A Boston Marathon winner
and a two-time Olympian,
Desiree Linden can certainly run and run.
She's like a bunny. She can do this all day.
With the help of her USA teammate, Lolo Jones,
we're going to discover what makes
Desiree such a great marathon runner.
Hi, I'm Lolo Jones and welcome
to Anatomy of a Marathon Runner.
Joining me in Las Vegas is US marathon star, Desiree Linden.
-Are you ready for this? -I'm ready.
Let's go.
Marathon running is the ultimate test
of stamina, posture, and strength.
I love the marathon
just because it's this mental challenge.
Obviously, it's 26.2 miles
where you are beating up your body and it's physical.
But in your head it's just that constant battle
to keep pushing through to the end.
Since finishing seventh in the women's marathon
at the Olympic Games Rio 2016,
Desiree has gone on to win the prestigious Boston Marathon.
Now 36, this is how she measured up before our tests
at a leading sports science facility in Las Vegas.
First up, we're going take a look at
at Desiree's body composition with the DEXA scan.
So the DEXA scan is X-ray based technology,
and what it does is allow us to understand
how much fat mass the athlete possesses.
We can consider marathon running
as like gravity sport.
Obviously, she has to carry her bodyweight
around a course for two and a half hours.
And we need to make sure that she has an efficient
body composition to support her performance.
Desiree has a body fat percentage of 19.6,
which is higher than many other elite marathon runners.
Her metabolism has slowed with age,
but she's still incredibly efficient for her sport.
I think it gives females everywhere a sigh of relief
because we stress so much about how much we weigh,
our body fat, and if this girl is running 26.2 miles
and has that body fat, it lets you know,
"Hey, relax, relax on the numbers.
Sometimes they're not a true indicator
of where you're at."
When running for over two hours,
you have to have good posture.
This next test will examine her upper body strength.
The first test we are going to do
is to look at the front portion of your core.
You're going to be sitting at a 60-degree angle
and we're just going to hold that position for time.
The second test we're going to do is going to be face down
off the edge of a bench, and again,
you're going to be in a horizontal position
and we're going to hold that position for time.
Having good core strength is essential in ensuring
marathon runners maximize their lung capacity
and avoid wasting too much energy with excessive rotation.
Alright, and we are going.
This is one of those deceiving tests
that looks like it's not hard, but...
Much like a marathon, it's a long, slow,
-prolonged death. -That makes sense.
It felt really comfortable sitting at the 60-degree angle
and just holding that, which makes a lot of sense.
When you were thinking about becoming a marathon athlete,
did you realize that sprinters get paid the same amount
to run 12 seconds that you do for over two hours?
I tried that route and then I just kept
bumping up and up and up.
Five, four, three, two, one!
There we go. OK, next one.
Hands across your chest and just hold that position.
Okay, we're going.
Great stuff. Just keep this nice and horizontal.
Perfect.
What part of the marathon
do you feel like you're in right now?
Halfway?
She had a little bit of a dominance to the front
in terms of her anterior core,
but again her performance standard and the duration
at which she could hold some of these postures
was truly outstanding and not surprising
based on her size, her weight, and obviously
how she has to hold herself during the race.
While some athletes would last
just seconds, Desiree was able to hold the anterior
and posterior positions for over three minutes,
demonstrating incredible core strength endurance.
I know you have a lot of power and strength in those legs.
Do you think so?
I mean I can only run two laps,
so I'm just curious to test them out.
-Do you want to do this? -I think that'll be fun.
Okay.
Okay, Des, so we're going to do the counter-movement jump,
which is a vertical jump looking at lower leg power.
If you look at the marathon, it's over 50,000 individual
steps in a marathon, right?
So, each one of those you've got to push into
the ground and you've got to produce force.
Basically, you're going to step on this force plate here.
It's going to measure how much force you put into the ground.
We're going to do a vertical jump for maximal height
and we'll see how good your performance is.
Alright.
