Latest news with #Pheidippides
Perth Now
26-04-2025
- Sport
- Perth Now
What's all the fuss around running marathons?
This week I will, again, be living my marathon life vicariously through my friends as a mate takes part in the London Marathon. This specific friend is working his way through the holy grail of running achievements for the average man — the Big 7 marathons. They are a series of seven globally renowned marathons: Tokyo, Boston, London, Sydney, Berlin, Chicago and New York, and at this stage he's already run three. With Sydney in August he'll be within 126km of the magnificent seven. It's quite an achievement and I must admit I haven't really been able to get my head around it, this marathon fever that many people contract. Whether it's a bucket list thing or just that they are chasing the feeling you get when you cross the finish line; it's certainly an impressive goal. I think the training probably plays a part as it keeps you active and 'keeps the old man out' as we like to say in this column but I honestly feel like there must be easier challenges. Having played what I would call semi-professional football for 10 years, I know all about leaning into discomfort. I get that. I can still distinctly remember saying to myself on several occasions during my footy career, 'why am I putting myself through this?', but at least I was getting paid (well sort of, if you consider $12,000 a season a worthwhile amount). I come from a family background that preached only undertaking actions that would, in the old Catholic way of things, 'help you get to heaven' — so I was often re-evaluating things. I have another friend who is of Greek descent and he is now training to do the Athens Marathon. This of course led me to quickly remind him that Pheidippides, the legendary Greek runner who ran the first marathon from Marathon in Greece to Athens in 490 BC to announce the victory of the Greeks over the Persians. He collapsed and died at the end of his 40km. My friend Chris looked unfazed that a fella died after running 26 miles and now people do it for fun. I'm yet to join this marathon frenzy but apparently once running becomes an activity you seek out rather than dread you officially have the runner's mentality. The other thing that blows me away is the runner's love of Strava, which is basically a social network for athletes. You record what you're doing and it goes to your Strava feed, where your friends can share in the glory. It's sports Instagram I guess you'd say. Then there's the Garmin watch, which must be stopped precisely when you finish your run, regardless of what's happening. They reckon that even if they get hit by a car, runners will stop their Garmin to record the run officially before dealing with the consequences of a car crash. A runner's obsession with new running shoes is also remarkable. Maybe we are just a nation of hoarders as I know many blokes who collect surf boards, bikes and guitars without ever considering selling one of their favourites. It's the same with running shoes for runners. I've lost count of how many times I've heard about Kelvin Kiptum winning the Chicago Marathon in 2:00:35, breaking the men's record by 34 seconds while wearing Nike trainers, the Alphafly 3. I'm pretty sure buying those shoes won't really make a huge difference to the average runner. Maybe not eating that pie at the footy or having chips with a burger will — but not the nearly $400 shoes. My other advice is to rewatch the scene when Sylvester Stallone runs up those stairs in Rocky followed by the Chariots Of Fire theme song piece before a race and then just try to enjoy yourself. Soak up the atmosphere, look around, engage with the crowd. A little tip from my marathon-running brother: having your nickname on your back is handy, especially in the States as the Americans like calling out your name. Personally 'Go Barra' would keep me going at least until the next corner. And when it gets tough just focus on the people in front, on your arms, your breathing. I read somewhere when negative thoughts creep in, just force yourself to smile, even if you look silly. Or start chanting 'if it's going to be, it's up to me', it's amazing how that works.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Your brain starts eating itself during a marathon, study finds
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Marathon running may seem like the ultimate sport for staying in shape. That said, it can take a heavy toll on the body, potentially damaging the kidneys, upsetting the stomach, increasing the risk of heart failure, and triggering musculoskeletal injuries. Let's not forget that the original marathon runner, the ancient Greek soldier Pheidippides, is said to have dropped dead immediately after reaching his destination. Now, a new study suggests that marathons also affect the brain — causing the organ to eat itself to make up for fuel lost during the run. In the research, published March 24 in the journal Nature Metabolism, scientists observed declines in a key biomarker of myelin, a fatty tissue that insulates the connections between brain cells, in marathon runners just after a race. The study authors say this suggests the brain consumes myelin as an energy source under these extreme conditions. Luckily for long-distance runners, these effects appear to be reversible. Related: 6 ways an athlete's brain differs from an average person's Once the body has exhausted the supply of its standard energy source — glucose, or sugar — it turns to backup generators, metabolizing fats as an alternative fuel source. The brain is, metabolically speaking, more of a Humvee than a hatchback; the energy-hungry organ devours 20% of the body's energy, meaning it can quickly suffer damage if fuel sources run short. Pedro Ramos Cabrer — a neuroscientist at CIC biomaGUNE, a nonprofit research institute in San Sebastian, Spain, and a co-author of the study — told Live Science that he and his colleagues wanted to identify the brain's reserve energy sources. They suspected that fatty myelin could be the answer. Previous research in rodents suggested that fatty acids produced from myelin breakdown could help boost cell survival in the brain. Whether these preclinical findings would be replicated in humans was still a mystery, though. "We needed to really deplete all the sources of energy of a body to prove this," Cabrer told Live Science. The team scanned 10 runners' brains 48 hours before they ran a marathon and then again two days, two weeks and two months afterward. They used MRI, which can reveal the presence of water molecules trapped between myelin layers. The brain scans showed that, two days post-run, the MRI signals in 12 brain areas were depleted compared with before the race — in some cases, by up to 28%. Changes to the brain's overall myelin levels were not statistically significant, however, suggesting that any changes were very isolated to specific regions. "The areas that we saw have more significant changes were those related to motor circuits and the center of emotional control of the brain," Cabrer said. He suggested that this reflects the mental and physical effort the brain must maintain to get through a marathon. For any runners concerned about this cerebral cannibalism, there's good news: After two months, all of the runners' myelin measures had recovered to their baseline levels. Klaus-Armin Nave, director at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Germany, was not involved in the study but has also studied how myelin stores energy, using lab mice. Nave said the paper's findings aligned with how neuroscientists think myelin is maintained in the brain. Related: How far can a person run without stopping? "Myelin is constantly made and degraded," he said. "It's like a bathtub in which you constantly fill in water and constantly drain it." He added that Cabrer's work presents "very strong evidence" that, after a marathon, the brain's metabolic needs increase. Thus, the fuel stored in myelin is depleted more quickly than usual, leading to brain shrinkage. RELATED STORIES —'Simone is a very, very rare bird': Experts discuss the science behind Simone Biles' gymnastic prowess —'Muscle memories' get 'zipped and unzipped' in the brain, like computer files —'Exercise juice' released by muscles helps nerves grow, study finds The findings don't mean runners should avoid marathons on their brains' behalf. Both Nave and Cabrer noted that the study's small size means more work will be needed to draw concrete conclusions about marathons' effects on the brain. The very limited effects on overall myelin also raise the need for further research, they added. Nevertheless, these effects may carry increased risks for certain athletes. For example, in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), metabolic molecules typically made by myelin are in short supply, and the researchers think that excessive exercise could potentially exacerbate the problem. Further research will be needed to confirm this theory, Cabrer said.
