we would call "posers". The ones who run multiple marathons and brag about it on social media and show off to people who don't know any better. It's annoying to those who work hard to get better. Sure, I pay my gym membership and have the right to show up, all 145 pounds of me, with hammer pants and a V-neck cut off, chugging protein drink out of my plastic gallon jug, while asking for a spotter while I grunt loudly chess pressing 135, followed up with some not too discrete flexing in the mirror. But I bet you'd either laugh or insult me under your breath.

...but in their defense for Big Sur, if I could go on a 26.2 mile hike along Highway 1 with the roads shutdown, that would be an enjoyable experience.

EyesSkata wrote:

You bring up an interesting difference, I didn't think about that. Still, I think that from a standpoint of cardiovascular health, it's better to be at least somewhat fit than not fit, even if it's only one piece of the puzzle along with diet, genetics, and lifestyle. Agree?

Yes, I can agree with that.

Physical activity does have positive effect on beneficial HDL cholesterol and at least a correlation with lower blood pressure.

What I have found out from doing some research is that this HDL "benefit" seems to be just correlation. Raising your HDL-C level has no real effect. Lowering LDL is the important thing. The blood pressure lowering effect of running is definitely real and beneficial. Exercise(even aerobic exercise) benefits more your skeletal and muscular health than cardiovascular health. It has some cardiovascular benefits but they are not nearly as strong as the more important cardiovascular risk factors.

oh good grief wrote:

Okay if you have goals and are training for something you are not a meat head. Good luck

Well thank you then. I meant to say that while 45' in the shot put as an example is doable with merely reasonable strength, 70' is impossible without superb strength. I erased that somehow. I'm shooting for 70'-shot-put-type power; therefore, I am required to be heavier.

David S. Pumpkins wrote:...but in their defense for Big Sur, if I could go on a 26.2 mile hike along Highway 1 with the roads shutdown, that would be an enjoyable experience.

Yup, that experience really isn't the same as doing it on your own path/trail.

Even for competitive people, you inevitably get older and slower. You may be getting slower every year, but if you start measuring yourself by your age group, it's still a way of competing.

However, most people who run marathons are not trying to be competitive in the first place. So the fact that they are not improving their times is irrelevant to them. They enjoy the event, the companionship, and having a goal to get ready for. It's no different than the golfers who spend a lifetime hacking away just because they enjoy playing the game. Or shoot baskets in their driveway or play friendly softball games, etc. etc. There's nothing wrong with doing something you enjoy even if you can't or don't want to be competitive.

EyesSkata wrote:

As for marathons, I think it starts to become detrimental. You're breathing more crud, using more heartbeats, and impacting your joints more, while not getting any cardiovascular benefit.

Do we all start life with a certain allotment of hearbeats? What if by running my resting heart rate is lowered...then aren't I saving those resting heartbeats for use later?

To say you aren't getting any cardiovascular benefit after the first 3-4 minutes of running is super wrong.

I've heard it described that way. I believe it's mostly coincidental (i.e. other health factors lead to a life that on average happens to coincide with ~3 billion heartbeats), but I also think if someone were mostly healthy and on some medicine for their whole life that gave them a constant heart rate of 150, their heart would wear out faster. I do not remember the source, reading it maybe 10 years ago, but I think they had a physical explanation for the heart actually having a finite number of heartbeats. Please do take that heartbeats thing with a grain of salt; it was just part of a point I was making.

As with resting heartbeats, yes a certain amount of cardio will decrease your resting heart rate. What I'm saying is that doing marathons won't decrease resting heart rate more than 5k's will. If you were to run for (for the sake of example) 5 hours a day, you spend so much time at high heart rate that you'd use up more heartbeats. With one hour a day, you'd lower the resting rate just as much, but you spend more time at that lower resting rate.

You are correct, but that wasn't what I meant.

I meant that if you train to be good at a 3-4 minute run, you get a considerable benefit over being a couch potato. And training to be good at a 10 minute run benefits over a 3-4 minute, but not by quite as much. Training for marathons over training for 5k type runs, no benefit. Diminishing returns. Basically I'm saying that if you want to run for cardiovascular fitness alone, it's no benefit to focus on marathons over focusing on middle distances. Hopefully that makes more sense.

Thanks for sharing, I learned something new. I had been taught of the purported benefit but did not research it.