Friday Thoughts 75
Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, enjoy!
Marathon Distance and marathon versus mile
I came across a post the other day and thought, no way, this can’t be right. Everyone knows the old legend: some guy ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver a message, collapsed upon arrival, and thus began humanity’s obsession with the marathon and the iconic 26.2-mile distance.
After some extensive research (i.e., googling), the distance from Marathon to Athens is actually 40 kilometers—or 25 miles.
So where did the extra mileage come from? Turns out the Queen of England really did have the course extended to make the finish more spectator-friendly, adding 1.2 miles and turning a nice, clean 40K into 42.195 kilometers (26.2 miles).
Thinking about the marathon led to a conversation with the noon class the other day:
What if the world obsessed over the mile instead of the marathon?
Would people be healthier? Would fewer people get injured running?
Is a fast mile more impressive than a slow marathon?
And which one actually leads to better fitness gains?
My take: training for a fast mile demands strength, power, and the ability to tolerate high intensities. That kind of training naturally improves running mechanics without requiring huge amounts of volume. You can get more done in less time—and still build solid long-slow-distance endurance in the process.
It’s an interesting thought experiment. As ultramarathon running continues to gain popularity, and people keep pushing the limits of distance, I wonder if we’ll eventually see a cultural shift. Like most things that swing too far in one direction, maybe we’ll see shorter, faster efforts being held in higher regard.
crsipy clean and jerk from 8-year-old
Rayya’s conversions from pounds to kilos are nearly as impressive as her clean and jerk!
Foot Dexterity
Catch me prancing down the stairs like that in my barefoot shoes.
fitness In a nutshell
I love the perspective in this video, and here’s the big-picture takeaway: media needs headlines and captions to be compelling, but that often harms the way strength training is portrayed. It turns training into a competition of extremes — do this, not that, this exercise is the most important, never do this movement! The reality is that good training is a blend of many elements. It’s impossible to say that Exercise A is inherently better than Exercise B because so much depends on context. What’s the training history? Injury history? Goals? Training age, experience, and interests?
Anyway, this video is about how banded-shoulder-thingymobobs may not be the holy grail of all shoulder movements because the shoulder does a lot of other things too.