Today is marathon day!
When I say "marathon day", I don't mean I'm the one running.
A marathon is 42.195 km (26.2 miles) long.
That's 2x the longest distance I ever ran...
after which I swore I'd never do it again
let alone run a full marathon.
So we'll need guinea pigs.
Runner number 1: Franck
Runner number 2: Manuel
They are the ones running it.
And boy did they not know what they were getting themselves into.
3 days before the marathon of Montréal,
it was cancelled.
"Sunday's long distance run got cancelled
because of high temperature and humidity."
So the boys had to default to the Magog marathon planned for 3 weeks later,
thinking it would be the same challenge...
It looked like a cute town bordering a lake,
but it's also next to a mountain, which gives a 530m (1740ft) height difference to the run
or 660m (2165ft) according to the runners' watches).
A marathon cannot be improvised: it's an enormous strain both physically and mentally.
And that's what we're going to explore today.
How does the body react to long-term effort?
And to answer this, I'll follow Franck and Manuel on a bike while they push themselves to the limit.
And for us, at the risk of sounding heartless,
it'll be great to study.
If I were running the Montréal marathon, I'd hope to finish it in under 3 hours.
2:59:59?
But for this run, with the height difference, running it in 3:20 would be pretty good.
This is my first marathon
In Montreal I was aiming for 3h50, now I'm just hoping to finish the whole thing.
OK, I'll aim for 4h10.
They've just started. I'll be waiting at the first meeting point, at km number 4.
It's early enough in the race for the runners to have reached their cruising speed
without feeling much fatigue yet.
It's the perfect time to look at their running technique
and what makes one runner faster than another.
Biomechanically speaking, running speed is simply
stride length * stride frequency per second
To get faster, one could theoretically increase one of these parameters.
But it's not that simple.
Increasing stride length requires a considerable increase in propulsion power
which is not worth it: you'd lose energy vertically, running like a gazelle
(which is what you call this kind of runner).
As for stride frequency, runners naturally choose the one that's least tiresome for them.
And that shouldn't change even past the 42nd km when fatigue is at its peak.
And you can be sure that we'll be check if it's true.
I'm on my way to the next meeting point
at km 16 (10mi).
There's a pretty steep elevation on the way there
so they're probably having a harder time by now.
Since they only realized how steep the run was going to be days before they actually ran it,
neither of them actually trained for it.
Climbing a hill requires much more energy
than descending it saves.
Incidentally, the descents are most painful for runners
as they approach the end of the race.
"I don't like going down :'("
And they'll have to go up and down a whole lot.
So this is the route.
Right now, I'm at km 16.
I expect Franck to get here by 1h08
and I expect Manuel to arrive by 1h30.
We'll be able to see if the elevation slowed them down or not.
Franck is here.
He is on time and he is still smiling!
As expected, 20 minutes later, here comes Manuel!
Go Manuel Are you OK?
There's no gels! No gels?
OK. Gels.
At several places along the route are water stations that are essentials for the runners.
And I'm measuring my words. There is stuff to drink and eat.
For the drinks, there is water obviously, to rehydrate after loosing all this sweat.
But it runners were to drink in water all they loose, it would be too much
and they would literally inflate.
The sodium in the blood plasma would be so diluted that the concentration difference
between the inside and the outside of the cell would push
by osmotic pressure the cell's water, forcing it to inflate.
It's called hyponatremia.
And if that happens, you're in for nausea, vomiting, cramps, dizziness, confusion...
and death for the most extreme cases.
The other option is to drink some Gatorade
That orange water that really smells like a bad marketing plan is actually useful.
It contains many things but we are particularly interested in the electrolytes
including the sodium, that prevents people for blowing up by restoring the sodium balance
between the inside and the outside of the cells.
If you drink a lot during a marathon, alternate between water and Gatorade.
That's for the drinks.
Regarding food, sometimes there's bananas but what Manuel was talking about
are the carbohydrate gels. Sugar ion a gel form factor.
Most of them are disgusting but they're not here for the taste.
A runner, even if he ate correctly in the previous days (we'll get back to this)
usually doesn't have enough fuel to last for an exercise that long.
During a marathon on a flat course, a 70kg (150lbs) man expends 3000 calories in 4 hours.
On a normal day, this same man would expend about 2100 calories in 24 hours.
This brutal consumption can be partly counterbalanced by these gels...
although studies are not all laudatory about them.
Go Manuel. How are you?
Fine but it's gonna be tough. You know you're in time for the 4h?
Yes I know.
At this point they respect surprisingly well their timing.
Next rendezvous point:
29th km (18 miles)
In the meantime it started to rain quite a lot.
As you can see.
The last time I was them it was there
And now, I'm here, at the 29th km
Damn, there's already someone!
OK. So the person we just saw is probably going to finish in less than 3h.
3 hours what Franck was planning for a flat course.
And that's something I've been wondering about for a while. Between Franck finishing in 3 hours
and Manuel in 4. Which one spends the most energy?
(considering they weigh the same weight).
Is the faster one but finishing early?
Or the slower one finishing later?
Personally, being in the slower group, I'd say the slowers runner expend more
because we run for longer
and are much more deserving!
But no.
Actually the energy expenditure for someone running in 3h and
for someone running in 4h is the same if they have the same weight.
their mass will matter a lot in the calculus
The amount of calories spent is 1.05 x mass x distance.
In this equation there's no speed, no time.
It's really the distance that is the key of the energy expenditure.
When someone is running, he breathes oxygen.
And this oxygen is used to make our muscles and cells work.
The oxygen volume can be used has an indirect indicator
of the burned calories.
