7700/516 = just under 15 miles a day or around 100 miles per week. Typical mileage for any elite distance runner or even a decent D1 college runner (and low for an elite marathoner). But they often do it in one or two continuous sessions, often with significant intensity. The task of just covering the mileage in a day (without trying to do it in one go or trying do any of it fast) is nothing particularly exceptional. Heck as a slow 50-something dude I did 100 miles weeks during Covid when I had some free time. Health effects: assuming you were biomechanically inclined to do okay with lots of running and built up to it over a long enough time to avoid the usual overuse injuries it would almost certainly just make you healthier.
Only on HN you'll see a comment like this downplaying the achievement. With Endurance sport, it's the lack of rest days that make it exponentially harder, you really can't compare with what you've.
15 miles a day is pretty tame for any long distance runner. Even without rest days. You're going to be doing 15 miles in ~3 hours. That's plenty of rest time.
I suspect this guy was actually running significantly more every day but also took some significant time off.
Russ Cook, who also ran the length of Africa, ran a route that was 2000 miles longer, in about 5 less months. He covered on average about 28 miles per day.
They're both very impressive accomplishments, but not as physically impressive as mentally, at least in my opinion.
Funny, you bring us Russ Cook, his body was literally breaking down. Again, 15 miles on average is tame for a long distance runner. It's starts to become exponentially harder when there are no rest days involved. Both of the achievements are nothing to scoff at.
> 15 miles a day is pretty tame for any long distance runner.
His Strava log clocks him at double that (34+ miles per day) over the last couple of days. So I'd say the average is not representative of his normal, on-the-road pace - which makes sense because he was detained for 3 weeks, visited extended family for part of the 517 days in addition to whatever breaks he took.
28 miles per day? That is 45 km. How is that possible? What would your feet look like? When I read about people who did immensely long walks, it is always your feet that give out.
I had several friends who ran 15-20 miles/day 7 days a week pre- and through- COVID.
At a slow enough pace (relative to the individual), 15-20 miles isn't a hard run for many distance runners. (For the BQers in the bunch, their recovery pace was faster than my race pace. However, their race paces would be considered recovery paces for professional marathoners.)
>7700/516 = just under 15 miles a day or around 100 miles per week.
Does your calculation factor in the lost time when he had to stop due to immigration, war zones, being jailed for weeks? IE. When he does run, he could be running 25 miles/day but on some days, he runs 0.
You can walk 3 miles an hour at a leisurely pace. That’s a 5 hour walk everyday or probably like a 3-4 hour run. Really not all that bad if you’re used to it.
I think that’s about the average of what a typical Appalachian Trail hiker does, which means that it is very well within the bounds of reality for a regularly able and very motivated person
For all the people reacting that this is not a lot. Don't forget he has had a lot of border troubles, police troubles, money troubles and support troubles.
Including rest days, I would estimate his running days at somewhere around the 400.
That would mean about 20 miles per running day. So 6 miles short of a marathon, each day.
It is insane in today's world! But big mileage (barefoot, no less) is something we evolved for. Check out the great book Born to Run by Chris Macdougal which explores that concept.
Yes, that's explored in the sequel. He lives on in Urique, Mexico where his likeness is plastered everywhere and is the namesake for the big annual race in that town.
The article you linked doesn’t support the statement made about it. The evidence is mixed but shows worse overall outcomes for those overdoing it. Here’s a scientific publication that’s clearer that recommends 1-2 days off per week, and no more than 5 hours running per week.
> Recent research has raised alarms about the potential for plaque buildup and scarring in the heart in some long-distance runners. Yet other studies have suggested that when marathoners get heart disease, they may be able to weather it better than non-runners.
All articles discuss scarring and physical signs but no clear link between exercise and worse life outcomes. The article you cited noted most issues resolve themselves within a few weeks after a race. There are literally 0 people exercising at “race intensity” day after day, which is completely different kettle of fish to your regular training run. Kato here certainly isn’t doing that.
Given many professionals and amateurs run over 5 hours per week and easily break 5/6 miles at a time. A quick search will show strong runners regularly hit 6-8 hours per week.
Cyclists will cover greater distances and times and, apart from Pantani (who was doped to the gills), you don’t see them dropping dead of heart attacks despite regularly covering 10-20 hours a week. Similar for triathletes.
