Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and there's
Speaker 1: Jerry And this is Stuff you Should Know, the Hot
Speaker 1: and Sweaty edition. It is hot in here. Although I
Speaker 1: know that you were talking about marathon running, yeah I was,
Speaker 1: but it worked both ways. You know you ever had
Speaker 1: an urge to run a marathon? No? Same here, not
Speaker 1: really even researching this. You know, I get kind of
Speaker 1: caught up when when we do research from like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start growing Bond's eye, I'm gonna grow orchids. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start um, you know, um clipping those little uh
Speaker 1: those little indentations into into currency to help the blind
Speaker 1: and start cleaning up crime scenes. That was another one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that didn't happen. I felt that the beginnings of
Speaker 1: an inkling of it. And I want to go jog,
Speaker 1: but I don't want a marathon. No. Well, my joke
Speaker 1: that I've been saying for about thirty years is I
Speaker 1: don't even like driving twenty six miles. It's a good one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gotten a little stale. Um. Yeah, I've never had
Speaker 1: the urge. I think it's great if people want to
Speaker 1: run marathons, sure you, but um, it is not for me.
Speaker 1: I hate running. Uh see. I like running, I just
Speaker 1: I hate it. I don't have any desire to run
Speaker 1: that far for that long. I like walking or like spinning.
Speaker 1: I like all kinds of great aerobic exercise. You mean spinning,
Speaker 1: like cycling, No no, no, like a like a kid,
Speaker 1: totally okay, totaling and tumbling, I like rolling downhills No, no, no,
Speaker 1: spinning on a bike. It's all great. But I just
Speaker 1: hate running. I hate it. Okay, I never have liked it. Well, then, yeah,
Speaker 1: marathon is probably not for you, But there it is
Speaker 1: for plenty of people. There's and it's growing in popularity.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this or not, but
Speaker 1: marathons are quite popular, Chuck. I saw that in the
Speaker 1: the upcoming I believe it's in November, the New York Marathon.
Speaker 1: They're expecting fifty plus people to run it. And that's
Speaker 1: out of like a hundred thousand plus people who are
Speaker 1: applying to be chosen to run. There's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And then the half marathon too. There was I think
Speaker 1: in two thousand, fourteen, four full years ago, there was
Speaker 1: something like two million finishers. That's a lot of people
Speaker 1: running marathons and half marathons. So clearly it's popular. And
Speaker 1: that's okay with me, Like do your thing. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: I've I've flirted with the idea of a ten k
Speaker 1: with our famous Peachtree road Race. Yes, because it's and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the sun in the show, but it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's a social event. Uh And and from
Speaker 1: what I see, it's a good time to go out
Speaker 1: and run the peach Tree road Race. And growing up
Speaker 1: in Atlanta seeing everyone with those shirts on the fourth
Speaker 1: of July, I'm always like, man, I want one of
Speaker 1: those shirts. One day. You can just buy one from eBay.
Speaker 1: But then I remember the running part of it, and
Speaker 1: and then quickly just say no, thank you. And it's
Speaker 1: on fourth of July, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean early
Speaker 1: in the morning, so it doesn't matter. It's the fourth
Speaker 1: of July in Atlanta, it's already like a hundred degrees.
Speaker 1: I know it's hot, that's crazy town. But I think
Speaker 1: the idea is you get it done before like nine am. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I understand too, But still it's probably pretty hot,
Speaker 1: all right. Should we talk about history here? Yeah, let's so.
Speaker 1: I think most people realize that the marathon is based
Speaker 1: on Greek history, but there's a there's a pretty decent
Speaker 1: story to it, if you ask me. Yeah. So let's
Speaker 1: go back to ancient Greece. Let's go to Athens. We're
Speaker 1: we're hanging out. We're a little drunk. Sure, I'm wine.
Speaker 1: We're eating uh delicious olives maybe, man, I love olives.
Speaker 1: Maybe some lamb? What else I've given up lamb? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't eat lamb either. Um, let's see, we could
Speaker 1: be eating um, rice filled grape leaves and uh what
Speaker 1: it kills somebody to give us a little test siki
Speaker 1: sauce for him, I don't think so. All right, I'm
Speaker 1: happy that, all right. So we're hanging out the azure
Speaker 1: blue seas, the beautiful white homes on the seashore. But
Speaker 1: things are not looking good because next door, the Persians
Speaker 1: want to come in here and kill us and take
Speaker 1: our city because it's so beautiful. Yeah, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of them. There are, there's something like five to
Speaker 1: one compared to the Athenians. So we're worried. So the
Speaker 1: Athenian Army, like most other Greek armies, and like the Inca,
Speaker 1: later would um employed runners who were who were soldiers,
Speaker 1: but their job as a soldier was to run as
Speaker 1: a messenger from place to place as fast as they
Speaker 1: could over very long, rocky mountainous distances. Yeah. Did they
Speaker 1: not use horses because of the terrain? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe horses hadn't made their their way down there by then, alright,
Speaker 1: So for whatever reason, they use human beings that were
Speaker 1: fleet of foot to literally run uh messages back and forth.
Speaker 1: And it was a big job because you're not just
Speaker 1: handing over a piece of paper. You you are taking
Speaker 1: the place of a FaceTime call or a phone call,
Speaker 1: and that you need to go back and say, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta say. When I gave him the message, he
Speaker 1: initially seemed interested, but then his face turned and although
Speaker 1: he said it's okay, his face said it's not okay
Speaker 1: at all. So I would really be worried if I
Speaker 1: were you that his official reply isn't really on the level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And they would go, Philippities, you are one of the
Speaker 1: best ever, thank you. So. Philippites was actually the the
Speaker 1: name of the Athenian army messenger at the time of
Speaker 1: the Athenians fending off the Persian invasion about four ninety BC,
Speaker 1: and um, he ran off to Sparta to from Marathon
Speaker 1: and it ran off to Sparta to say, hey, Spartans,
Speaker 1: we need your help. We've got this Persian invasion coming
Speaker 1: and we need your help. And he was very famously
Speaker 1: kicked into a bottomless hole. Yeah that the Spartan said,
Speaker 1: we have to oil our abs and do some crunches,
Speaker 1: so no dice on the help. Yeah, they said no.
Speaker 1: And from what I understand, he he made it back
Speaker 1: and said they said, now I have to go to
Speaker 1: sleep now for a couple of days. Because he made
Speaker 1: this trick about twenty five I was about forty kilometers
Speaker 1: UM in a day and a half. But from where
Speaker 1: from Marathon? Okay? I don't think we pointed that out yet,
Speaker 1: did we? I did? Okay, I said he made it
Speaker 1: from from Marathon, and all right, I think we just
Speaker 1: I was missing the drum roll. Oh sorry, you ready
Speaker 1: he was in Marathon. That's where he started out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really blew it for us, didn't I didn't realize
Speaker 1: it was See this is proof positive that we don't
Speaker 1: coordinate before we record. I just thought it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a big reveal. You're like a marathon. It's true.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, they chuck, Sorry everybody. So that's the big
Speaker 1: reveal is the name of the place was Marathon. Where Marathon?
Speaker 1: That's right. So that's just story one. There's another story
Speaker 1: that may have happened, may not have happened. All this,
Speaker 1: we should say, is ancient Greek legend as far as
Speaker 1: we know. But the the Athenians actually did manage to
Speaker 1: stave off the Persians, and Philipites was tasked with running
Speaker 1: from the battle. Maybe that was a marathon back to
Speaker 1: Athens to say, don't burn this hound down. The persons
Speaker 1: have been vanquished. We're all we're all good. But rather
Speaker 1: than being able to say all this, he has supposedly
Speaker 1: made it back to Athens, just with just enough energy
Speaker 1: left in his body to say Nike and fall over
Speaker 1: and die. And Nike was, of course, the goddess of victory,
Speaker 1: and victory meant that Athenians had held off the Persians.
