The Marathon: A Mirage of Fitness?

It would be reckless to suggest that running a marathon is not difficult. Just going out for a jog are you darling? Oh 26 miles, not too far then, that’ll […]


It would be reckless to suggest that running a marathon is not difficult. Just going out for a jog are you darling? Oh 26 miles, not too far then, that’ll wile away a good chunk of Sunday afternoon.

Let’s be honest, 26 miles is pretty far to drive. If it doesn’t sound rubbish enough already, consider this. Around the 18 mile mark most runners go through what is known as ‘the wall’. This is the point at which the body switches from burning carbohydrates to fats after the runner has used up all of their glycogen reserves.  I imagine it’s as hellish as it sounds. Not only are months of gruelling training generally required but I have been told that marathons can leave runners sore for up to three weeks afterwards, such is the huge disruption to human homeostasis. Let’s not forget that the inaugural marathon ended in death; just a further clue for you as to how fun this sporting endeavour is. If anything we should be thankful that it was only 26 miles from Marathon to Athens. 30 miles? 40 miles? How far would recreational athletes run basically for fun?

Of course, for those who become a little tired of the standard marathon there is the ultra-marathon and all its glittering variations. This really is where I have to ask: where will the madness end? In these events competitors run frankly absurd distances. In an ironman you only have to run a marathon; you do also have to swim 2.4 miles and cycle 112 miles though.

There is the marathon des sable; a series of marathons run in the Sahara Dessert, like a holiday run on the beach on crack. There is the Spartathlon; a 246 km trek from Athens to the site of ancient Sparta which, unbelievably, has been completed in under 24 hours. All of this is undeniably impressive. You have to give credit to anyone willing to throw themselves into the deeply rigorous training that simply completing such a test would require let alone the courage and determination needed to grit through the event itself. The stupidest-sounding variation I have yet come across is the Bordeaux Marathon or Marathon du Medoc. Here the water stations are replaced by stands serving such delicious sounding wines as Château Beychevelle, Château Gruaud-Larose and Château Lafite and also offering such morale-boosting morsels as cheese, oysters and steak which in fairness do sound more appetising than your standard energy gel.

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Shocked as I am that the EU allows this dangerous-sounding event to continue I am perhaps more shocked that people take part. If you want to run a marathon, run a marathon; if you wish to drink delicious wine and eat delicious food by all means book yourself in South-West France and do so. The combination of the two can surely appeal only to the worst kind of person who wishes to boast about their fitness, their ability to hold their drink and their skill in doing both simultaneously.

Running a marathon certainly is, to deploy an obvious cliché, no walk in the park; but I must admit that the basic marathon itself I do not find that impressive, or at least not as impressive as I think that marathon runners and others, who revere it as having a kind of sacred status in human performance, wish me to. I am talking here more about recreational or fitness marathon running rather than genuine athletes. Anyone who can keep up a 5 minute mile pace for 26 consecutive miles is clearly a freak and has worked very very hard to become that way.

Marathons are placed on a pedestal more or less throughout the world; in a paradigm of human fitness which is so endurance and particularly running-centric that they occupy a hallowed space. We would reason thus that to complete one would put you in pretty good shape. On purely anecdotal evidence, I just can’t agree. I know a number of people who have completed marathons in the last couple of years who are now in frankly terrible condition. 

Furthermore, people who have finished a marathon often have something of a chip on their shoulder about it. They truly seem to believe that they have genuinely achieved something. Indeed, they have finished a marathon. This would seem more impressive I think if such a vast swathe of the populace didn’t seem able to do so with a few months of dedicated training. The evidence for this claim? Simply the very broad range of people that all of us know who have run and finished marathons. You can walk after all. The fact that marathons just aren’t as hard as they’re meant to be is implicitly acknowledged in the creation of a sub-section based on whether or not you finished the marathon in under 4 hours. This is only an arbitrary time that has been settled on to separate the serious athletes from the mere hobbyists; but those who’ve run a marathon in under 4 hours are generally acknowledged to have done pretty well. I can’t particularly see why, however, as this is basically twice as slow as the people who are actually good at marathons. To use a clearly inappropriate but revealing point of comparison you don’t see a lot of people expecting to be congratulated on their 20s 100m time. Recall the feat of the 48 year old comedian Eddie Izzard who in 2009 ran 43 marathons in 51 days (for either TV or charity, I forget) with little prior training; an act of sheer determination which shows that really this is the more key characteristic in marathon running than athletic skill.

Really, what is wrong with this conclusion. Good on those determined enough to complete one. If you have also raised a lot of money for charity so much the better. But let’s dispense with the idea that in putting one foot after the other for 26.2 miles you have achieved anything momentous. I would argue that in fact there is a slightly harmful aspect of society’s fetishisation of the marathon in terms of its effects on the general fitness community and society’s view of fitness. Fitness is after all a problematic term. Fitness to do what? For the broader population surely it is fitness to live a long, enjoyable life and be able to do all the activities that they wish to. A relatively low level of body fat, healthy joints and a decent level of cardiovascular fitness seem to be the important qualities to achieve this. In my experience a regime of slow and lengthy jogging, that our adoration of the marathon promotes, fails quite significantly to deliver on the first two counts, or certainly to deliver as effectively as is popularly perceived. Even in terms of cardiovascular fitness, recent evidence suggests that interval training offers a far quicker and more effective alternative to simple one-pace jogging. In my opinion it is time we unchained our fundamental concept of fitness from jogging and dispensed with the baffling reverence surrounding the marathon. 

Cover photo courtesy of philippegatta.fr, images courtesy of mirror.co.uk and keeprunning.com