"The Mystery of the Marathon Runner: Unlocking the secrets of the endurance athlete"

I consider myself to be in decent physical shape.

I can get up and down the basketball floor with relative ease. I finally got my Body Mass Index lower than my age (although I suppose if you wait around long enough, that one will take care of itself). And when I spend a day in the weight room, I'm usually not too concerned about waking up the next morning feeling like I was unwittingly volunteered to take on Evander Holyfield in Match 1 of his final Heavyweight Title run.

Yet, as I become more and more entrenched in the world of free weights and plyometrics, protein shakes and PowerBars, I find myself increasingly inspired, not by the gym-lurking masses of muscle who could snap my wiry frame in two without much effort, but rather by the lanky, long-legged speedsters who can be found jogging up mountain trails, zigging and zagging between pedestrians on crowded urban streets, and ultimately pumping their fists high in the air after finally reaching the finish line.

I am amazed by the long-distance runner.

These guys are incredible. After 3 or 4 miles, when most "regular athletes" would be calling it quits, these guys are barely beginning to find their groove. For the endurance athlete, there is only one number worth remembering-26.2 (that's miles, to the laeity)-and they will forget their own birthday before letting it out of their consciousness.

Bearing in mind that I have probably never exceeded 5 miles in my "long-distance" ventures - and that most of humanity is in the same boat - I thought it would be intriguing to find out how marathoners go about training for such a huge expenditure of energy. What kinds of things do they do differently in their preparations for a race, than, say, a college football running back, or a high school track and field high jumper?

Brian Casaday, who at the age of 24, has already completed 10 marathons and 4 half-marathons, modestly offered his training regimen: "My training program isn't very complex, nor professional. What I do to train for a marathon is to go running three times a week in the morning, about 3 to 4 miles, and then a long run on Saturday." 3 to 4 miles a day! I thought, now that is certainly do-able!

Of course, it gets longer. Brian continues: "I'll start my long runs about three months before a marathon, started 7-10 miles, and add a mile or two each week. . . "I work it out so I do one very long run two or three weeks before the marathon (20-22 miles) and then a 10-mile [run] one week before. I'm fairly active, so my cross training is usually replaced with hiking, Frisbee, swimming, other sports, and occasional sessions in the gym."

That's it? I had to wonder. That's the big secret to running long distances--you just run? Other than dabbling in some cross-training-type activities, and minimal time in the gym, the secret to running is…well…running. And it's not running 100-mile weeks, as I had feared, but, for the most part, starting with manageable distances, and then increasing the length of the run slightly each week, with a few rest weeks.

Convinced that the 10-time marathoner was overly simplistic in his advice, I spent some time reading about various training programs on www.RunningPlanet.com, an excellent authoritative resource for runners of all types.

The 24-week program for beginning marathoners listed on the website was eerily similar to the one Brian supplied me with--a simple system of slowly increasing the distance run each week, with period recovery weeks, which prevents the body from shutting down.

So if preparing for a marathon is simply a matter of running more and more each week, then why is it that after 4 miles I'm done, every time? Well, for one thing, it requires consistency. Most of us simply aren't willing to run every day, or we think that we run more frequently than we actually do.

But there is a simpler reason for my lack of long-distance proficiency.

Brian explained that he believes it doesn't have nearly as much to do with fitness or training in this case, but psychological conditioning. "I believe that anyone, if they can run three miles a day consistently, is physically fit to run 26.2 miles. Don't mistake this to mean that if someone can run three miles a day, they can go out and run a marathon on-demand. I believe they already have the strength and endurance to do so--they only lack psychological training," he said.

So the truth comes out. It isn't so much that my body lacks the proper ratio of slow- to fast-twitch muscle fibers (although that certainly could be part of the problem), or that I don't have a clear concept of what runners do to prepare their bodies for a race.

I just lack the psychosomatic know-how, that je ne sais quoi that keeps approximately 99.9% of Americans from ever seeing the final stretch of those 26.2 miles. Somewhere, deep within me, is a long-distance runner waiting to explode--no, cruise--into reality, if I can only learn to master myself. All I have to do is work toward unlocking the mystery of the marathon runner.

One step at a time.


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