AlienBug, I'm curious - do you read all of these articles before you post them? Because - excluding the ones from shysters like "Dr. Sears", they present a balanced view of the risks of marathon running. They do not try to present the quack-idea that moderate-paced endurance exercise is dangerous or unhealthy.

Stay away from the sensationalist stuff and have an open-minded look at articles like this one, which you posted above: It says: "If one assumes an average finishing time of four hours, the 800,000 figure projects a death rate of one per 200,000 marathon entrants, considerably lower than the earlier estimate of one in 50,000. Incidentally, it is known that females have a much lower risk, although the relative mortality rate has not been quantified. Expressing the 800,000 statistic in a different way, we can say that healthy, middle-aged males who run for one hour each day can expect to die while running once every 2,192 years (800,000 hours divided by 365 hours of running per year = 2,192 years). By the same token, individuals who run two hours per day should die while running about once every 1,096 years. When the risks are seen in this light, many endurance athletes will consider them acceptably low, especially as the general risk of heart disease is reduced by strenuous training."

Did you notice your article said the risk of CHD is REDUCED by training? So if we say the risk of death in a marathon is 1 out of 200,000 (which is 0.0005%), about the same as being struck by lightning in America, why would that matter?

PS -Re Danny Kassap, "The doctors determined that Danny suffered a “ventricular fibrillation” (an uncoordinated contraction of the cardiac muscle) brought on by myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart), which in turn was caused by a cold virus." - A quote from the link you posted. I really think you just cut and paste a bunch of stuff that looks good to you, without reading any of it.

Sure, Danny Kassap, Jim Fixx, Pheidippides. All of them had heart defects. Just sayin...we sure are explaining away an awful lot of runners dropping dead.

And for those who went on dates in high school instead of reading Greek history, from Wiki:



Men's Health recently had a good article "Death By Exercise" that examined the phenomenon of runners dying of heart attacks. Interestingly, that same article cited the Harvard study. Burning as little as 500 calories a week exercising gives heart protection, and the benefits increase up to 2,000 calories a week, then don't improve and actually start to fall. Weight training, though, is remarkably free of sudden deaths,



In all fairness though, the author seems to be unaware of American strongman Jesse Marunde, who died of a heart attack between sets of heavy squats, though apparently he liked to recover by flopping flat onto his back in between sets, which I have read is a major no-no.

Curious though, all tweaks and [I hope] good natured razzing aside, why does someone with a physique like yours want to do distance runs? Scanning your website, it looks like you could break most distance runners over your knee.

Also, as a bodybuilder, you know that lifting heavy works your heart wayyyy harder than running, which is why you can only exert max effort for a few seconds. Any exercise someone can do for hours strikes me as simply not being all that strenuous, hence the reference to one of the articles above as stating that STRENUOUS exercise strengthens the heart. People can run for an hour, ergo running is not strenuous. Now squats on the other hand...

Who ever said I did distance runs? Definitely not me. But I take issue with quacks of any flavor.



The fact that one can run for bicycle for hours doesn't mean it's not strenuous. What it is is aerobic. There is no oxygen debt. Therefore, you can do it until you drop from fatigue. Every step of an endurance exercise is matched by sufficient oxygen. That's what aerobic means. However, when you squat or deadlift or bench press, you incur an oxygen debt which makes you have to stop and rest between sets; this rest is where oxygen debt gets repaid. That's called anaerobic exercise.

Sure. Here's mine.

Wow! That pictures definitely makes me know what advice I'm going to take. Thank you!

LOL....yes Steve, you know I've admired you for a long time.

What I'm trying to find out is what sort of progress those doing "Slow Burn" are able to make. And I want to SEE their progress. Do you have any thoughts on that type of training?

"Any exercise someone can do for hours strikes me as simply not being all that strenuous, hence the reference to one of the articles above as stating that STRENUOUS exercise strengthens the heart. People can run for an hour, ergo running is not strenuous. Now squats on the other hand..."

I agree with this - anything a middle-aged woman like me - in bad shape strength-wise and 100 pounds overweight can do for over two hours is just not that impressive (I'm not 100 pounds overweight anymore but I was earlier in my running). I always stress that my distance running is merely a hobby. I do it for fun - I couldn't get through a game of basketball or even lift my kids up repeatedly during the day like my husband does. I just don't have the strength or stamina or agility.