Running a marathon is one of the ultimate tests of stamina and physical fitness, as well as mental fortitude and patience. Come 2019, we may observe several thousand marathons all over the world- from the world's oldest, Boston Marathon, to the Tata Mumbai Marathon, in Mumbai, India. However, what most of us don't know is that many extremely dangerous things happen to one's body during the forty-two-kilometre race; things that have a risk of death attached to them, and could make doctors faint after hearing of them.
Of course, it is no surprise that marathon running has an element of danger attached to it; a full marathon is 42 kilometres, or 26 miles long, and requires approximately 40,000 steps to finish. That's an amazingly long distance to cover, and extremely risky. However, what most people don't know is that runners have actually died due to some of the below-mentioned conditions, and these can happen to anyone, no matter how healthy, fit and lean one may be.
The first thing, of course, a runner has to worry about is staying hydrated. During the course of the marathon, runners lose approximately a litre of sweat per hour, which is obviously very tough to replenish during the race. As a marathon typically requires 4 to 5 hours to finish, one actually loses more water than one drinks over the course of not one, but two days! That's why hydration centres are the first priority when organizing a marathon.
However, drinking too much water can actually also be fatal; it causes hyponatremia, also known colloquially as water toxicity. Essentially, drinking too much water causes our sodium levels to drop, which consequently causes our cells to puff up, as the water pressure becomes too high for them to sustain. The increased fluid intake causes the constant formation of a hormone called ADH, which stops us from urination. Also, sodium is highly charged, and thus attracts water molecules toward it. This forms a structure that is too big to pass through the cell membranes of the cells making up our body. Excessive water retention eventually causes death.
Continuing in our previous vein of runners losing too much water, we also observe that runners lose a lot of glycogen, which is what our food reserves are converted into when we eat. During the latter half of the marathon, at around the 20-mile or 32-kilometre mark, the runner's glycogen reserves are more or less completely depleted, which means that the runner is literally starving. In runner lingo, this is called 'hitting the wall', and it is part of the reason why a portion of the Boston Marathon route, Heartbreak Hill, is so infamous. While the route itself is not a very difficult one, runners often cross Heartbreak Hill right when their glycogen reserves are depleted, making the innocent Hill a major obstacle during the race.
And that's not all a runner loses during the marathon. To keep the body from running a fever due to the heat generated by the body during the race, the runner's brain usually gives the order to sweat. Due to excessive water loss, however, the body starts exuding heat at a massive rate, even after a marathon is over. This causes a risk of hypothermia and is why a runner always wears a thermal blanket after the marathon is over.
Furthermore, after a marathon, plenty of toxins are accumulated in the body, mainly due to fatigue. After a certain period of time, a runner's kidneys are not able to filter the toxins from the body any longer; what a doctor would call 'Stage 1 Acute Kidney Injury'. Happily enough, this is fairly temporary, and symptoms usually fade within a day or so, but it is one of the main reasons the backlash of running a marathon is so potent and difficult to withstand.
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