New york post writes garbage article on how marathons are bad for you

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Who thought they were good for you?

The health benefits from running probable peak around 30 to 50 mpw

But you don’t run marathons for the health benefits, you run them to see how far you can push your body. At the end of the day though, if someone had to swap bodies with someone else and got the choice between a 50 year old who has ran marathons his whole life or a 50 year old who has never ran since elementary school, it pretty obvious who everyone would pick.

just look at ed whitlock. he ran them constantly and he was a super centarian.

marathons definitely wont kill you.

the430miler wrote:

just look at ed whitlock. he ran them constantly and he was a super centarian.

marathons definitely wont kill you.

I agree they won't, but Ed Whitlock died aged 86. Supercentenarians are 110+. Or did you mean something else?

the430miler wrote:

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Who thought they were good for you?

The health benefits from running probable peak around 30 to 50 mpw

But you don’t run marathons for the health benefits, you run them to see how far you can push your body. At the end of the day though, if someone had to swap bodies with someone else and got the choice between a 50 year old who has ran marathons his whole life or a 50 year old who has never ran since elementary school, it pretty obvious who everyone would pick.

just look at ed whitlock. he ran them constantly and he was a super centarian.

marathons definitely wont kill you.

Neither will smoking cigars and drinking whiskey, I won’t call them good for you though.

ah yes, Ed Whitlock

The exceptions make the rule I suppose?

What about the crazy stats from sports medicine docs/PTs regarding injuries from running? [something like 80% of runners have had an injury that prevented them from continuing to run in the prior 12 months]

I think racing 26.2 miles at one time is more than the human body is designed physically endure (look at all of the crazy stuff that happens to really well trained elites during marathons), but if one properly trains, I do not know if it's really that "bad for you."

sit and kick wrote:

ah yes, Ed Whitlock

The exceptions make the rule I suppose?

What about the crazy stats from sports medicine docs/PTs regarding injuries from running? [something like 80% of runners have had an injury that prevented them from continuing to run in the prior 12 months]

You're trying to argue that running is bad because you'll get an injury that prevents you from running. Self-contradiction.

no, what you're doing is called a straw man.

Thank you, but I will make my arguments myself.

To repeat:

Ed Whitlock is obviously an outlier, all the hobby thonners in this thread have posted anecdotes about their experiences [seems mixed], but for non-anecdotal data, running is highly correlated with injuries. Full stop.

Whether or not that is 'healthy' , 'bad', or whatever label we [you?] or the NY times is trying to work with here I have no idea.

Yes a certain amount of injuries for an active person would be considered 'normal' to some degree, but the PT stats regarding running injuries are an interesting dataset.

Seems like there is an element here of trying to 'blame the victim' to some degree, which I think is fair [inadequate 'thon prep is correlated with injuries at a very high incidence].

I have no idea what the actual final judgement is. Probably some people can handle running/marathon training blocks, and others cant. Both sets of runners look at eachother suspiciously. I believe there is a certain amount of survivorship bias in long term marathon runners.

sit and kick wrote:

but for non-anecdotal data, running is highly correlated with injuries. Full stop.

Running is highly correlated with "running injuries," but as I said, these aren't real injuries because they have little to no impact on your life outside of running, and because all running injuries heal with recovery.

Hardloper wrote:

[quote]sit and kick wrote:

but for non-anecdotal data, running is highly correlated with injuries. Full stop.

Running is highly correlated with "running injuries," but as I said, these aren't real injuries because they have little to no impact on your life outside of running, and because all running injuries heal with recovery.[/quote]

If all your running injuries have healed with rest, keep at longer. That will not be the case forever. Runners, especially 800m athletes can permanently ruin Achilles. Running can ruin knees and hips permanently. You did not think before you typed.

too many people in this world run the marathon as an accomplishment rather than as a competitor.

here is a typical conversation among non competitors

hobby jogger: i ran a marathon today!

non runner: oh my god! congrats! i can barely run one mile! you ran 26! that's insane!

