The marathon, 26.2 miles, sounds like hell to most people. How could that ever be an enjoyable or exciting experience? Well, if you aren’t looking to race the distance to try for a new personal best or with a goal other than finishing in mind, there are many other options. These options turn the marathon into an action packed, fun filled extravaganza that will allow you to check the marathon off the bucket list while keeping your sanity. Perhaps the best known and most exciting marathon in the entire world is the Walt Disney World Marathon (as seen in upper left corner). This race is held in Orlando, Florida and has upwards of 20,000 participants! Race director John Hughes says, “The Disney Marathon was really the first marathon to focus on the race as an experience.” During every half mile of the race, participants will see their favorite Disney characters dressed up and cheering them on to the finish. The next marathon is going to require you to grab a couple grass skirts, leis, and a plane ticket because this race is taking you to Honolulu, Hawaii! This marathon is great for beginners as it features a fairly easy and flat course, and is a fantastic excuse to take the vacation of a lifetime. Participants will weave their way through the volcanoes and all of the beautiful landscapes that Hawaii has to offer! Moving on from the beautiful beaches and relatively easy course of the Honolulu Marathon, our next plane trip is to China. “The Great Wall Marathon” is literally a marathon that is run along the Great Wall of China (as seen at bottom of article). To train for this one you might want to get on a stair stepper more than anything else! This grueling marathon includes thousands of steps and wild altitude changes that will make any runner never want to see another staircase again. The reward is an amazing experience filled with beautiful views and another check on the bucket list! The point is, there are plenty of ways to make your first, or your 50th, marathon the most exciting of your life! People always complain about running and how boring it is, but I truly believe that it is all just a matter of perspective. Make the marathon a bucket list item that will be an amazing experience, not a chore that you simply want to accomplish. With that last little piece of advice I would like to wish you all the best with your future marathons!
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The chase to break quite possibly the biggest barrier in long distance running has begun. Nike has taken on the challenge of preparing athletes to run a sub two hour marathon (26.2 miles). The picture on the left shows the three athletes recruited by Nike to run sub two hours. This is an incredible feat that many believe the human body is incapable of. It is difficult to truly wrap your head around how fast a marathon in under two hours really is. To begin, an adult running one mile in under 6 minutes is seen as being physically fit and aerobically very healthy. A mile in under 5 minutes is extremely impressive for an adult and seen as a goal for most varsity long distance runners in high school. A full marathon, 26.2 miles, in under two hours would require an average pace per mile at a staggering 4:35. A 4:35 mile is an extraordinary time to run one mile in, let alone to hold that pace 26 times over. The current world record for the marathon is 2:02:57 set by Dennis Kimetto of Kenya on September 28, 2014, at the Berlin Marathon. Even the most elite runners question the possibility of running the distance in less than two hours. So that begs the question, what would it take? Based off of the current record time, it would require around a 2.5% increase in race performance in order to break the barrier. Although this seems relatively low, for a professional athlete this is an enormous gap between what current ability and the goal time. This seemingly impossible target will require someone born with just the right genetic makeup. Furthermore, race conditions would need to be perfect as would course conditions. All the stars would have to align perfectly to allow for conditions to be just right. A short 50 years ago, the barrier in competitive racing was running a sub 4:00 mile. Many believed it was impossible and went as far as to say that the human heart would “burst” under the pressure of the race. In 1954, Roger Bannister tackled this obstacle, running a 3:59.4. For a task that seemed insurmountable, it is surprising to see that there are currently 510 Americans that have all run sub 4:00. Clearly, this was a mental barrier that required one person to break down the wall for the rest to come charging through. I like to believe that this feat of running a sub two hour marathon will be accomplished in my lifetime because it will undoubtedly be the single greatest achievement in the history of long distance running. As for right now, we just have to wait and see who will be the one to run 26.2 miles faster than any human has ever run the distance before. Below is a shoe created and engineered by Nike specifically to be worn while racing a marathon. Every aspect of the show was designed in such a way as to be advantageous to someone looking to run a marathon. Preparation for a marathon goes far beyond simply training. There are a variety of different key factors that play into the success of a marathon runner. First and foremost, although generally overlooked, mental preparation is vital. Nothing will test you more mentally than a marathon. It is essential that the runner understands what they are trying to accomplish and the amount of work it will take them to get to that point. Training will take months so if you are not ready to embark on the journey mentally, then there is no need to even lace up the running shoes. This isn’t meant to be scary, more just as a fair warning to the fact that a marathon is not going to be a cakewalk. NUTRITION!! That's right, find your favorite water bottle and snag the pasta off the shelf of the pantry and become your own personal chef. Your body is much like a car, in order to function properly it must be fueled correctly. You wouldn’t pour a monster energy drink in the gas tank of your car similarly as to how you should not be putting that in your stomach. Whole, natural, nutritious foods are definitely advised as well. Pasta and foods of that nature provide your body will carbohydrates. This organic compound will later be broken down and converted into glycogen. Next, your body will store the glycogen to be used for endurance based workout in which it will be used to help muscles function at peak performance. Last but not least, water, water, water, water, water. Nothing is better for you than water and you will need a lot more than you think. The average sedentary person requires approximately half their weight in ounces of water per day. This means for a 128 lbs male, that person would require 64 ounces if he sat and played Fortnite or games all day. A long distance runner in the process of marathon training needs far more than this. Water will help prevent injuries by essentially lubricating the joints and ligaments that are under a lot of stress in the body while running. It will also help prevent dehydration. Finally, athletes need to weight train in addition to running. Most exercises should be implemented slowly into your running routine in order to prevent overtraining. Weight training will help a runner feel stronger physically (duhh right but in regards to running form) and also prevent