So no, the evidence really isn’t there that distance running causes heart disease.
That's another incorrect summary. From the journal article there are multiple studies that have shown worse long-term outcomes from large amounts of exercise:
> Other studies also have confirmed the long-term adverse effects on myocardial structure (18,27–30,32), including one study suggesting that the CAD event rate during 2-year follow-up was significantly higher in the athletes than that in controls
> Recent studies have suggested that long distance runners may have increased levels of atherosclerosis and CAD (18,37). In a study 6 years ago, male marathon runners had paradoxically increased coronary artery calcification (CAC) as measured by computed tomography (CT) CAC scoring (21). A very recent study of men who completed at least one marathon yearly for 25 consecutive years (n = 50) compared with 23 sedentary controls demonstrated increased total plaque volume (P < 0.01), calcified plaque volume (P < 0.0001), and noncalcified plaque volume (P = 0.04) compared with those with EEE (Fig. 3) (37). Despite the fact that runners have better overall CAD risk profiles, these results underscore the potential for very heavy EEE to increase the severity of CAD through mechanisms largely independent of the traditional CAD risk factors.
> Very high doses of running, however, were associated with trends of worse survival compared with either nonrunners or groups of low- and moderate-dose runners.
> However, when dividing runners into quintiles of doses (miles·wk−1, running days per week, min·wk−1, and running speed), with the exception of speed (faster running always had a trend for better survival), quintile 1 (<6 miles·wk−1, 1 to 2 times per week, <51 min·wk−1) had similar mortality reductions as those in quintiles 2 to 4 and a trend to slightly greater benefit than those in quintile 5 (Fig. 4).
There are other studies that have not shown long-term adverse events. The evidence isn't conclusive and most people need more exercise, not less. But it's prudent to caution committed runners about overdoing it with this information so they can make their own informed decision.
Humans didn't evolve for endurance running though. Endurance running although a widespread concept was performed very rarely. For the tribes in Africa used as examples- they endurance hunted one particular animal prone to over heating at one particular time of the year when the ground was muddier and they run slower. Most cultures endurance hunted more rarely than that.
Humans evolved to be upright and thus are poor at running with only 2 legs. But we evolved to have very good heat dissipation since we had the intelligence to easily stay warm, etc without fur. Good heat dissipation gives us good endurance in warm weather, but 4 legged animals out run us for short and long distances as long as they don't get over heated.
Important quotes from that video: “You can exercise all day, it seems, if you keep it down.” And “let me be clear about this: there is no single step you can take in your life to ensure robust health and remarkable longevity than a habit of daily exercise.”
FWIW, there are some more recent studies that flatly contradict this claim [1] [2], so YMMV with a TED talk. My father has been a long-distance runner for 50 years, and he thinks that it is possible to do heart damage in very extreme cases, but these cases including being more committed than most Olympic athletes. The problem is when doing competitive racing type running without ever taking a break for recovery. He does know a couple of people who ran too fast and too much and had to quit due to what he calls “overtraining syndrome”. He specifically said he thinks Deo Kato isn’t likely running fast enough to cause overtraining syndrome. In the video, you might notice the data he shows depends on running pace; In the TED video, James didn’t separate miles per week from pace (at for example ~6:50). This means that distance alone - miles per week - doesn’t necessarily prove anything, miles might not be associated with risks until it’s enough miles that there’s no time left to rest.
There is a real danger here of scaring people who should exercise more, of giving the wrong impression or a backwards summary to the vast majority of people who will never ever run the risk of over-exercising so much they could cause heart damage. Your summary left out the part where James pointed to the absolute consensus that an hour a day of “vigorous” exercise is known without a doubt to be very beneficial. There’s also a danger of giving a misleading impression about the risks of not exercising compared to the risks of extreme exercise. The data in the video at ~5:10 shows not exercising leading to dying many years earlier, while there is no data here that shows extreme exercise leading to higher mortality; all it shows is that the benefits plateau. There’s some data and discussion on incidence of heart problems, but not outcomes. Essentially the summary should be: exercise all you want, and if you are wondering if you’re exercising too much, then you’re nowhere near the threshold - the very few people exercising enough to do heart damage are extreme and already know they exercise too much, because they’re compromising on work, hobbies, friends, and family in order to exercise. ;)
