The Man Who Runs 365 Marathons a Year
April 30, 2020 3:57 AM Subscribe
A different portrait of an extreme endurance runner, from Outsideonline: One day, Michael Shattuck started to run. He liked it, so he ran longer, sometimes for as many as 65 hours each week. He never wanted to stop. What was he running from?
I want to know how close he was to getting a sponsorship. Did/does he have a realistic shot at even a small deal?
posted by mattamatic at 5:06 AM on April 30, 2020
posted by mattamatic at 5:06 AM on April 30, 2020
I want to know how close he was to getting a sponsorship. Did/does he have a realistic shot at even a small deal?
Sure. But amateur sports sponsorships aren't a meritocracy. You don't get sponsored because you run a lot and need shoes. You get sponsored because of who you know (almost every support deal I've received or know about has been through a personal connection), and because you can provide nearly-free advertisement for the company. If he had an instagram account with a few thousand followers, then yeah, somebody would be mailing him shoes or gels or t-shirts with an expensive logo.
posted by entropone at 5:18 AM on April 30, 2020
Sure. But amateur sports sponsorships aren't a meritocracy. You don't get sponsored because you run a lot and need shoes. You get sponsored because of who you know (almost every support deal I've received or know about has been through a personal connection), and because you can provide nearly-free advertisement for the company. If he had an instagram account with a few thousand followers, then yeah, somebody would be mailing him shoes or gels or t-shirts with an expensive logo.
posted by entropone at 5:18 AM on April 30, 2020
I wonder if Outside has gotten around to playing the author yet.
posted by zamboni at 5:28 AM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by zamboni at 5:28 AM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
zamboni: "I wonder if Outside has gotten around to playing the author yet."
(paying, surely)
and that is seriously fucked up.
people, pay people!
posted by chavenet at 5:34 AM on April 30, 2020
(paying, surely)
and that is seriously fucked up.
people, pay people!
posted by chavenet at 5:34 AM on April 30, 2020
If I run more than 6 hours a week I am completely incapacitated for the remaining 162 hours.
posted by srboisvert at 6:01 AM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 6:01 AM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
My old next-door neighbor started biking 30 miles to and from work every day. It was part single track mountain bike trails, part road, part bushwhacking through the woods. Rain or shine. Took several hours a day. He got in AMAZING shape fast. Why? He hated his wife, and it kept him out of the house more. People are so weird. But I guess everyone does what they need to do to get by.
posted by Patapsco Mike at 6:48 AM on April 30, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by Patapsco Mike at 6:48 AM on April 30, 2020 [9 favorites]
Marathon running, ultra-running, endurance running, whatever you want to call it, it's a form of self-injury that's been glamorized.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:15 AM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:15 AM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
Are you familiar with the endurance running hypothesis, The Pluto Gangsta?
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 8:38 AM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 8:38 AM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
it's a form of self-injury that's been glamorized.
I've held a variation of this opinion for years, as I've watched family members develop chronic injuries from activities like this. It feels like an addiction to me. But the thing is, I think it feels like an addiction to them too, a maintainable addiction with many positive and few negative consequences. I know it's not exactly that, and that it's probably not a good idea to conflate the two, but..
My family has a lot of addiction and mental health issues, and I think long distance running saved the lives of my sister and my father. I think for them it filled the gap left by other forms of addiction and self-harm.
I am not nearly as committed to running as they are (and I drink a lot more than them), but it has improved my mental health to a staggering degree.
Coming from the codependency thread, it feels like there is little room between valourizing and stigmatizing, but empathy is always a safe bet.
Your knees are probably going to go at some point anyway.
posted by LRAD_der at 10:02 AM on April 30, 2020 [5 favorites]
I've held a variation of this opinion for years, as I've watched family members develop chronic injuries from activities like this. It feels like an addiction to me. But the thing is, I think it feels like an addiction to them too, a maintainable addiction with many positive and few negative consequences. I know it's not exactly that, and that it's probably not a good idea to conflate the two, but..
My family has a lot of addiction and mental health issues, and I think long distance running saved the lives of my sister and my father. I think for them it filled the gap left by other forms of addiction and self-harm.
I am not nearly as committed to running as they are (and I drink a lot more than them), but it has improved my mental health to a staggering degree.
Coming from the codependency thread, it feels like there is little room between valourizing and stigmatizing, but empathy is always a safe bet.
