On the 11th March the Sunday Times ran an article “Ironman athletes pound their way to heart problems”. There have been a number of articles during the last year with a similar message.
This particular article referred to a study that found half of veteran marathon runners had fibrosis of the heart. With this type of article it’s natural to wonder what this means for the individual and there isn’t really an answer. Is this an indication of a genetic difference or something to do with the training methods and intensity? Without a doubt running ultra marathons is physically demanding and at times will place a strain on the heart, but on the other hand ultra marathons are not normally particularly fast events (my own 6.5 hours or so for 35 miles isn’t a stunningly fast pace) whereas a normal marathon (3.5 hours for 26 miles) is sigificantly faster but still nothing like that of the elites.
My only concern about the article is that it send out the wrong message to the public – running is bad for you – when we are really talking about a small study with interesting results. GPs will no doubt, on learning that you run ultra marathons, now be advising you not to, etc…