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Probably the sex gap is unclosable in the marathon, but in the ultramarathon distances of 50 to 100 miles, women's lightness and endurance may be a commanding advantage, and a woman has been an overall winner in a West Coast 100-mile ultramarathon.
Age deters runners no more than sex. Marathoners in their 60s are almost commonplace now, and two weeks ago, 78-year-old Dr. Paul Spangler completed the 7.6-mile Bay-to-Breakers race in San Francisco in the respectable time of 60:14. (Twenty-five-year-old John Holewinski collapsed during the race and died shortly afterward; and 30-year-old Pro Tennis Player Karen Krantzcke died this year after jogging. Such deaths are rare, but exercise experts strongly recommend physical exams for beginning joggers.)
At Chicago's Swedish Covenant Hospital, Cardiologist Dr. Noel Nequin started an exercise program for heart patients six years ago. The first step is a stress test, in which the subject runs on a treadmill while wired to an electrocardiograph. Then an exercise regime is set. The beginning pace may be a walk or a slow jog, with frequent pulse checks. Conditioning is slower than with healthy joggers, but the results can be startling. Ten of Nequin's patients, one of them a 47-year-old merchant who survived a triple bypass operation, were planning to run in a ten-mile race along the lakefront.
Participants in such programs tend to talk about running with a special fervor, and so do their doctors. "Man was made a two-legged animal because he was meant to use his legs," says Dr. J.V. Shivde, one of Dr. Nequin's assistants. "We don't know what one thing causes heart attacks, but two of the risk factors are inactivity and psychological tension. Jogging is an answer for both. We can't say that exercise arrests heart disease, though there is some evidence that it may. But at least with exercise, if you have a heart attack, you have a greater chance of coming out of it alive."
Physical health is not the only benefit reported by running addicts. Runners who push themselves beyond three miles or so describe with surprising consistency a feeling of euphoria that would be worth five years in jail if it came from plant resins.
Tom Williams, 42, an ex-Stanford footballer who owns an executive search firm in San Francisco, describes a feeling that other runners will recognize (though speaking of it generally draws an "Uh, yes, that's very interesting" reaction from sedentary friends). Williams says, "I don't feel good until about a half-hour after I start jogging. Then the sense of fatigue is like a warm blanket. It's a good time to meditate. You run along feeling like you're the greatest thing. Nobody can touch you."
William Morgan, a physical education professor and psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, says that runners "can develop a sensation of omnipotence. They begin to feel invincible. They run through red lights, challenge cars at a light. Their behavior becomes absolutely bizarre to their peers. They begin running 100 to 120 miles a week." There is something resembling addiction here, and runners tend to become edgy when their exercise schedules are interrupted.
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