Recreational Athlete: Do you train enough?

Recently I read an article on the stress placed on the heart by marathon running and how under training can severely increase the chances of damage.

With the rise of the fitness craze and increased interest in events such as Ironman and marathon running events I think it was very important to post it on my blog as an Ironman athlete. In December I will race my first full distance Ironman. Am I prepared? Probably not as well as I would like to because of a few injuries, but I have definitely put in hours and hours of work!

I know a lot of people that get the idea into their head of a marathon and run twice a week. Twice a week? If you think about it, a 1500m swimmer trains 10 times a week and does between 50 - 100km. If you use the same formula on running a marathon we need to do around 1400km a week of training! Obviously that's ridiculous and without going into massive amounts of detail the training is significantly different but you can imagine why only 2 runs a week would not be enough! 100km a week is even a lot and would (or in my case) cause a lot of injuries, but we really need to be careful and consult people who know what they are doing.

The study found that in athletes who didn't prepare enough their heart was damaged for up to 3 months after the race making them susceptible to heart related issues. Thats a big risk to take. So if you are going to race something, make sure you do the training and take the time to prepare so you can not only perform as well as you want, but also keep yourself healthy!

Check it out here