It was a very sad day as 19,326 runners competed in the 32nd Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon, and 3 people died, including two very young men, and this is after only one other death (1994) in the history of the race.
Daniel Langdon, 36, Rick Brown, 65, and Jon Fenlon, 26, all died between 9 and 9:20 a.m. ET (1400-1420 GMT), Detroit’s Second Deputy Chief John Roach said, CNN reported.
This was a shocking thing to hear yesterday. One of the runners who died had already completed his half marathon. And I am amazed I never heard anything about this on the radio, yesterday, because of the swarm of coverage about the detestable balloon family parents. I think one problem with these marathon events is the number of newcomers that compete. People often do it as a goal that goes along with other aspirations such as weight loss, health betterment, or sometimes, just to “do it” and say they did it. Marathons attract goal setters who seek more immediate gratification as opposed to staying in for the long term. I’m not dissing that, but I’ve always thought that short-term goals, such as one-time marathoning, are never in the best interests of people. That brings me to this interesting article I read in the Wall Street Journal on October 6th: “The Fleeting Benefits of Marathons.”
Fitness and dietary experts say marathons increasingly are the exercise equivalent of crash diets, with similarly disappointing results. There’s no evidence that running a marathon leads to lasting weight loss, marathon researchers say. And it’s unknown how often such runs initiate or perpetuate a lifetime of steady exercise. Indeed, in a long-term fitness sense, marathons are really sprints; the true marathon is the exercise program that lasts for decades, fitness experts say.
This is an interesting article about people who run consistently, at shorter distances, as opposed to running marathon lengths. There are scores of magazines, websites, and publications devoted to ‘training for your first marathon.’ And mostly, these appeal to people who do that one marathon. In fact, I know so many folks who always aim to do that one marathon, or half marathon, because they really believe that it will be a lifetime milestone for them. I always try to dissuade them from doing this to themselves. Most never do the marathon anyway, and never make it through the initial training schedule, and that’s because it demands absolute discipline. (See Mark Sisson’s article on the effects of not training properly for a marathon.) I don’t know the background of the folks that died, and their athletic experience, but I believe the autopsies are due today.
This issue really interests me because, as a former endurance jock, I eventually came around to Mark Sisson’s way of thinking after years of baffling, bizarre illnesses. (See “A Case Against Cardio (from a former mileage king).” It’s not so baffling, however, when you eventually open your brain up to the bigger picture. Forever, people have asked me why I don’t run a marathon. My answer remains the same for 20+ years: I’m not interested. I’d rather stick with sprint intervals and shorter distance, medium-effort runs off-road, usually on hiking trails. In fact, I am not a goal setter and I avoid setting goals for the most part. To me, goals are short term and discipline is long term. There’s a bigger picture that matters more than an immediate personal victory. That’s the spirit embodied by the people who engage evolutionary fitness, cross-fit training, the primal fitness/nutrition lifestyle, etc. For those interested in these issues, also see Mark Sisson’s article on overtraining and his article, “Primal Compromises for Athletes.”