Speaker 1: Don't burn down the city. Oh so they didn't say,
Speaker 1: why are you plugging a shoe with your final breath? Right?
Speaker 1: He goes, just do it? Uh. And the idea. If
Speaker 1: it sounds weird that he that they were going to
Speaker 1: burn down the city. I think the idea was is
Speaker 1: that they thought they were gonna lose, so they were
Speaker 1: going to burn their city down because they just thought
Speaker 1: it was a bygone conclusion, aforegone conclusion, and that they
Speaker 1: didn't want the Persians to come in there and like
Speaker 1: raid their city. I think they really the jealous lover type,
Speaker 1: like if you can't, if I can't have you, know
Speaker 1: and catch you, they said it to their city. Alright,
Speaker 1: So flash forward in time to the very first Olympic Games,
Speaker 1: which we should probably do a show on at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we will like the first olympiad uh and the uh. Well,
Speaker 1: there was one guy in particular, Michael brial or Brell,
Speaker 1: who proposed including in homage to this and recreate this,
Speaker 1: this legendary marathon race that Fidipites ran so many years previous,
Speaker 1: and the leader, I guess coordinator of the Games, Pierre
Speaker 1: Day Cobortine, said that sounds good to me. Let's be
Speaker 1: twenty five miles. We're gonna call it a marathon and
Speaker 1: go forth and run. He didn't. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I took French in high school. So if you'll allow me,
Speaker 1: I think it's Michel Brial and Pierre de coubertin Okay,
Speaker 1: you have to say it real snotty like um. But
Speaker 1: they were apparent supposedly they're not like they don't deserve
Speaker 1: all the credit. Robert Browning had written a poem about
Speaker 1: Philippites run two Athens, and it was pretty popular at
Speaker 1: the time, so they were probably inspired by that. But
Speaker 1: they did. They said, we're gonna redo the Olympics. We've
Speaker 1: gotta have a marathon race, which was not exactly chuck
Speaker 1: Um accurate, because the Olympics have been going on for
Speaker 1: hundreds of years by the time Philippites was around the
Speaker 1: of the first modern games, we should say, right right, um,
Speaker 1: and they went on for a couple of hundred years
Speaker 1: after Philippites had come and on um. And at no
Speaker 1: point during this I think maybe five hundred or seven
Speaker 1: hundred year run of the first ancient Greek Olympics was
Speaker 1: there anything even remotely close to a marathon as one
Speaker 1: of the races. I think the longest that they had
Speaker 1: was somewhere around between a five to at ten k
Speaker 1: run that was far and away as far as they ran.
Speaker 1: But these guys decided to um again, inspired by the
Speaker 1: Robert Browning poem create a marathon. And a lot of
Speaker 1: people said, you're gonna kill somebody. Yeah, that was the thing.
Speaker 1: It was. It wasn't roundly accepted, the whole twenty five
Speaker 1: mile thing. A lot of people did say that it's
Speaker 1: too long, it's too hot. Not a good idea, right,
Speaker 1: And they said, to heck with you, we don't care
Speaker 1: if we kill anybody. This is the Olympics. Don't you
Speaker 1: understand how big a deal that is? And they said, no,
Speaker 1: not yet, but we'll we'll watch and see. So they
Speaker 1: held this Olympics, and it was from the from the
Speaker 1: very um, from from the very outset, the marathon was
Speaker 1: taken quite seriously, I think, just because it was such
Speaker 1: a nutso thing to try that no one had ever
Speaker 1: tried before. Um. The Greeks in particular, who hosted this
Speaker 1: first Olympics, they had thirteen of I think the seventeen
Speaker 1: competitors in the marathon were Greeks, and they held trials
Speaker 1: over the course over the marathon course to see who
Speaker 1: who could do it and what their times were, and
Speaker 1: um they came up with with some pretty good guys,
Speaker 1: two of which eventually came in first and second for
Speaker 1: those first Olympic marathon. Yeah, this guy speared on Louis
Speaker 1: or Lewis, I don't know. He's Greek, his name is Lewis. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: he won. He got a time of two hours, twenty
Speaker 1: eight minutes and fifty seconds. Uh. And legend has it,
Speaker 1: and this may be it may not even be legend.
Speaker 1: It may just be straight up in fact that he
Speaker 1: stopped halfway through the race to have a glass of wine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that, and I'm like, I'll bet
Speaker 1: he was treating that like you would treat a gatorade.
Speaker 1: He's like, I need to restore myself, so give me
Speaker 1: some wine. Maybe the thing is that that time you
Speaker 1: just said to two hours, twenty minutes and fifty seconds
Speaker 1: is insanely good. And I'm sure that caught the attention
Speaker 1: of people who run marathons and they're like, what that
Speaker 1: was the first guy back in the thing about the
Speaker 1: first marathon was they were straight up forty kilometer races,
Speaker 1: so they were about twenty five miles, not twenty six
Speaker 1: point two. Hence the reason why his um time was
Speaker 1: so good. But it's still a really really good time,
Speaker 1: but that extra one point two miles at the end
Speaker 1: can really jack your time up, from what I understand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that didn't come about until in London when they were
Speaker 1: the host and King Edward the seventh wife Alexandra said,
Speaker 1: and this is just so great. It was and she
Speaker 1: was like, I would like the race just stopped by
Speaker 1: the palace. And they were like, well, that means an
Speaker 1: extra one point two miles on this already dangerous race,
Speaker 1: and everyone rolled their eyes were like, all right, I
Speaker 1: saw that. Not only did she wanted to start by
Speaker 1: the palace, they said, okay, that's fine, it'll be like
Speaker 1: twenty six miles. Then she said, well, okay, after you've
Speaker 1: officially said that, um, I want to actually to start
Speaker 1: in front of the children's nursery so they can see
Speaker 1: the starting line. So they added another point two miles
Speaker 1: because of Alexandra. So she's like, well kill them and
Speaker 1: they're like maybe maybe, oh well all right, but still
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, so they for the Night Olympics. That's
Speaker 1: the first time we have a twenty six point two
Speaker 1: mile marathon, and it was so the children could see
Speaker 1: from the nursery, which is kind of sweet. Actually it
Speaker 1: is pretty sweet. And then so there have been marathons
Speaker 1: before that one. Again, the first one was those eighteen
Speaker 1: nine pigs. Um. There was one in Boston held in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven, which became the Boston Marathon, and it's
Speaker 1: been held every year since then. That's amazing, it is amazing. UM.
Speaker 1: But from that point on, marathon's up until I think
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, they were elite events. You were an elite
Speaker 1: marathon runner. If you were in any marathon, you were
Speaker 1: there by invitation. Most of the time, your competitors were
Speaker 1: from the country that the marathon was being running, and
Speaker 1: it was an enormous honor to be invited. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's who ran marathons. But then in nineteen seventy, a
Speaker 1: guy named Fred Leebo or Leboo, I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: how you say his name. He said, you know what,
Speaker 1: to heck with all this snobby nous, I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: a marathon for everybody. And he started a marathon that
Speaker 1: ran around Central Park in nineteen seventy with a hundred runners,
Speaker 1: and it was not only just opened everybody, it was
Speaker 1: open to women too, which was a huge deal. UM.