Your knees are probably going to go at some point anyway.
posted by LRAD_der at 10:02 AM on April 30, 2020 [5 favorites]
The military worship weirds me out, a lot.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 10:28 AM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by OverlappingElvis at 10:28 AM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
When I’m really fit I can pretty easily do a 25+ mile trail run once a week for 3 weeks before needing a little recovery — that’s in addition to my “normal” mileage of 10-mile runs a few days each week after work. The idea of doing that daily for months at a time is astounding.
His lack of articulable motivation is very relatable. Why do I get up at 4:30 on Saturday to trudge around in the hills for 5 hours? To make me hate myself less? To listen to podcasts? To help keep my T1 diabetes under control? To eat candy? To see animals and trees and forget I live in a “big” city? I didn’t make up a little mantra, but I do just shrug and say “I guess I like it?”
posted by paulcole at 1:32 PM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
His lack of articulable motivation is very relatable. Why do I get up at 4:30 on Saturday to trudge around in the hills for 5 hours? To make me hate myself less? To listen to podcasts? To help keep my T1 diabetes under control? To eat candy? To see animals and trees and forget I live in a “big” city? I didn’t make up a little mantra, but I do just shrug and say “I guess I like it?”
posted by paulcole at 1:32 PM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
Honestly, given how shabbily Outside treats its writers, maybe we ought not be linking to them here
posted by uberchet at 1:55 PM on April 30, 2020
posted by uberchet at 1:55 PM on April 30, 2020
Your knees are probably going to go at some point anyway. Evidence suggests not: More Evidence That Running Doesn’t Ruin Your Knees. "..that those who reported running were less likely to report frequent knee pain, have X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis in their knees, or have symptoms of osteoarthritis compared to non-runners."
Caveat: this is for people who report "running on a regular basis." Regularly running hundreds of miles a week is going to ruin your knees, hips, feet, and just about every other part of your body.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:19 PM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
Caveat: this is for people who report "running on a regular basis." Regularly running hundreds of miles a week is going to ruin your knees, hips, feet, and just about every other part of your body.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:19 PM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
Evidence suggests not: More Evidence That Running Doesn’t Ruin Your Knees. "..that those who reported running were less likely to report frequent knee pain, have X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis in their knees, or have symptoms of osteoarthritis compared to non-runners."
I have arthritic knees and running is how I treat them. 4 or 5 days without a run and the ache returns.
Running is also highly predictive of greater late life mobility. If you want increase you Quality Adjusted Years of Life running is one the best ways to do it.
But you only need to do about 30 minutes of running 3 or 4 times a week. Anything beyond that you are doing for reasons other than the health benefit.
posted by srboisvert at 7:41 PM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
I have arthritic knees and running is how I treat them. 4 or 5 days without a run and the ache returns.
Running is also highly predictive of greater late life mobility. If you want increase you Quality Adjusted Years of Life running is one the best ways to do it.
But you only need to do about 30 minutes of running 3 or 4 times a week. Anything beyond that you are doing for reasons other than the health benefit.
posted by srboisvert at 7:41 PM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]
I've held a variation of this opinion for years, as I've watched family members develop chronic injuries from activities like this. It feels like an addiction to me.
I mean....... a lot of alcohol and drug addictions grow out of boredom and a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness. People and animals are not made to spend their time sitting around bored, we literally go insane without enough stimulation and physical movement and pleasure and conflict and other feedback to our nervous systems. Life is pretty short: your body falls apart some day no matter what you do and you have to fill the time somehow. Running is not self harm and it's not a drug addiction, it's a normal repetitive physical behavior that people find soothing and invigorating because that's how we are hard wired.
posted by fshgrl at 8:19 PM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
I mean....... a lot of alcohol and drug addictions grow out of boredom and a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness. People and animals are not made to spend their time sitting around bored, we literally go insane without enough stimulation and physical movement and pleasure and conflict and other feedback to our nervous systems. Life is pretty short: your body falls apart some day no matter what you do and you have to fill the time somehow. Running is not self harm and it's not a drug addiction, it's a normal repetitive physical behavior that people find soothing and invigorating because that's how we are hard wired.
posted by fshgrl at 8:19 PM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]
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I've always wanted to be a runner, but I can never make it stick.
posted by Braeburn at 4:46 AM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]