Although marathon runners don't need to be as powerful
and explosive as sprinters,
they do need lower-muscle strength
to get through those miles.
Okay, step onto the plate, nice and still.
Here we go. High as you can.
Three, two, one, go! Up!
Good, nice and still.
Good job, Des.
She had a jump height of 32 centimeters,
which is not truly outstanding.
We wouldn't expect that when we compare her
to something like a volleyball player,
a basketball player, or any other strength power sport.
She's very much an endurance based athlete,
who works at lower intensities for long, sustained efforts.
I mean, Des, you're not going to be a basketball player.
Surprise!
I think, I wasn't going to be a basketball player, but I think
I could probably do that test for about an hour straight.
Let's take a break from testing.
-Let's. -Tell me... Oh, you're tired?
-A marathon runner's tired? -That's right.
How did you get involved in your sport
and especially marathon?
No one starts as a marathon runner, right?
Not at all. I really wanted to be
a 1500-meter runner and then slowly worked my way up.
But in college it was like, "10k is enough, coach.
I'm not going any further than that."
Oh, so you were like, determined!
That was it, and here we are several years later,
but you just keep bumping up, and--
What do you mean you just keep bumping up?
When you get too slow, you don't have this problem,
-but when we get too slow... -Oh, I do.
...you bump up to the next event.
I've definitely got slower in my career,
but I have stayed in the same event.
-So 800 meters in your future? -I like it, I like it.
Hey, you might have changed my career path.
What were the memories you had as a kid
watching the Olympics?
I watched gymnastics, a lot of gymnastics.
There was the floor routine in our family area.
Me and my sister, like,
doing the flips and stuff, just very poorly.
But when I was in college, Deena Kastor's bronze medal
was a pretty inspiring moment.
-It stood out for you? -Yeah.
Going into the stadium and she's got the tears
and you're like, "I want to do that one day. That's so cool."
So, you ready for some more testing?
I think so.
-Let's go. -What's next?
The 100-meter hurdles sprint test.
Cancel it all!
Now let's find out more about Desiree's endurance capacity.
The next test we performed was an anaerobic threshold test,
which, again, is a really interesting test
for a marathon runner.
Marathon runners use oxygen to fuel their efforts.
This test measures the point at which the lungs
can no longer inhale enough oxygen
to manage the effort required.
This is known as the anaerobic threshold
or lactate breakpoint.
How many minutes is she going for?
She's going to go about eight to ten minutes.
We're now entering the second minute
of the first level, eight miles per hour.
And then it's going to go nine,
ten, 11 and then 11 and a little incline.
Oh, it's going to have an incline?
Yeah, 15 seconds and it's going to go a little bit faster, Des.
The treadmill test was
probably where I was going to thrive the most.
It makes a lot of sense.
Alright, speeding up.
She's showing no sign of pain at all
because she's just, you know...
Whatever, she just likes the pain.
Alright, you can either jump to the side
or I'm just going to slow it down.
You going to jump?
No, alright, here we go,
it's going to slow down pretty quick.
There you go. Good job, Des.
Excellent work.
This is a really good test again for Desiree
as a marathon runner at the elite level.
She produced a heart rate at her threshold
of 171 beats per minute
which is kind of the area we would expect.
But what is truly outstanding is she had a treadmill
speed of 17 kilometers per hour with a one percent incline,
so it shows us that Desiree has got the ability
to go to those higher intensities
before the onset of fatigue,
which is critical for her sport.
Seventeen kilometers per hour is the fastest pace
at which Desiree can run before her body
starts producing more carbon dioxide than oxygen.
This shows she can work at high intensities without fatiguing.
ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD
It's been an absolute pleasure to monitor and assess
and test a truly, truly world class marathon runner.
Obviously, she is not
a basketball player or a volleyball player
where she needs to run and jump high
and perform very explosive movements.
For her, it's about sustained effort in the most efficient
fashion possible and she really demonstrated this today.
I'm Desiree Linden. I've got to run.
Thanks so much for watching.