Speaker 1: And he started kind of the first UH mass for
Speaker 1: the people style marathon in the New York City Marathon,
Speaker 1: although Boston I believe it kind of been toying with
Speaker 1: this a little bit, but Fred Liebo really kind of
Speaker 1: blew the lid off of it, and from that point on,
Speaker 1: marathon started to pick up more and more in popularity,
Speaker 1: especially when an American won the gold medal in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two marathon at the Olympics, Frank Shorter. And then,
Speaker 1: of course for anybody who's seen for his gump um,
Speaker 1: the whole fitness craze that started around that time really
Speaker 1: gave marathon running a boost. Yeah, that was, like you said,
Speaker 1: seventy two. And I remember growing up in the seventies.
Speaker 1: I remember even knowing as a child that this was
Speaker 1: a new thing sweeping the nation, um fitness UH fitness craze,
Speaker 1: a fitness revolution. I remember being just very aware of
Speaker 1: like running, everyone's running, like they're running magazines and running
Speaker 1: clothing that's all over the place now and everyone is running,
Speaker 1: and I remember just like feeling like, man, this everyone's
Speaker 1: making a big deal about this running thing. And it
Speaker 1: was I didn't know at the time, but it was
Speaker 1: because it was sort of a new deal. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like you didn't have to be, you know, weigh a
Speaker 1: hundred and eight pounds, uh, and just be like a
Speaker 1: tiny stick of a person, Like that's what you think
Speaker 1: of when you think of marathons. It really democratized it,
Speaker 1: and uh said, you know, if you want to lose
Speaker 1: some weight, if you want to manage your weight, if
Speaker 1: you want to just have more energy or increase your
Speaker 1: cardiovascular fitness, get out there and beat the streets and
Speaker 1: run because it's sort of the cheapest, easiest form of exercise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and it's also the most independent too. There's no team,
Speaker 1: there's no you don't have to do with anybody else
Speaker 1: you can there's no coordinating necessarily, although as we'll see
Speaker 1: as you get into marathon and all that stuff really
Speaker 1: comes into play. But at its at its core, it
Speaker 1: is running is the the most basic type of exercise
Speaker 1: there is. It really is, And I think that definitely
Speaker 1: attracted a lot of people. Plus, um, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what kicked off that health craze, but that really really
Speaker 1: fit in nicely with it. The idea of all you
Speaker 1: need is a pair of shoes and some really really
Speaker 1: revealing shorts and you too could be a runner. Should
Speaker 1: we take a break? Sure, because I find myself getting
Speaker 1: excited all of a sudden. It was the short shorts,
Speaker 1: but wanting still to not run a marathon. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. All right, dude. So we said
Speaker 1: the seventies or where the marathon boom started, but it
Speaker 1: really hit and I think the nineties, um, people like
Speaker 1: that's when. That's when marathons just started popping up everywhere.
Speaker 1: By then, like cities, major cities all have marathons. I
Speaker 1: think Berlin started their legendary one in nineteen eighty and
Speaker 1: then London in one. But now you can go to
Speaker 1: just about any town and there's a marathon there at
Speaker 1: least once a year. Did you see this weird stating here?
Speaker 1: Did that jump out at you totally? It's I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna read it. They're trying to prove in this article
Speaker 1: how what a boom in popularity in the nineties, and
Speaker 1: it says this from n to nineteen two alone, marathon
Speaker 1: finishers increase from nine thousand to nine thousand, two hundred.
Speaker 1: It's like, is that right? Is it missing a one?
Speaker 1: Is it supposed to be nineteen thousand. Don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think they just are impressed by very
Speaker 1: small numbers. There was another one who that came later.
Speaker 1: It said that the percentage of runners under twenty years
Speaker 1: old over the past fifteen years has increased from one
Speaker 1: to one eight percent. Whoa, Yeah, it's weird, man, all right,
Speaker 1: those weird stats aside, there was a boom in the nineties.
Speaker 1: UM Running USA said that the number of runners in
Speaker 1: the largest half marathon and marathon UH in two thousand
Speaker 1: increased by about ten thousand I'm sorry, increased, uh to
Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand and thirty eight thousand, respectively in the
Speaker 1: half marathon in the marathon. Yeah, that's like, um, that's
Speaker 1: that's again. That thirty eight thousand numbers now fifty thousand
Speaker 1: plus for the New York City Marathon. So it's it's
Speaker 1: still growing quite quite dramatically. Katherine Switzer or Switzer came
Speaker 1: along um the first official uh uh female participant for
Speaker 1: the Boston Marathon, and dude, you know she was almost
Speaker 1: thrown out mid race when they found out that she
Speaker 1: was a woman running. Yeah, she entered as a case
Speaker 1: Whitzer in nineteen sixty seven. Yeah, so she wrote a
Speaker 1: book about it called Marathon Woman, where she not only
Speaker 1: talks about the fact that women like are great at this,
Speaker 1: but uh, you can do this. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be nineteen and twenty years old. You can do this
Speaker 1: into your into your sixties. And you see that. You
Speaker 1: see people in their forties, fifties and sixties and beyond. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just still out there pounding the streets. UM. Marathoners are
Speaker 1: interesting people. Like when you see him on the street,
Speaker 1: you can tell the difference usually of like your average
Speaker 1: like I'm jogging for exercise, and like I'm running miles
Speaker 1: and miles and miles. You can see it on their face.
Speaker 1: You can't there when eyes usually kind of like popping
Speaker 1: out more than the other. The hair is coming out
Speaker 1: in tufts, their knees are bleeding, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Here's the interesting step for me though. It says most
Speaker 1: long distance runners are college educated from seventy four to UM,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. And they make a couple of points that, Um,
Speaker 1: you're not just exercising your your your legs or your body,
Speaker 1: but your brain because a lot of brain training goes
Speaker 1: into this. It's not the kind of thing you can
Speaker 1: just say I'm gonna go run a marathon. Let me
Speaker 1: see how that goes? Um with training and scheduling and
Speaker 1: just being out there running for twenty six miles is
Speaker 1: a big brain exercise in and of itself. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just the run itself is, but also the months and
Speaker 1: months and months of preparation and dedication and um self
Speaker 1: motivation and discipline like that takes a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: brain power that you might otherwise be you know, using
Speaker 1: to do to do. I want a little Debbie coffee
Speaker 1: cake or Drake's coffee cake today? Why not both? You know?
Speaker 1: Should we talk about the training, sure, because training it's
Speaker 1: not uh. And I'm glad they said this in this
Speaker 1: article because I was afraid they were gonna be like,
Speaker 1: here's how you do it. Um No, they very wisely
Speaker 1: did the opposite of that. Yeah, there isn't a single
Speaker 1: way to train for a marathon. There are so many
Speaker 1: and I started to look and it's just overwhelming. It
Speaker 1: really is, dude. There's entire magazines and websites dedicated to
Speaker 1: just training for a marathon, not even just running, but
Speaker 1: like training for marathons, and it's like there is a
Speaker 1: lot to it. Yeah, So it's it's easy to be
Speaker 1: intimidated by that or to go down the rabbit hole
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden, six months later you're still
Speaker 1: researching training methods and not just diving in, but you know,
Speaker 1: find something that you think might work for you, and
Speaker 1: then just get out there and give it a shot.
