Six local LA Marathon finishers profiled in the LA Times ran through illness and injury. Luckily for them, they didn't worsen their conditions.
Today, the Los Angeles Times ran a story in the Health Section following the results of six runners from last weeks’ LA Marathon. As I read the piece, I couldn’t help think that each of these runners is insane – not because they ran the marathon (I did that myself in 1996, and I don’t consider myself insane) – but because each ran with either an illness or an injury. These runners describe back pain, calf pain, cramping, sinus infections and the flu. It seems to me that each of these runners had a very good reason to either skip the race entirely, or drop out early. Yet, all six runners finished the race. Luckily for them, they didn’t seem to do any long term damage to their bodies.
Exercise is great. I work out every day. But they idea of exercise is to improve your health, not ruin it. Injuries and illness are reasons to back off of exercise. It’s neither smart nor “courageous” to finish a race under those conditions. Just ask the family of the unfortunate individual who died at the last Chicago Marathon.
