Races — Runner dies at Rock N Roll Dallas Half-marathon

JoeEnglish - 4:58 am | no comments

running advice bug Races Runner dies at Rock N Roll Dallas Half marathonDallas,TX — According to multiple sources, a runner died today after finishing the Rock N Roll Half-marathon in Dallas. This was the inaugural running of the new Rock N Roll series event. According to USA Today, 32 year-old Mark Austry of Lantana, Texas collapsed at the finish-line and died.

While the number of runners who die in marathons is very small, there have been a number of deaths at races over the last year, including at the Dallas White Rock Marathon, Country Music Marathon, Baltimore Marathon, Manitoba Marathon and the Rock N Roll San Jose Half-marathon all in 2009. In 2009, nearly 468,000 full-marathon finishes were recorded in just the United States alone according to research done by marathonguide.com. The number is substantially larger when adding half-marathon finishes. For comparison, the established rate of sudden death is 0.8 deaths per 100,000 with marathons and the rate is 1.5 per 100,000 finishes in triathlons, according to analysis of more than 2,800 USA Triathlon events by Kevin Harris, M.D., of the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, and colleagues.

There are a number of common reasons for runner deaths in marathons. In races run in cool weather, the most common causes are undiagnosed heart conditions or previously undetected heart disease. You can read more about the causes of marathon deaths in our article “Why do marathon runners die during marathons?”

We also discussed this topic in an episode of our weekly video show last year. You can watch the episode below.

Season 1 — Episode 26 — The Death Episode from Joe English on Vimeo.

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Video — The Death Episode

JoeEnglish - 5:42 am | no comments

running advice bug Video The Death EpisodeIt’s time for Episode 26 in our Running Advice and News weekly video series. This week we take on a very uplifitng topic as we Coaches Joe English and Dean Hebert talk about death.

On this week’s episode:
— Can runners die during marathons?
— Why do runners die during marathons?
— Which is more dangerous, a marathon or a triathlon?
— How common is it for someone to die in a marathon?
— Why does it seem so prevelant in the news media?

Sounds like fun? Actually, we hope that we’ve handled this topic in a sensitive but light manner. It’s actually a pretty interesting discussion, so check it out.

To watch the video, just click the play button in the video window below.

http://www.vimeo.com/6188975

There’s much more coming. We’ve filmed over 30 episodes in this series and we’ll be rolling them out each week. To visit our video page with links to all of the episodes in the series, click here.

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Races: Two runners die after 2008 ING New York City Marathon

Joe English - 1:59 pm | no comments

The New York Road Runners has confirmed that two runners have died of heart related conditions after this weekend’s New York City Marathon. Two other runners had hear attacks, but were revived by emergency medical services and transported to local hospitals.

The New York Times reported Tuesday:

“One of the runners was Carlos Jose Gomes, 58, of Brazil. He fell unconscious shortly after completing the race in 4 hours 12 minutes 15 seconds. A resident of São Paulo, Gomes was pronounced dead at Lenox Hill Hospital at 5:21 p.m. An autopsy Monday revealed that he had a pre-existing heart condition and died of a heart attack, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the chief medical examiner’s office.

The Road Runners did not release details of the second fatality. But The Staten Island Advance reported that Joseph Marotta, 66, of Tompkinsville died, apparently of a heart attack, hours after finishing his fourth New York City Marathon. He walked the course in 9:16:46.”

The deaths of the two runners caused considerable stir in the media and the Internet, as people questioned whether marathon running is a sport too risky for the masses. The incidence of deaths in marathons is very low, although it does appear to occur most often in very large marathons, in part, due to the wider audience that they attact and the larger populations of runners involved.
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Running: why do runners die during marathons?

Joe English - 12:29 pm | 14
Coach Joe English

Coach Joe English

With the death of a runner in the Little Rock Marathon two weeks ago, as well as deaths in the 2007 Chicago Marathon and the 2007 US Men’s Olympic Trials, a number of people have recently asked the question, “why do runners die during marathons?”

After doing some research and drawing on my own anecdotal experience, I can offer some general conclusions about what causes marathon runners to die during races – and hopefully we can use this information to help avoid any of the situations that might be highlighted here.

Keep in mind that we’re speaking in generalities about a sport in which hundreds of thousands on unique individuals participate each year. We all need to be mindful that marathon running is a difficult physical endeavor, but it is not necessarily an inherently dangerous activity. A study on London Marathon runners over a 20 year period, in fact, found that with a rate of death of 1 in 67,414 (representing 1 in 2,000,000 miles run) marathon running was no more dangerous than many other daily activities.

See also our Episode 26 of our video series as we discuss this issue by clicking the play button in the window below.

http://www.vimeo.com/6188975

The four major circumstances that lead to marathon runner deaths appear to be: heart disease in runners over 35 years; genetic heart defects in runners under 35; hyponatremia or low blood sodium levels; and heat related illnesses, such as heat stroke.

Heart Disease or Coronary Artery Death
One of the most common causes of death in runners during marathons is heart attack caused by underlying coronary artery diseases. These heart attacks are brought on by the combination of the intense physical stress of running for an extended duration and the pre-existing disease in the runner’s heart or a lack of cardiac fitness to handle the race.

This type of death typically occurs in runners that are over the age of 35 and can occur even in races as short as half-marathons. Coronary Artery Deaths are most common if the race is conducted under hot and humid conditions, which places additional stress on the heart as it struggles cool the body.
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