Speaker 1: And a justice necessary would be what I gathered from this.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a great advice, I think. Also it's
Speaker 1: probably smart, as with just about anything these days, to
Speaker 1: do like just some preliminary research to see if there's
Speaker 1: anything you should look out for or try first, but
Speaker 1: just get a pair of shoes and go try running
Speaker 1: and see what happens. Yeah, so you're you're gonna be running,
Speaker 1: not not every day, depending on what training regimen you undertake,
Speaker 1: but almost all of them that I saw features at
Speaker 1: one time a week you're going to go on a
Speaker 1: run that's probably at least fifteen miles, right, And you're
Speaker 1: not expected like the day you start training marathon, or
Speaker 1: even the week you start training for a marathon, to
Speaker 1: to do a fifteen mile run like that's something you
Speaker 1: work up to. Fifteen or twenty or twenty six is
Speaker 1: the max that you're going to try to run too,
Speaker 1: and you work up to that over time. Like we
Speaker 1: should say, if you decide that you want to train
Speaker 1: for a marathon, you should start about eight to nine months.
Speaker 1: If you're starting from zero, you should start about eight
Speaker 1: to nine months to to begin training for your first marathon,
Speaker 1: because you were meant to slowly work your way up.
Speaker 1: If you try to do it other than that, you're
Speaker 1: going to pay dearly in pain. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of a couch to five k? Yeah? I have. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, though I can guess you're right.
Speaker 1: I guess ahead and guess first it is, Um, you
Speaker 1: just jump off your couch and run a five k
Speaker 1: and then you go back to your couch. Well, you're wrong. No,
Speaker 1: it's exactly what you would think it's. It's a it's
Speaker 1: if you really do not run at all. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty good intro program to get you up to a
Speaker 1: five K. I tried it for a little while when
Speaker 1: I was like maybe I should run a five k
Speaker 1: um and it It just starts out with, like you know,
Speaker 1: running and walking and then running a little bit more
Speaker 1: and walking less until you're running a five k. But
Speaker 1: that's a pretty decent way to start um. But some
Speaker 1: people right out of the gate or like, no, you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't want to run a five k
Speaker 1: or ten k. I want to run a marathon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can do that, Um, but you know you
Speaker 1: just have to. You're training your body to run for
Speaker 1: twenty six point two miles, which you're there's people out
Speaker 1: there who are like the not only you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to do that. The human bodies not meant to run.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to walk. That's it. This is totally unnatural.
Speaker 1: Most other people say that's not true. But twenty six
Speaker 1: point two miles across the board, people say, the average
Speaker 1: person can't just do that. You have to work up
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, so you're gonna have that one weekly
Speaker 1: long run. You're gonna be cross training uh on your
Speaker 1: days in between, which keeps you in good shape. And
Speaker 1: you're just using I think the whole point here is
Speaker 1: to use your muscles and your lungs in a different way. Well,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and you're also giving your the muscles you
Speaker 1: used to run arrest. You're you're working them out, you're
Speaker 1: keeping working them out, but you're you're taking arrest from running. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although there will be a full rest day in there
Speaker 1: as well, Um, where you're well, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: muscles and how they regenerate here in a minute. Um.
Speaker 1: But then you've also got your speed work or interval
Speaker 1: training or the greatest words ever fart like running, right
Speaker 1: is that? And then I saw oh it's sweetish Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: sweetish for speed play and so innocent the swedes and
Speaker 1: so good looking. Um. But interval training that's when you're
Speaker 1: doing uh things like you're working out different muscles like
Speaker 1: by sprinting and spurts uh or you know, running real
Speaker 1: fast then slowing down, and it's just it's just working
Speaker 1: out different parts of the body. Yeah. And again, well
Speaker 1: we'll talk about why you would want to do that,
Speaker 1: but um, that is definitely part of marathon training. And again,
Speaker 1: as Chuck said, this is not meant to be your
Speaker 1: how to guide to marathon training. Nope. Just listen to
Speaker 1: this and if it gets you like jazz, then maybe
Speaker 1: you should go try to learn how to train for
Speaker 1: a marathon. But that's not what we're doing right here. No.
Speaker 1: And the other really helpful thing that it's said in
Speaker 1: here was it like, what is your goal here? You
Speaker 1: need to figure that out? Are you trying to be competitive?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to just finish the race or do
Speaker 1: you have a time goal in mind? Um? Do you
Speaker 1: want to like walk part of it? Like just figure
Speaker 1: out what your goal is here? And it early on
Speaker 1: it's probably just like I just want to go out
Speaker 1: there and finish this thing. Yeah, I think that's what
Speaker 1: a lot of people their first goal is, probably of
Speaker 1: first time marathoners, is just to finish, you know, without
Speaker 1: pooping yourself the Yeah, we'll talk about that later. Um.
Speaker 1: The one of the things about marathon ng is and
Speaker 1: everyone who is friends or a relative of somebody who
Speaker 1: marathons knows is it can become something of an obsession.
Speaker 1: And one way that you can be right. One way
Speaker 1: you can become obsessed with marathoning is by keeping a
Speaker 1: training journal, which most most training regimens encourage. Um. And
Speaker 1: there's the number of reasons you would want to keep this.
Speaker 1: So a training journal just basically is where you log
Speaker 1: your data from a run, whether it's like, um, how
Speaker 1: your eggs and pains were, what your heart rate was
Speaker 1: if you keep up with that, which of your shoes
Speaker 1: you're wearing, how much sleep you got the night before,
Speaker 1: what the weather was, like what your weight was, all
Speaker 1: this different stuff. You can log all that down and
Speaker 1: over time you can start to find patterns in that
Speaker 1: data and you can see, well, oh, actually my orange shoes,
Speaker 1: I do way better in those than my blue shoes,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna wear my blue shoes anymore. Or
Speaker 1: I run really well if I've gotten five hours of sleep,
Speaker 1: but I run terribly at six and a half hour sleep.
Speaker 1: You can find patterns like that, and you can use
Speaker 1: it to kind of guide your training a little more. Plus,
Speaker 1: it's also a big motivator too, because especially if, like
Speaker 1: you say, you're logging body weight or your time or whatever,
Speaker 1: you can actually see physically intangible form your provement over time,
Speaker 1: which can keep you going, you know, for sure. So
Speaker 1: trading journal is usually a pretty good idea, but it
Speaker 1: is kind of it encapsulates like the idea of really
Speaker 1: becoming very focused on on marathon ng. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: same like if you're if you're trying to keep up
Speaker 1: with your like food or calorie and take, like they say,
Speaker 1: the best way to do that is is to journal
Speaker 1: about it or use one of the apps that helps
Speaker 1: you journal about it. Yeah, sure, um, all right, should
Speaker 1: we talk about muscles. Yes, so there are a couple
Speaker 1: of types of muscles, and I know we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before in something over the past ten years, but
Speaker 1: I can't remember what. But but the twitch, the slow twitch,
Speaker 1: and the fast twitch muscles, and there's also I saw
Speaker 1: intermediate twitch, but we won't mention this. The muscle that
Speaker 1: dare not speak its name, right. Uh, slow twitch muscles
Speaker 1: are important for marathoning because they are your which I
Speaker 1: guess you would call your endurance muscles for endurance events,
Speaker 1: because the muscle fibers contract very slowly. Um. The fast
Speaker 1: twitcher for more like sprinting. But uh, they do think
Speaker 1: that if you are like a top tier marathon or
Speaker 1: you may actually have a physiological edge because you might
Speaker 1: have a larger proportion of slow twitch muscles to fast twitch. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw that, UM, slow twitch muscle, so that has
Speaker 1: way more MYA globin and mitochondria and capillaries, which means
Speaker 1: you get more oxygen and more oxygen rich blood and
Speaker 1: you have more um oxygen conversion sites to to convert
Speaker 1: energy into muscle movement right there in the muscle. So
Speaker 1: it's way better for long distance endurance running. They'll have
Speaker 1: more slow twitch than fast twitch because over time, when
Speaker 1: you're working out, you tear your muscles, you pull them,
Speaker 1: you stretch them, you tear them, and you you get
Speaker 1: stronger because your body repairs that muscle and it's stronger
Speaker 1: than it was before. That's how you gain muscle mass, right, um,
Speaker 1: apparently with runners or with any athlete, but your body
Speaker 1: repairs it with the muscle that you need more. So,
Speaker 1: if you're doing long distance running and you need more
Speaker 1: slow twitch muscle, when you tear fast twitch muscle, it
Speaker 1: may be replaced with slow twitch. It's called muscle fiber recruitment.