injuries. The last thing any runner wants that has been training for months is to develop an injury that could have easily been prevented. A majority of weight training exercises do not even require any weight. In most cases, body weight is sufficient. This is true especially when training areas such as core, obliques, back, and calves. These three tidbits of advice will help you to be in top physical condition come race day and be fully prepared as you approach the starting line for your first marathon ever! Below is a picture of a quote that really puts in perspective the benefits of mental strength. Death. This noun that only has one syllable can effectively describe my experience while attempting to run a marathon for the first time ever. I was young and naive (2 months ago in November). I was approached by one of my running partners with the wager that I was unable to run a marathon without training and without walking. Obviously, being foolish and overly confident of my ability, I quickly accepted the bet and was excited to take my friend’s money. This is a distance of 26.2 miles. To put that into perspective, if you start on the Rock Island Trail at the Dunlap Public Library and run all the way to the Peoria Riverfront, you will have only ventured half the journey. The more I thought about the task the more daunting it became. I am a seasoned cross country runner and hardly take more than two weeks off total all year around. I thought to myself, “This is easy money man, no doubt I have this in the bag. I just need to wake up and run for a long ass time.” After a quick calculation, I figured that time would be approximately three hours and thirty minutes. The day before I decided I was going to run my marathon I thought about what my previous longest run ever was. A mere 13.1 miles. I had only run HALF the distance of a full marathon. My confidence was beginning to fade. In addition, I had not run in two weeks since the cross country season had ended, and was still recovering from minor injuries that I had encountered during the season. These thoughts all started racing (pun intended) through my mind as I thought about the marathon in three days. With only 1 day before I had scheduled my run I ignorantly pushed any negative thoughts out of my head and taunted my friends over the money they were about to fork up. I did not sign up for an actual marathon or plan to ingest any sort of nutrient packed snacks along the length of the run. No water, no food, no cheering fans. I wanted to accomplish this on my own without paying the entrance fee of a race. This lack of essential hydration, nutrition, and training would end up killing me during the run. I woke up at 8 A.M. ready for a run that I knew would take me into the afternoon hours. It was absolutely freezing outside, parts of the Rock Island Trail still covered in ice. The scariest part was taking my first step as I knew once I started there was no stopping for multiple hours. I clicked off my first nine miles with ease, thinking that this wouldn’t be so bad after all. At mile 13 I could start to feel my tendons, joints, and muscles all slowly begin to wear down. Mile 17: at this point I was well aware that I was not properly prepared and could feel the damage I was doing to my body. My vision was blurred and I could not focus on anything besides moving each leg. I was ready to quit at this point, but I was still three miles away from my car. These next couple of miles felt like hours of running. I managed to make it back to my car where I collapsed into the driver's seat. I was too weak to open my water bottle and had to sit for about a half hour before I was ready to drive. This run made me realize how my ignorant and confident attitude lead me to take on a challenge I was not prepared for. It was easily the most humbling experience of my life. Rock Island Trail My next hobby originated from a fear that I once had. I was deathly afraid of planes. I had no desire to ever fly anywhere, go on vacations, or travel in generally. If driving was an option I would always prefer the long car ride. There came a point where my family began to force me onto the plane and I quickly became accustomed to flying regularly. I am forever grateful that my parents could help me overcome this fear because it allowed me to discover the beauty of travel. We flew to Florida, Colorado, and other places within the US and it was great, or so I thought.
I like to be different and unique. I want to do things that others can’t to inspire them and prove that anything is possible. This passion that I have to be “one of a kind” led me to discover one of my many hobbies. I learned how to ride a unicycle the summer before my junior year just for the pure challenge the one-wheeled mechanism gave me.
When I entered high school as a small, quiet freshman, the hunt for my hobbies began. I realized that there was nothing I was truly passionate about. All I did outside of school was play games on my phone or complain because I had too much time on my hands and nothing to do. It is funny looking back on this, because now I can’t seem to find a spare minute. This is because I joined the cross country team. http://il.milesplit.com My brother is the one that convinced me to run and sparked the fire in my heart for this sport. I was uneasy about who to run with or how far to go. My first long run is burned into my memory. It was a hot day in August and everyone turned around early. I wanted to look “stronger” and run with some of the varsity athletes. After making it about six miles out on the trail I was exhausted and hopelessly stranded, unable to run any further. Instead of quitting and running away from the sport, I decided to physically and mentally commit myself to improving. Each mile became increasingly more difficult and more enticing to just walk away. Every day I worked hard to become a top runner on the team and by the end of my freshman year I had worked my way onto the varsity squad. Cross Country has taught me how to be persistent and follow my dreams no matter how impossible they might seem. I am now in my senior year and am working harder than ever. My average week during summer training had over 50 miles in total and included a twelve mile long run on Saturdays. At one point I ran from the Dunlap library to the Peoria riverfront with some of my training partners. This season I finally realized that my team is much more than just a group of kids that get together to run, it is a family. As captain of the team I feel responsible for each and every runner and I strive to help them reach their goals. This bond is built during the hardest of workouts, pasta parties, and in the middle of a race. My own personal goals shifted this year from being focused on my own times and performances, to the goals of the team and what we want to accomplish as a whole. Cross country has been an experience that I have learned to love. It quickly transitioned from being an activity that was intended to simply keep me busy, to an activity that my life revolves around. I am happiest when I can get on the Rock Island Trail and run for miles without any worry in the world. When I am injured life just seems harder; I cannot think straight or focus on anything besides how I am going to get better. Running is something that will follow me my whole life and I will always be ready to toe the starting line, take a deep breath, and take off at the sound of the gun. |
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