CGH #037: The Marathon – Training Progression Or Social Phenomenon?

The podcast “Consumer’s Guide To Health” returned to the airwaves in January. This biweekly podcast and live stream airs on BlogTalkRadio every second Thursday at 11:00am central time. Join the discussion!

This episode is entitled “The Marathon: Training Progression Or Social Phenomenon?”. Marathons are in the forefront in the mindset of Austinites this weekend as the LiveStrong Austin Marathon is coming to the streets of Austin on Sunday, February 19.

Marathon running has evolved rather significantly over the past 30 years. But when I say that, it has not necessarily been an the evolution of training methods as such as much as it has been a change in the marathon’s place in popular culture.

So to discuss this further, the guest for this episode is Marshall Burt, a track coach from Austin, Texas. His club is the Elite Training Group Track Club.

There are 36 previous episodes currently available on my BlogTalkRadio channel. You can subscribe via RSS or the podcasts are also available on iTunes.

The next episode will be on Thursday, March 1.

Transcription Of Episode 37: The Marathon – Training Progression Or Social Phenomenon?

Welcome to the Smart Life Project's "Consumer's Guide To Health" for February 16, 2012. I'm your host, Allan Besselink, coming to you live from Austin, Texas as I do every other Thursday at 11:00 am central time. This show is brought to you by the Smart Life Project, a health initiative based in Austin, Texas committed to providing sports science solutions for training, rehab, and life. Life is a sport - play smart.

Becoming a consumer of your own health and health care is critical in this day and age. The health care and fitness worlds can be a challenge to negotiate. But we are also in an era of accessibility to information, and as I always say, knowledge is power - if only we'd use it. But let's face it though - the inability to challenge our belief systems in the face of good scientific evidence is the primary limiting factor in the advancement of both health care and coaching, as well as human performance and injury prevention. And as I always say - don't shoot the messenger – please.

The primary goal of this show is to increase awareness of these issues so that people can become better consumers of their own health - from the grass roots level on up.

With that in mind, our call in number is (347) 843-4753.

Today's episode 37 is entitled "The Marathon: Training Progression Or Social Phenomenon?". Marathons are in the forefront in the mindset of Austinites this weekend as the LiveStrong Austin Marathon is this coming to the streets of Austin on Sunday, February 19.

Marathon running has evolved rather significantly over the past 30 years. But when I say that, it has not necessarily been an the evolution of training methods as such as much as it has been a change in the marathon’s place in popular culture. It is also a change that I can't say that I fully understand or really comprehend given the history of running in this country.

There was a time when training for a 5K was the standard for the running community. It didn't matter if you were an experienced runner or new to the sport - that was the point at which you started. The "running boom" as we know it started there. It got people up and moving, and got them to implement running as a part of a healthy lifestyle. After you ran a few 5Ks, it was a natural progression in thinking to run a 10K. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. Then, you might decide to progress to a half marathon. You rarely, rarely, had people going into the sport at the marathon end of the spectrum.

Somewhere along the line, running a marathon entered into the collective psyche of the couch potato. In the same breath, it began appearing on bucket lists of many who barely walked across the room for the bag of Cheetos, let alone went out and ran a mile or two. Somewhere in the midst of all of this, training groups promoted the concept of “run a marathon in 26 weeks”. Sedentary people were jumping into running not with the goal of a 5K, but jumping right in to a 26 week program to run a marathon.

What started out as a very methodical approach to running – as a lifestyle - morphed into something completely different.

So to discuss this further, we have today's guest. Marshall Burt is a track coach from Austin, Texas. His club is the Elite Training Group Track Club, and you can find his website at theetgtrackclub.com. Marshall, thanks for joining us this morning and welcome back to the show.

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Photo credits: joehardy