Speaker 1: So yes, it would make total sense that long distance
Speaker 1: runners have more slow twitch than fast twitch and their
Speaker 1: muscle fiber than the average person. Yeah, because they're pretty
Speaker 1: cool because they trained that way, and that's their bodies
Speaker 1: have developed, have fashioned itself to fit its training, fit
Speaker 1: their training. Yeah. So that kind of the point of
Speaker 1: that is like, even if you don't have a literal
Speaker 1: physiological advantage, uh, you can still train your body to
Speaker 1: become something different. Right. You may not win the Boston Marathon,
Speaker 1: do you never know, but you might win your age
Speaker 1: group or place or finish finish. That would be my
Speaker 1: my goal for sure. Uh, you're also beyond your muscles.
Speaker 1: It is obviously an aerobic exercise. Um, the oxygen feeds
Speaker 1: these muscles. Your heart is is supplying this oxygen and
Speaker 1: your lungs and it's all just an amazing and amazing
Speaker 1: aerobic fitness routine that you're going through. But it takes
Speaker 1: time to get there. Like you can't like, just like
Speaker 1: your muscles can't take pounding the pavement for ten miles
Speaker 1: on day one. Your lungs are not gonna be ready
Speaker 1: in your heart's not gonna be ready for that either. No,
Speaker 1: you just you have to start out slow and know
Speaker 1: that you're gonna work your way up. This is when
Speaker 1: you should come in with one of the famous Josh
Speaker 1: like rhyming lines, getting where you fit in. Start out
Speaker 1: slow so you can go why not? That's all right?
Speaker 1: But with the So with that oxygen thing though that
Speaker 1: I want to talk more about the slow twitch muscles
Speaker 1: because I'm fascinated by them. The more oxygen you can
Speaker 1: train yourself to take in v O two, I think
Speaker 1: is what it is. The volume of oxygen um. The
Speaker 1: more that oxygen gets transported to your slow twitch muscles.
Speaker 1: And again they're oxygen and glucose is being put together
Speaker 1: to form a t P, which is the energy molecule
Speaker 1: that powers muscles that makes a move. So the more glucose,
Speaker 1: the more oxygen you have at the side of your muscles,
Speaker 1: the more your muscles are going to be able to contract,
Speaker 1: and the further the longer you're going to be able
Speaker 1: to keep running. Um. So it's just fascinating that, like,
Speaker 1: just training your lungs to take in and distribute more
Speaker 1: oxygen to your muscles will allow to run farther, and
Speaker 1: that the muscles that you're tearing are being rebuilt to
Speaker 1: specialize in accepting that oxygen and using it more efficiently.
Speaker 1: So I I feel like the fact that the body
Speaker 1: is capable of of changing itself like this certainly suggests
Speaker 1: that it's it's not like we're not designed to run.
Speaker 1: If we were designed not to run, sorry if he's
Speaker 1: in the word designed, But then your leg would just
Speaker 1: come right off if you tried to run twenty six
Speaker 1: something like that would happen. Your muscles wouldn't become more efficient,
Speaker 1: allowing you to run further. Good point. M hm, very
Speaker 1: good point. It didn't rhyme. I'm sorry but it's okay
Speaker 1: if they get the point across. Uh So, if you're
Speaker 1: wondering about that heart rate though, and what like how
Speaker 1: fast should my heart be beating? Um, there is a
Speaker 1: formula man named Gordon Beer No, wait, Gordon Block, Yes,
Speaker 1: that was it. Yeah, he determined a formula for an
Speaker 1: ideal training heart rate, which is two minus your age. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you multiply that times point six and point
Speaker 1: to nine. Why that would be your range of your
Speaker 1: heart rate, your beats per minute between those two numbers
Speaker 1: that you end up with for your ideal heart rate
Speaker 1: for training. I didn't see where. I didn't see that
Speaker 1: anywhere else. I don't understand what that point six and
Speaker 1: point nine is. I couldn't find what that is. What
Speaker 1: do you mean what that is? Like? What what is that?
Speaker 1: Where does that come from? What explains that? I want
Speaker 1: to know? Oh? Like how he developed the formula? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I don't know how you developed any formula. I don't
Speaker 1: plug in trial and error. Yeah, you plug in numbers
Speaker 1: until you land on what what your formula is. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that guy died, so point one two is too high,
Speaker 1: let's try point one one? Well, how about this? Then
Speaker 1: forget that, throw it out the window and use the
Speaker 1: old fashioned talk test. Ideally, if you're in your ideal
Speaker 1: train zone, you should be able to talk. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're going at it too hard and you're
Speaker 1: doing that thing where you're been over and someone's asking
Speaker 1: you a question and you hold up your hand and
Speaker 1: you're just shaking your head like give me a minute,
Speaker 1: you're working too hard. Well, this is so, this is
Speaker 1: why you're actually running. You should be able to talk correct, Okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if and if you do the thing that I
Speaker 1: just described where you're shaking your head and you're waving
Speaker 1: your finger and going, well, you can't even say that, actually,
Speaker 1: then that means you're working too hard. You need to
Speaker 1: be able to talk. Um if you apparently, if you
Speaker 1: can sing, then you're not working hard enough. So if
Speaker 1: you see a marathon or that's singing, that's singing, Billy
Speaker 1: Joel singing piano man, Yeah, then they're they're not they're
Speaker 1: doing it wrong. Now, no one wants to hear that.
Speaker 1: Who sings that song Billy Joel? Well, then let him singing.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even want to sing it anymore. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: Betty does it, which is said because it's a pretty
Speaker 1: good song and it's about him really well, and John
Speaker 1: and Davy and Paul well yeah, yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: he's the piano man, right, Sure, it's not like a
Speaker 1: metaphor for for I don't know, like God or something. Right. No, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's a piano man. John's a real estate novelist. Davy
Speaker 1: is still in the navy. A real estate novelist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he writes novels about real estate. No, I think he's
Speaker 1: a real estate guy who writes novels on the side. Okay,
Speaker 1: you never had time for a wife, boy, Billy Joel
Speaker 1: really was a poet. But Davy's in the navy. You
Speaker 1: know he probably will be for life. That's right. And
Speaker 1: America loves that song because it rhymes like a mofo
Speaker 1: like most great songs. Uh. Visualization has such a problem
Speaker 1: with that dumb word. That's a big deal, not only
Speaker 1: for marathoning, but any anytime you have something big in
Speaker 1: your life that you want to accomplish, you you're supposed
Speaker 1: to visualize that and look at yourself in your mind's eye,
Speaker 1: crossing that finish line without poop running down your leg,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a little while. Uh, and
Speaker 1: there's a guy named Jeff Galloway who's who calls it
Speaker 1: positive brainwashing, where you come up with some magic words
Speaker 1: for yourself that can you can just repeat in the
Speaker 1: rhythm of your run. Um. He recommends relax, power, glad.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good, but you can you can choose anything
Speaker 1: you want. Yeah, um like Metallica corn husks. You know
Speaker 1: what's so funny is right before you said Metallica, I
Speaker 1: was thinking exit Light internight. No, yeah, no, that's the
Speaker 1: worst Metallica song of all two? Uh is it? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I like the old stuff I too, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like, surely there was another song on that
Speaker 1: album that was way worse. Oh, and there's been worse
Speaker 1: since then. I was just being koy, like Linda's Eyes.
