RUNNING TOO FAR
Running a marathon is an incredible feat. I t ’s also pure hell on the body. Here, the shocking risks of going the distance
PREPARING to pound pavement for 26.2 miles takes a whole lot of sweat. Scarily, it can also take a runner down.
Zachary Price, a 33-yearold commercial real estate broker who lives in the Financial District, had been putting his all into training for the 2017 New York City Marathon. Then one day, after a run, something felt wrong in his hip.
He eventually went to a doctor and was told he’d suffered a stress fracture and needed to use crutches. With only four days until the race, his marathon dreams — at least for that year — were over.
“You spend 15-plus weeks building up for this most amazing accomplishment that you’re setting out for,” Price tells The Post, “and you don’t get to do it.”
There’s no athletic feat quite like running a marathon. But is putting a body through that hell really worth it when injuries like Price’s could strike at any time?
Dr. Marci Goolsby, a primary-care sports medicine physician at the Upper East Side’s Hospital for Special Surgery, says that when a casual runner decides to tackle a marathon, injuries are more likely.
“Generally, as the mileage goes up, the risk goes up,” says Goolsby.
From black toenails to hospital-level injuries, long-distance runners face a long list of potential concerns. Common ones include stress fractures like
Price’s — often a result of not fueling your body properly — and knee pain from bad form or a lack of strength training. (Those gross toenails, which some consider a badge of honor, can be prevented with better-fitting shoes.)
Just because a runner is more tortoise than hare doesn’t mean they’re in the clear, either. Goolsby says slower runners must be especially careful to watch out for hyponatremia — when overhydration leads to scary-low levels of salt and electrolytes in the body.
“Slower runners are out there for longer,” says Goolsby. “They’re getting tired, and they might drink more water.”
Many running injuries can be overcome by taking a step back and addressing the root of the problem, says Goolsby.
For Price, that meant recognizing that he was overtraining and that his nutrition wasn’t up to par.
“I thought [I was going] all out for peak physical fitness, and, in fact, it was just hurting me on the inside,” he says.
After recovering from his injury and adjusting to a healthier eating and training plan, Price completed the NYC Marathon in 2018, and he just crushed the Chicago Marathon earlier this month.
But not all risks allow for second chances. Consider the heart attack that famously led fitness guru Jim Fixx to drop dead at 52 while jogging in 1984.
“You do hear those stories, unfortunately, of people having acute coronary events during marathon training because it is a very intense race and you are stressing the heart,” says Goolsby. “But most people who have a cardiac [event] when they’re running — there’s an underlying issue.”
Fixx, after all, was a former smoker with a strong family history of heart disease.
But there’s also rhabdomyolysis, a condition in which muscle breaks down, ushering a protein called myoglobin into the bloodstream and leading to kidney damage. Luckily, Goolsby says, it is rare for endurance runners, and when it does occur, it’s usually tied to dehydration or a prior illness.
Billy Richards, a 37-year-old military veteran and personal trainer in East Islip, LI, found out the hard way that pushing his mileage to the extreme can wreak havoc on the body.
At the end of his first 100-mile ultramarathon in 2015, he was unable to move his legs, and he ended up in the hospital for three days. He says his doctor diagnosed him with a mild case of rhabdo, which was explained to him as his “muscles pretty much dying because of overexerting.”
Richards recovered, and he’s currently attempting to beat the record of 41 100-mile ultramarathons in one calendar year. He just completed his 33rd of 2019 over the weekend in Ottawa, Kan., though he admits he vomits at some point during each one. (If that weren’t difficult enough, he also runs while carrying a 3-by-5-foot American flag to draw awareness to the military, first responders and law enforcement.)
He says his doctors aren’t exactly on board with his lofty goal.
“They always tell me to stop,” he says with a chuckle. “There was a time when the ER was almost on a firstname basis with me.”
So could ultramarathons just be too long for the body to handle?
“There are conversations taking place about, ‘Is there such a thing as too much exercise?’ And I think there may be,” says Goolsby.
“But we still don’t know a lot about where to draw that line and when it becomes an issue. The evidence is still very much in support that exercise is very good for you, including marathon training.”
For most people, Goolsby says, it’s safe to go ahead and lace up those sneakers.
“All I want is for all of us to exercise,” she says, “and if a marathon and having that goal and having something that you can be really proud of and looking forward to achieving it is going to keep you exercising, then yes, I want you to do it.”