Pain is a funny thing. While you are enduring it, you can only look forward to it ending. But the memory of pain seems to abate with time. There is a negative correlation between time and the pain that was felt. Maybe that is the reason why women give birth more than once. I am sure, however, that if men gave birth, there would be one child per couple.
I honestly don't remember how much pain the marathon caused me. I know that I cramped severely in the last 6 miles but I seem to have already forgotten how I FELT. The memory lapse is probably the reason why, when asked if I would ever do another, my answer is not "NO" but "someday but not soon".
I always knew that if things didn't go perfectly with the first race, I would do another, to see if I could get better. I also probably knew that if things went perfectly, I would try another, since the first one went so sell. Screwy, circular logic. What kind of power does the event create and feed within it's participants?
I read an article today that suggested that the percentage of over-50s running marathons has increased dramatically. From the 10-29-12 edition of the Wall Street Journal,
In fact, runners 50 years and older represent one of the fastest-growing age groups participating in the increasingly popular events. As the total number of runners finishing marathons in the U.S. doubled to 518,000 in the 20 years ended in 2011, the number of finishers age 50 and older nearly tripled to 92,200, or about 18% of the total, according to Running USA, an industry-funded research group.
If there were 312.8M people in the US at the end of 2011, and assuming that every marathon finisher was a first time finisher (highly unlikely but the most conservative estimate for the following), then about .165% of the US population completed a marathon in 2011. Further there were 76.8M people in the US over 50 (2000 census - I don't have the numbers from the 2010 census), meaning that .12% of all folks older than 50 completed marathons. (I know that these figures are not correct, since the 50+ population is from 2000 and I am comparing it to other data from 2011. Cut me a break, OK?). Why the facts and figures? Because when you do something like a marathon, you want to know whether you are one of the masses or unique. It is for the same reason that you want to know where you stand in terms of income, height, weight, location, race time, and so on. Meaningless stats.
Is running bad for you at this age? Again, from the WSJ of the same date as above.
Still, there are greater risks for marathoners in the 50-plus age groups. Risk of sudden cardiac death is nearly twice as high for older marathon runners than for those under 40. But the rate is too low—barely 1 in 100,000 marathoners die during a race—to warrant general warnings to runners older than 50. And a study published in September in the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance showed that one consequence of marathon running—a swelling and weakening of the right side of the heart shown to heal within days in younger people—also dissipates just as quickly in runners over age 50.
This is good. 1:100,000 are odds that I'll take, given the benefits that I gain from running. Another great quote from the same article:
"There are dangers [for older runners]—you shouldn't experience severe chest pain during a marathon—but the research is clear that running is good for you," says Paul Thompson, a veteran former marathoner and sports cardiologist at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.
Thanks, Paul. I never would have thought of stopping if I had felt severe chest pain during running. Sorry for being snarky.
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