Speaker 1: Come on, I don't even know that song. I just
Speaker 1: made it up. It's was like it'd be pretty bad though. Uh,
Speaker 1: should we talk about the Runners High? Should we take
Speaker 1: a break before we do? I was on a podcast high.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, well, let's leave him hanging, because everybody wants
Speaker 1: to know. Everyone tuned in just to hear about the
Speaker 1: Runners High, and We're gonna make you wait a little longer.
Speaker 1: All right, Chuck, we can't wait any longer. We gotta
Speaker 1: talk about the runners high. I've always heard about this.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, have you ever gotten it? But
Speaker 1: you have, and I know if you if you aren't
Speaker 1: a runner, I've never gotten it either. Apparently the runners
Speaker 1: high kicks in from what studies show. It does exist.
Speaker 1: By the way, there's a lot of bad and forth
Speaker 1: about whether it exists or not. But what I saw
Speaker 1: you need to run at about a six out of
Speaker 1: ten level of exertion for two hours, basically NonStop, at
Speaker 1: about the same pace in a rhythmic motion. That's where
Speaker 1: you're likeliest to experience a runners high. I've never done
Speaker 1: that in my life and probably never will, so I'll
Speaker 1: never get to experience a runners high. Chuck. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought it was two minutes, and so I just got
Speaker 1: discouraged every time. Well, that's the funny thing about it
Speaker 1: is a lot of people do run because they want
Speaker 1: to see what a runners high is like. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll find out in five years. Yeah, So here's
Speaker 1: what a runners high as um and then we'll talk
Speaker 1: about what it may or may not be. But that's
Speaker 1: the state where you're running and you're you know, you
Speaker 1: may be laboring and it may be tough, and then
Speaker 1: you reach a point where it's just like everything clicks
Speaker 1: in you'r you got that even stride, your body feels great,
Speaker 1: your breathing is steady, the rhythm, relax, power, glide, it's
Speaker 1: all happening, and you get this state of like euphoria
Speaker 1: almost And they even describe sometimes like a meditative loss
Speaker 1: of time can happen. Yeah, I saw also that. Um
Speaker 1: it's it's like you feel like you can just keep
Speaker 1: keep running forever. It feels so good. And the apparently
Speaker 1: for a long time everybody was like, well, it's clearly endorphins.
Speaker 1: Endorphins are great chemicals that we know your body releases
Speaker 1: when you exercise. But they did a little further study
Speaker 1: and said endorphins are actually too big to cross the
Speaker 1: blood brain barrier in a very short time, so it's
Speaker 1: probably not endorphins because it clearly affects your your mood,
Speaker 1: So there's something that's affecting the brain. Uh. And they
Speaker 1: think that, yes, your body does release endorphins when you exercise,
Speaker 1: but they go directly to receptor sites in your muscles
Speaker 1: to kind of dampen the pain. What they think the
Speaker 1: runners highest is cannabinoids, specifically anatomide or anatomide. Yeah. Georgia
Speaker 1: Tech very on Georgia Tech and uh Cal Irvine they
Speaker 1: did a joint study and they said that if you
Speaker 1: exercise for long enough, you can produce this what is
Speaker 1: it an atomide anatomide? Either one? And it is in
Speaker 1: fact a cannabinoid, not unlike THC. Yeah, I mean exactly
Speaker 1: like well th HC is a cannabinoid too, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the feeling that you get, right, So, since it's
Speaker 1: a cannabinoid receptor that's being activated this this, the feeling
Speaker 1: would be kind of similar to it. But I'm I'm
Speaker 1: guessing you don't. I don't know. Maybe you do just
Speaker 1: kind of get laughy or whatever, maybe paranoid. How about this?
Speaker 1: I want to hear from someone who has experienced a
Speaker 1: runners high for sure, who was also had some experience
Speaker 1: with marijuana. Hey, great, and I would like to know
Speaker 1: how they compare. If we need a control group, somebody
Speaker 1: who's had a Runner's high that is never touched pot,
Speaker 1: and we're going to compare your descriptions on the pot cast.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I'm so excited. We just need to hear
Speaker 1: from someone who just smoke spot all the time and
Speaker 1: has never run. I don't want to see what their experienced.
Speaker 1: I feel like we hear from them every week as
Speaker 1: a listener. Male. Okay, so, um, the runners high is
Speaker 1: probably pot is basically the physiological explanation of it. But
Speaker 1: the weird thing is is, again it's not like we've
Speaker 1: We've not either we don't know enough about it to
Speaker 1: say this is exactly what you need to do, or
Speaker 1: it is elusive for some reason that we've never figured out.
Speaker 1: But it's not like you're going to get a runners
Speaker 1: high every time. And some people never get a runners high,
Speaker 1: some people get them infrequently. Um, it's it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like this elusive dream that that runners love to
Speaker 1: work toward but don't necessarily ever attain, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: marathoning is impressive, but the people who really like or
Speaker 1: a may is me are the I don't even know
Speaker 1: what you call it. There's a word for it, the
Speaker 1: ultra ultra racing. What's it called ultra Thon's really? Yes?
Speaker 1: Is that the name? Yeah? Ultra marathon, ultrathon and how
Speaker 1: long are those all? Right? So some of them are
Speaker 1: up to like a hundred and fifty miles or longer.
Speaker 1: They'll they'll be like overnight, like you run for like
Speaker 1: twenty four straight hours. I've got one. I got a
Speaker 1: couple for you. Wouldn't look into this because it scares
Speaker 1: me so Ultra ultrathons are ultra marathons. They probably deserve
Speaker 1: their own maybe like short stuff episode to tell you
Speaker 1: the truth. But there's a guy named Dean Carnazas. He
Speaker 1: ran fifty marathons in fifty days in fifty states once. What. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's another guy named Scott jurork Key's a ultra marathon
Speaker 1: her but he wanted to show off. He set a record.
Speaker 1: He ran the Appalachian Trail in forty six days. Ran
Speaker 1: it ran the Appalachian Trail in forty six days, something
Speaker 1: that frequently takes people six months if they're like trying
Speaker 1: to go at a city clip. He ran in forty
Speaker 1: six days. Now, I like that because I uh, for
Speaker 1: some reason, like road racing just seems boring to me.