Narrator: the hobby jogger ran that marathon in 5 hours.

i would be much more impressed if the hobby jogger trained and ran an 18 minute 5k than a 5 hour marathon.

here on letsrun.com, if you ask people how much miles per week you need for the marathon, most will say somewhere between 80-120 miles per week with maybe 60-70 being the absolute minimum. if you go online to find some "18 week marathon training program", you'll find that these runners often train for the marathon with 30-40 miles per week with absolutely no base training beforehand.

as much of an anti-social/douchey thing it would be, if someone told me they ran a 5 hour marathon, i will not pretend to be impressed

I only skimmed the first few paragraphs of the article.

2 points:

1. He's not suggesting marathon's are BAD for you explicity.

He's stating they can be hard on someones body who just jumps

into training and decides they want to run a marathon. I agree with him.

2. Like the real estate agent in the article, my own sister had a hip

injury this year. I think she fractured her hip and she only ran a half marathon.

She's never been a runner. She's not overweight but she doens't have a background

of running. I think for someone to run a marathon, you probably want at least 1-2 years

of 20-25 miles a week, just so your body knows what it's like to run 4 or 5 miles.

That's a minimum. Sure, everyone will react differently and not everyone will get injured.

And if you go slow enough, you can finish a marathon by walking/jogging.

I remember when I did a 10 mile road race at 16 with only a few years of training behind me.

I ran roughly 60 minutes (60:56, a decent result that I was happy with) but for close to 3 months after the race I was absolutely drained. I might have come down with mono but didn't get a diagnosis.

I had no background running more than 4 or 5 mile runs prior to the race. I just jumped into the race

and ran flat out for an hour when I hadn't done that before. And I was a runner to begin with.

If that weren’t difficult enough, he also runs while carrying a 3-by-5-foot American flag to draw awareness for the military, first responders and law enforcement.

how brave is this guy???

Go away wrote:

Training for a marathon can wreck your body. The article discussed someone who got a stress fracture while training for a marathon. This board is littered with injury advice. It’s a constant risk.

That said, I love running, but the article was fair.

Exactamundo!

huh ok wrote:

Thats an interesting take considering I am in better shape at 39 than I was when I was 27, mostly due to training for marathons and ultra marathons.

So far I've only had 1 'injury' which caused me to take a few weeks off. Over 10 years of consistent mileage and running a 3-5 marathon or more distance races a year sure hasn't come close to 'wrecking' my body yet.

Get back to us in 10 years.

Cue somebody claiming to be a lifelong marathoner and at 70 have never had an injury in 3 2 1....

And even if true, the exception to the rule.

Source? Because the word choice ‘probably’ doesn’t make a strong argument.

stupid person 69 wrote:

here on letsrun.com, if you ask people how much miles per week you need for the marathon, most will say somewhere between 80-120 miles per week with maybe 60-70 being the absolute minimum. if you go online to find some "18 week marathon training program", you'll find that these runners often train for the marathon with 30-40 miles per week with absolutely no base training beforehand.

as much of an anti-social/douchey thing it would be, if someone told me they ran a 5 hour marathon, i will not pretend to be impressed

30-40 miles is plenty for a hobby jogger to train for a Marathon.

And YES I don't consider 5 hour Marathons impressive unless you are 80 years old.

35 mi Hobby Jogger wrote:

stupid person 69 wrote:

here on letsrun.com, if you ask people how much miles per week you need for the marathon, most will say somewhere between 80-120 miles per week with maybe 60-70 being the absolute minimum. if you go online to find some "18 week marathon training program", you'll find that these runners often train for the marathon with 30-40 miles per week with absolutely no base training beforehand.

as much of an anti-social/douchey thing it would be, if someone told me they ran a 5 hour marathon, i will not pretend to be impressed

30-40 miles is plenty for a hobby jogger to train for a Marathon.

And YES I don't consider 5 hour Marathons impressive unless you are 80 years old.

5 hour marathoners train about 20 a week tops.

TTH wrote:

the430miler wrote:New york post writes garbage article

Should have just stopped there because it would have covered everything. Rupert Murdoch pile of poo.

Darn, beat me to it. Too easy of a joke, I guess.

Likely a troll thread since the idea that running causes long term damage is largely debunked/unsubstantiated

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-non-runners-so-adamant-that-running-causes-long-term-injuries

Extreme bouts of exercise by untrained individuals my be a different story