I have never run a marathon before so my goal is to just finish it and hopefully do it in under 4 hours. I have spent my Saturday mornings doing long jogs. Last Saturday I was able to beat my previous personal distance record of 16 miles by running a full 17 miles.This episode of NOVA on PBS inspired me because there were people with some serious health problems who were able to finish the Boston marathon so I figured if they could do it so could I. I watched this episode for the second time about six months ago around the time when I started to seriously train for the marathon. I began my training around May as you can see on my training schedule the numbers highlighted in yellow are the runs I have completed. Thus far I have been doing intensive training for nearly 4 months and have run a total of nearly 500 miles.
Running and exercise in general is much easier to do with a friend. My buddy Jonathan has helped out quite a bit because he has gone with me on nearly every one of my training runs. He has run in a few marathons already so he has some experience I can learn from. There are actually a lot of very talented runners at my dental school. One of the 2nd year dental students finished 7th at the last Boston marathon and another friend of mine, Jake ran in college and has gone on some of the longer runs with Jonathan and I.
One tip we have learned for anyone who is an endurance athlete is that low fat chocolate milk is an excellent recovery drink after doing a long run because it has the correct protein: carbohydrate ratio and it just tastes good.
Another tip I have for runners is to buy shoes frequently and if you can afford it get them from a running store where they can match your running style to your shoe. I broke both my feet with stress fractures in high school running cross country due to over training and not replacing my shoes frequently enough. I went through months of recovery and physical therapy and after all of it was over I had some custom orthotics made by my podiatrist which I still wear all day every day some 10 years later. Once I get a job I think I will have a podiatrist make me a new set of orthotics.
Other lessons learned from breaking my feet: eat a good diet with calcium and vitamin D. (I eat a good diet and I take a multivitamin daily). AND build up your endurance and fitness slowly! Your bones need time to get stronger, your muscles and tendons need time to rebuild and re-tool themselves to be able to withstand the intense pounding of a long run.
While intense exercise like marathon training is rewarding and challenging, exercise in general is essential to good health. We were not built to sit around. Diet is more important for weight loss than exercise (probably because as you exercise a lot you need to eat more). However, exercise is very beneficial for maintaining a healthy weight along with prevention of cardiovascular disease which is the leading cause of death in the USA.
Check out this Wikipedia article on exercise and this article on MayoClinic.com and finally this concise list of the benefits of exercise from Georgia State University.
Exercise will improve your ability to learn, prevent disease, and improve your mood. Just Do It!