Speaker 1: But I have had friends. In fact, my old friend
Speaker 1: James from New Jersey is a trail runner. That always
Speaker 1: seems kind of cool to me because I'm into the
Speaker 1: woods in nature, and sure it's it's hardcore stuff, but
Speaker 1: I've always thought kind of like mountain biking greater than
Speaker 1: street biking. Yeah. Yeah, Well, then there's another ultraton that
Speaker 1: you would like. Um, I can't remember the name of it,
Speaker 1: but it starts in Death Valley. Oh yeah, I've heard
Speaker 1: of this one. And then it ends on a mountaintop
Speaker 1: and you run it in about twenty four hours. I've seen. Man,
Speaker 1: those people are there's something psychological going on there too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's another their things. Like you know, everybody has
Speaker 1: heard that great Iron Maiden song. The loneliness of a
Speaker 1: long distance runner. That's real, Like, that's a real thing
Speaker 1: that to stave off boredom and your body just being like, dude,
Speaker 1: let's go get an apple fritter, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: That's that's like a real hard thing to deal with
Speaker 1: that you have to like stave off for hours on
Speaker 1: end and keep up a pace to to try to
Speaker 1: finish the marathon. Yeah, I'm on an apple fritter kicked
Speaker 1: big time right now. Yeah, and wanting to eat them
Speaker 1: when I'm not eating them all right, So you've got
Speaker 1: your runners high, which is the positive side of things.
Speaker 1: You have the other side of that, which is called
Speaker 1: hitting the wall. Yeah, and that happens, um. I don't
Speaker 1: think it happens like everyone all the time, but generally,
Speaker 1: in like the seventeen to twenty one mile point, your
Speaker 1: brain is says and your body are like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? You're not supposed to run this far? And
Speaker 1: you hit a figurative wall where fatigue sets in such
Speaker 1: that you may I mean it depends on who you are.
Speaker 1: You may not finish, you make collapse in a heap,
Speaker 1: and you're done when you hit that wall and you're
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you're in an ambulance. Um, but
Speaker 1: for real, Yeah, yeah, seriously, I'm like, I'm not getting around, um,
Speaker 1: and it's a serious thing. But what what's happening there
Speaker 1: is your body is literally out of fuel. It's done.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. That's perfectly put because to run a marathon,
Speaker 1: or to run any race, but especially a marathon, you
Speaker 1: have to have a tremendous amount of stored energy in
Speaker 1: your body. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when I said that,
Speaker 1: Like your your muscles use or your body uses um
Speaker 1: glucose and oxygen to produce a t P, which is
Speaker 1: this energy molecule that your muscles used well. You get
Speaker 1: glucose from stores of glycogen, which is basically just a
Speaker 1: little bit of glucose tucked away here there, and you
Speaker 1: can build up like the glyco glycogen your body by
Speaker 1: eating a lot of carbs, like the night before a
Speaker 1: race or something. Hitting a wall is where you've not
Speaker 1: only used up the glycogen that you have eaten, right,
Speaker 1: your body also deposits is little fatty, fatty lipid deposits,
Speaker 1: and it started to use up those emergency reserve stores.
Speaker 1: And if you can't finish, if you're being carted off
Speaker 1: in an ambulance, you used up all the glycogen in
Speaker 1: your body. You don't have any energy stores any longer.
Speaker 1: That's that's what happens to some people from marathon NG. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And part of the problem is those fatty acids, those
Speaker 1: emergency reserves, they released very very slowly. So if you're
Speaker 1: running a race, you you just basically can't withdraw from
Speaker 1: your energy bank fast enough. Uh. The a t M
Speaker 1: sort of shuts down and you're you're done for the day.
Speaker 1: And some people will you know you can, but you're
Speaker 1: you're It's probably a more responsible like a gel pack,
Speaker 1: an energy pack, little sugar pack basically, or a banana
Speaker 1: or an energy bar or something like that, because then
Speaker 1: you're keeping up the easily attainable available stores of glycogen um.
Speaker 1: I just I don't understand how somebody who is well
Speaker 1: trained in marathon NG could hit the wall like that.
Speaker 1: It just seems like you would you would know your
Speaker 1: energy stores better than that. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's amateurs that hit the wall or or somebody that
Speaker 1: just didn't. I wasn't paying attention to their energy. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but it just seems weird to me that
Speaker 1: that somebody who knows what they're doing would have that
Speaker 1: happen to them. I'd like to hear about that too,
Speaker 1: because I was just about surmise. But I don't even
Speaker 1: have no idea. All right, I want to hear about
Speaker 1: hitting the wall too. I mean, I'm sure if you
Speaker 1: smoke pot every day and you hit the wall, what
Speaker 1: does that or play the wall by pink Floyd. No, No,
Speaker 1: just keep that all to yourself. I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of times hitting the wall is maybe not enough experience,
Speaker 1: and you have to read jigger your training and like
Speaker 1: what you eat before and what you eat and drink
Speaker 1: during but it probably also happens on any given day.
Speaker 1: Conditions might be such that, or maybe your body just
Speaker 1: doesn't react the way you you usually count on it,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess, I guess I can't help though.
Speaker 1: We have to bring up that episode of the Office
Speaker 1: where they had the five k. Yeah, and Michael Scott
Speaker 1: thought that stood for five thousand miles and he carbo
Speaker 1: loaded right before the race by eating like a giant
Speaker 1: styrofoam takeout thing of Alfredo oh Man. So great. So
Speaker 1: if you think about a marathon runner, you probably think,
Speaker 1: all right, if you're out there run in twenty six
Speaker 1: point two miles, you are the peak of health fitness,
Speaker 1: and you will live forever. Um, there's still something called genetics.
Speaker 1: Everybody that are still in play no matter what you do. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that can lead to death. Jim Fixed, very famously,
Speaker 1: very celebrated runner, died at fifty two. He wrote the
Speaker 1: Complete Book of running, and he died four of arterio
Speaker 1: sclerosis while he was running, right, I think, so, uh,
Speaker 1: And you don't even have to be I mean, fifty
Speaker 1: two still pretty young. But in two thousand seven and
Speaker 1: twenty eight year old named Ryan Shay died uh and
Speaker 1: he was in he was competing at the Olympic marathon trials. Uh,
Speaker 1: he had an irregular heartbeat. Um. What happens when you
Speaker 1: run a marathon or doing any kind of intensive uh
Speaker 1: physical training like this is your your heart size can
Speaker 1: actually increase because it needs more blood to pump um
Speaker 1: and that can lead to arrhythmia and heart failure. Right.
Speaker 1: You also can drink too much water, and since you're
Speaker 1: sweating out salts and peeing out salts because you do
Speaker 1: have to pee, um, you can actually affect the electro
Speaker 1: light balance in your body. And electro lights are needed
Speaker 1: for um electrical transmissions for your muscles, which you think, okay,
Speaker 1: well you can't run, but your heart's a muscle too,
Speaker 1: so we can't beat right if it doesn't have the
Speaker 1: right electrical or electro lights. Um. So there's something called
Speaker 1: called um pyperon atrema, yeah, which is basically water toxicity,
Speaker 1: and it can lead to sudden cardiac arrest because your
Speaker 1: heart just stops getting the right electrical impulses. Do you
Speaker 1: pee during a marathon? Yeah, I I didn't see what
Speaker 1: you do when you have to pee during a marathon.
Speaker 1: I believe there's like porter potties like everywhere right along
Speaker 1: the route, but from what I understand, those are more
Speaker 1: for the diarrhea. Can we talk about diarrhea upon it?
Speaker 1: I think it's time. I've seen some very and we
Speaker 1: have all seen very famous images on on sports television
Speaker 1: of people that have lost their control of their bowels
Speaker 1: during an event like this and they end up on TV.
