5 things that happen to your body during a marathon

The marathon is a meaningful event that demands the most from its participants. Inspired by the legendary race of Greek soldier Fidipides, who traveled to Athens to warn of the outcome of the Battle of Marathon, which the Athenians won in 490 BC, the 42, 195-meter race is a challenge for those wishing to ride it. It is crucial to have impeccable fitness not to compromise health with the effort required to complete such a long run.

However, even with proper preparation, our body goes through a series of quite extreme processes during running. Here's how he reacts in an intense situation like this:

1 - Heart

During a marathon, our heart has a lot more work than usual. The organ that serves to pump blood to every corner of our body works fast, at the limit, irrigating every muscle we use to keep up with the running pace. Fast breathing exchanges CO ₂ for oxygen, leaving the blood always ready to oxygenate our entire body.

In a normal situation, the human heart dribbles at 4 to 6 liters of blood per minute, almost all of our physiology. Running a marathon, this amount increases three to four times, turning around 15 to 20 liters.

2 - Weight Loss

In terms of solid body mass, only during a marathon is it possible to decrease from 1 to 1.5 pounds. But what we really lose in such a race is water. Since on average we lose 0.8 to 1.4 liters per hour of heavy exercise, during the course of a marathon we even excrete up to 6 liters of sweat.

3 - Loss of height

That's right! When we run a marathon we get to average an inch from our height. But calm down, this is not permanent: our size returns to normal after a day or so. This shrinkage happens because the discs between our vertebrae are compressed by extreme exercise. You can see that such a test really demands a lot from our body.

4 - Most attractive

Are marathon runners more attractive? According to research from the University of Cambridge, which found that better marathon runners may have been exposed to more testosterone inside their mothers' womb. This exposure generates individuals with higher cardiovascular capacity, more sexually active and higher than normal sperm count. These features would be instinctively more attractive to women and look that it has nothing to do with the fit body of athletes. It will be?

5 - Elephant Memory

Scientists found in a Salk Institute research that running is good for the brain, more specifically for memory. According to them, one of the “side effects” of the process our bodies use to perform better during a marathon is the more advanced development of our mental abilities.

Taking this into account, marathon runners, in addition to having enviable fitness, can be smarter than a sedentary person. Put injustice on it!

* Posted on 12/5/2015

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