What happens if I run for 24 hours straight?
May 29, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments
Ever wonder what would happen if you ran for a day?
No, I don’t mean run for one day in your life and then quit. (I can tell you what’d happen. A whole lotta nada.)
Rather, I’m talking a full 24 hours of trotting, non-stop. Like this guy did:
Yes, that’s a hamster wheel you’re ogling. And, yes, the 40 year old U.K. dude you’re looking at (Dean Ovel is his name, though Dean Cain might do given his super-resilience) did indeed spend from noon til noon treading in said device. And for what? A publicity stunt? Because it’s fun to construct life sized toys to see why pets enjoy them? Or is it just ’cause he’s crazy like the rest of us runners? Well, while the answers are definitely yeses across the board, the former of those three reasons is kinda sorta the truest. It was a stunt, but one for a good cause: to raise awareness for dementia. One that was every bit as effective as it was selfless. (And let’s don’t forget crazy – but what do you expect from a dude who boasts having done a bout of ten marathons in eight days?) Heaps of people donated to his charity of choice. However, being a writer with an interest in fitness, I had to wonder:
What does happen when you run for that long?
And, after a bit of research, I got my answer – which is pretty obvious.
You end up looking like Dean Ovel. Wiry, channeling Gump, and rocking that all too familiar deranged look in his eye which I also see when I make the mistake of passing a reflective surface. (Also, I’m told that long distance runners sometimes get the runs – and loss of every other bodily function, too.) But, today, we’ll focus on it from the physique angle. Why all the muscle loss? Well, for couple reasons. If you’re running that much, it doesn’t free up a lot of time for strength training (the activity where you build muscle), so most people don’t. Also, almost inevitably, when you’re spending so much time in motion, you’re not giving yourself much time to fuel up – which means a minimal caloric intake to match expenditure. The result? Sure, you burn scads of fat. But after a while, you’re also burning up muscle. And, fascinatingly, I learned during this educational excursion that muscle’s actually pretty effing easy to lose. In fact, just one pound of muscle houses about 600 calories, while fat’s packing roughly 3,500.
The fix?
To prepare properly (so you don’t get dead), eat the right stuff like the insatiable creature from “Spirited Away” (so you don’t burn up muscle too fast), know when to rest (because: duh), and strength train in between (if you care to keep your muscle). I’d tell ya “just don’t do it” when it comes to these crazy long treading ventures. But then I’d be what they call a hypocrite. Instead, I’d tell you to delve headfirst into blogs scrawled out by veteran marathoners. Make this sort’ve’a thing infrequent, fuel up properly before and after, hydrate, use your brain when you train, and recover like a pro. (Also: remember that foam rollers are your friend – espesh on rest day.) Any long distance runner worth their weight (however light that might be) will let you know that there’s appropriate prep protocol to follow – from running form and pace to what you put into your face up to go time. In the end, you’ll still be wiry – but if it’s worth it to feed your feet’s addiction, then that’s the choice you make.
Oh, and for that other choice you make? To sport the aforementioned crazed, glazed over visage? Yeah… That unibomber look’s pretty much the Hallmark of anyone who’s spent too much time with themselves doing a monotonous activity. (There’s a fap joke in there, but I’ll let it slide. And that one, too.) It’s the classic running junkie mug which – to my shame – I start to feel possess me anytime I avoid society for the sake of treading the trail in isolation instead. I mean, I’ll take the wiry body. I’ll even take the Gump beard if I need to. (Might be tough to grow, me being a woman and all – however, I’m open to it.) But you tell me how to exorcise that excess exercise induced the Manson look from my face, and I’ll donate to any damn charity you want.
Til then, this mirror of a man’s served as a good wake up call that maybe I should take my trots down a notch.
(Which, to be fair, will still amount to a helluva lotta ground covered.)