Speaker 1: Hint up on TV. They're not exactly sure the single
Speaker 1: cause or if there is a single cause of runners diarrhea,
Speaker 1: but they think it could be everything from decreased blood
Speaker 1: flow to the intestines, two changes in your hormones, jiggling
Speaker 1: to just get old fashioning jiggling of your organs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it is a thing, it's called runners diarrhea. Stress anxiety, yep,
Speaker 1: that could that could contribute for sure, Yeah, um it could.
Speaker 1: It could also be like if you eat something weird
Speaker 1: that you're not used to eating, it could be a problem.
Speaker 1: Eating high fiber foods, um, sugar, alcohols can make you
Speaker 1: poop even normally. But if you're running around, um that
Speaker 1: can be a big problem too. Yeah. So they I
Speaker 1: mean they recommend to for the day or two before
Speaker 1: you run a marathon, like avoid those high fiber things. Um,
Speaker 1: don't like drink a bunch of caffeine. Uh the day
Speaker 1: of the race maybe, um, maybe a few three to
Speaker 1: six hours before. Uh, don't eat at all all right,
Speaker 1: but again you don't want to hit the wall, so
Speaker 1: you need to You need to juggle all this. You
Speaker 1: need to juggle your chronic runners diarrhea with the your
Speaker 1: glycogen stores that you need to keep up with. But
Speaker 1: don't juggle your organs. But you can't help it when
Speaker 1: you're running. Man, I remember um, Peter Segel wrote, You
Speaker 1: know Peter Segel from Wait, Wait, don't tell me. He's
Speaker 1: like a big time runner. He has a column and
Speaker 1: Runners World, and one of them was just about runners
Speaker 1: diarrhea and how everybody gets it. It's so weird. Should
Speaker 1: we finish up with dear Rosie ruise one more thing
Speaker 1: before we finish up with her. We have to give
Speaker 1: a huge shout out to l you Kip Chogi, who
Speaker 1: this this month at the Berlin Marathon, set a new
Speaker 1: world record of two hours, one minute and thirty nine seconds.
Speaker 1: He beat the six year old record by a minute
Speaker 1: in eighteen seconds. A six year old ran it in
Speaker 1: that it's being compared to will Will Chamberlain's hundred point game.
Speaker 1: It's that big and um. The way that it really
Speaker 1: kind of sunk in for me was that it meant
Speaker 1: that he ran a four minute thirty eight second mile
Speaker 1: for twenty six straight miles. Sounding yeah, and they're they're like,
Speaker 1: this guy's gonna break the two hour mark. That's what
Speaker 1: he's been training for. Nike basically said, hey man, we
Speaker 1: want to basically throw everything we have at sports medicine
Speaker 1: wise at your training to see if we can get
Speaker 1: you down to two hours, because he's like probably the
Speaker 1: greatest marathon or who has ever lived. And um, he said,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it. So they've been working on
Speaker 1: it and everyone's expecting him to to break two hours
Speaker 1: in his career for sure. Well, you know who's not
Speaker 1: the best marathon or in history. I do ruise she's
Speaker 1: one of the worst. Actually, from what I understand, she
Speaker 1: is a woman who very famously, on April night, at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty six, uh, got on a subway
Speaker 1: with a Boston Marathon runners number, exited the subway and
Speaker 1: entered the race with about half a mile ago. I
Speaker 1: saw a mile give her give her a mile, man,
Speaker 1: I saw a half mile, so let's just say not far.
Speaker 1: We'll say three quarters of a mile, and um, what
Speaker 1: was briefly crowned the winner, the female winner of the
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon. And she still maintains this day that she
Speaker 1: ran that race despite mountains of evidence, um, although no
Speaker 1: physical evidence, but mountains of anecdotal evidence from people that
Speaker 1: were saying, like, she was on the subway with me,
Speaker 1: and we walked off the subway together, and I saw
Speaker 1: her jump back in the race, and other people saying
Speaker 1: she wasn't at to stop or this stop or this stop,
Speaker 1: like we never saw her and she cheated. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: supposedly they looked into her New York City marathon finish
Speaker 1: and found that there were people who said that she
Speaker 1: was on the subway with them for that one too,
Speaker 1: which her story both times I think was that she
Speaker 1: said that she was injured and just wanted to go
Speaker 1: see the finish, and then when she got near the
Speaker 1: finish line was like, I'm an injured runner, and like
Speaker 1: people helped her back onto the The thing and the
Speaker 1: article I read from this one guy, I can't remember
Speaker 1: his name, but he was some sort of official. His
Speaker 1: feeling is that she she didn't mean to win, like
Speaker 1: that was an accident. Uh, And that she just wanted
Speaker 1: to cheat to the race and finish, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden they were like you won, and she
Speaker 1: was like what, which is interesting? She's like great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a weird story. It is. Apparently she was busted
Speaker 1: stealing sixty grand from a realty company she worked for,
Speaker 1: I think a couple of years later, Yeah, a couple
Speaker 1: of years later. And then the year after that, she
Speaker 1: was blested for selling two keys of cocaine to an
Speaker 1: undercover detective. Yeah, this is the last kind of person
Speaker 1: you want to sell two keys of cocaine too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for real. So she had a colorful life, and I
Speaker 1: guess still does. Why don't she's still around? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think she's in her sixties. Huh. Um. They've made it
Speaker 1: much harder to cheat nowadays. There are checkpoint computer checkpoints,
Speaker 1: their video checkpoints um that are hidden and you don't
Speaker 1: know where they are. And all of this is in
Speaker 1: an effort to uh. And I think one of those cameras,
Speaker 1: in fact, is what eventually captured the Boston bombing, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. Oh, is that right? I think, so
Speaker 1: that totally makes sense. Wow, Yeah, that's so that one
Speaker 1: I wanted to point out to um. Remember how Wes
Speaker 1: said the Boston marath has been one every year since
Speaker 1: I think, even including the year after the bombing too,
Speaker 1: So like that. I remember in two thousand and fourteen
Speaker 1: when they had it again otter the year after the bombing,
Speaker 1: they were like, you know, it's a big deal. And
Speaker 1: I didn't understand quite why I was a big deal.
Speaker 1: I thought it was strictly because they were coming back
Speaker 1: from the bombing. They were also saying like, we're not
Speaker 1: about to miss a year because of those terrorists jerks.
Speaker 1: We're going to keep Yeah, for sure, I want to
Speaker 1: see that movie with Jack Killenhall, which one. It's the
Speaker 1: one he plays the guy who very had that very
Speaker 1: cheese grewesome famous picture. He lost his legs in the
Speaker 1: bombing and uh they made a movie about his life. Oh.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like Mark Wahlberg was in that movie.
Speaker 1: Is that he is there another one that he was in,
Speaker 1: because in another I think he was. I mean it's
Speaker 1: Marky Mark. So he was the guy that saved the day.
Speaker 1: I think he was one of the got the cops
Speaker 1: chasing him down or special Investigator or something I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think probably right. I don't think we need to
Speaker 1: even see that movie to know that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: I love Marky Mark though, sure man, how do you
Speaker 1: not has a Hamburger place? Does he? Yeah? Wallburgers? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. So you've got anything more on wall Burgers?
Speaker 1: All right? Neither do I, which means if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about marathon's, go find out about how
Speaker 1: to train for a marathon and get out there and
Speaker 1: do it. If this floats your boat, um, And since
Speaker 1: I said that, it's time for listener mail, yeah, actually,
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Speaker 1: End of the World with josh Ark, and it explores
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Speaker 1: coming down the pike, something called existential risks that are
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Speaker 1: there's nuclear war. Those things don't even register on the
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Speaker 1: ten hundred years, or else we're probably going to accidentally
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