This oxygen quantity, that we can measure in a lab, si directly
linked to the speed
The faster we run, the more oxygen we use.
But since speed is also linearly linked to time and distance
The whole thing balances out.
Yes we use up more oxygen going faster but we run less time for the same distance
In short, it's kif-kif bourricot!
But for now, I am at the 29th km, under the rain.
Man, you're so early! Fuck yeah!
You're so early. It's really tough.
I think I'll crash at 28! You crash at 28?
I'm getting cold. You're at 29 now.
Keep up! I'll catch you at the end.
OK? OK!
I don't think I'll be smiling anymore
What do you think of the current geopolitical context?
Fucking hell! Glycogen!!!
Glycogen! Go Franck!
So. Glycogen.
The glycogen is our own fuel.
It's a glucose macromolecule, stored in the muscles and the liver
It's our easiest source of enery
we can also extract some from the lipids but it's longer
And for endurance exercises, it's worth doing something called
a carb overload: eat lots of pasta and other things full of carbohydrates
in the days leading to the race.
Starting with a higher level of glycogen would delay fatigue by 20%
and enhance performance by 2% to 3%
But if you are running for a shorter time than 90 minutes, don't bother,
you don't need to fill up your stocks.
Franck is 6 minutes early on a 3h objective.
It's huge!
Especially with that many hills. I ran 20 meters with him and I'm already dying.
Now I'm leaving for the 36th (22.3 mi) km to meet them again.
Next time I'll see them, their legs will be 36km older.
But it's not only in the legs.
At this point, all the friction with the clothes can become painful
36km with the t-shirt rubbing your tits, that can lead to this:
That's why they planned ahead, spreading vaseline on the feet,
between the thighs, and band-aid on the tits.
OK. So now, my role is to assist them during the last kilometers, the hardest.
I am going to bike next to them to be a moral support.
Here he comes! Largely behind schedule although he was in advance
last time we saw him.
Oh my god. I'm at 5:55 while I was at 4:10.
The numbers Franck gave are his pace. Being at 5:55 means
he can run 1 km in 5 min 55 sec (~9.23 min/mi)
Which, for him, is really slow.
And my vocal kicks don't help much.
Franck! What's with that stride! It's 20cm long!
Speaking of stride.
I checked at the 36th km to see what Franck's stride looked like.
As expected, the frequency is exactly the same.
But the length has been significantly reduced: by about 30%.
Which means is speed dropped.
And that's what happened.
2 more kilometers before the finish line. I leave Franck to get back
to Manuel for the last kilometers.
While I head back on the track, let's have an historic break
WHY? How got it invented ?
Where does the name come from? Let me show you
The name "Marathon" comes from ancient Greece:
The marathon battle, that happened 490 BC during the Greco-Persian Wars
that opposed Greeks and Persians
It took place on Marathon beach, close to Athens, on the Attica coastline
And it's a victory for the Greeks that won over the Persians
The Marathon race has an Olympic sport is based upon a piece of these wars
that is still debated among historians as many versions exist
One of them states that after one of the battle, the Greeks send a messenger to run to
Athens to announce victory... and he died of exhaustion at the arrival
...something we don't wish for our marathonians. And the other version states that the Greeks
sent a messenger running to Sparta to advice about a Persian invasion
incoming in Marathon
Whatever the truthfulness, the Olympic sport is
inspired from it since 1986
Since London Olympic games in 1908, the marathon length got longer
because, supposedly, the queen decided upon the route in order for the royal family to
assist to the race start from the windows of the Windsor castle
That's why a marathon now is 42.195km
So when marathonians cross the 42th km and that the race still is not over
they traditionally
Don't forget to thank the queen! I will, for sure, God save the queen
With this historic break, I just had enough time to bike up to
Manuel
Are you okay Manuel? It's really hard
If Franck suffered physically, he was in a good mood
Manuel, who is doing his first marathon, has bearable pains but the exercice is
psychologically difficult
By the way, we often say that
between 30 and 35km, there is a phenomenon called "the wall" and is the point at which
runners have to find a sort of second breath, second energy because they
can't take it anymore and that's where the failure will happen
The wall is not something scientifically well defined, it's more a popular definition
If we try to find a scientific definition about it, it would be linked to
a decreased glycemia in the blood
The body is not used to stored enough energy, it is not used to
provide as much during that long of a race
That's why some runners hit the wall. But not all of them
It varies from one study to another but about half of runners
do hit the wall
I don't think Manuel or Franck got hit as they did not suffer from
all the listed sorrows
But they do suffer. There is no doubt
And that's it. 3h15 for Franck and 3h58 for Manuel
with 600m hills (2000 ft)
approximately twice the hills of San Francisco's marathon
And that is JUST a marathon
There is also ultramarathon, iron men, ultra trail such as the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc
And at that time, just there, I dont'think either of them would
have signed up for a longer challenge
Marathons are more and more popular and if you ever give yourself that kind of challenge
Congrats! but be careful, a marathon needs physical and psychological training
especially if you want to enjoy it
I hope that you liked this video, I loved following the runners
even despite the rain, and I hope it was informative for you
I don't do it very often but I'd like to thank all the tipers (patreon equivalent) that fund this channel
I'm not sure if I would still be here if you weren't
Your help does really make a difference
So thank you
And if you want to help the channel, there is the tipeee (patreon equivalent) of course
but sharing, commenting or liking do help as well
I don't always answer to comment but I read all of them
I would also like to thank Pr. Jonathan Tremblay from the university of Montréal
that I hassled with my questions to create this video
Thank you all, and as we say in Quebec, have a nice holiday season
Bye