JAMES P. writes:

This Daily Mail article states that running marathons permanently damages the heart.

Just look at this picture of female runner Paula Radcliffe — she looks like a medical specimen, her breasts have all but disappeared, and she’s grimacing in pain. What a fine role model for the young women of today!

Laura writes:

This is an extreme manifestation of the compulsive athleticism of Western women. It’s the Vitalist Woman’s fruitless, frenzied, feverish expenditure of energy. Energy for the sake of energy. Pointless and nihilistic and vain. The West slides into demographic oblivion while women exercise their fertile years away.

                                                          — Comments —

Jeff W. writes:

The other day, I saw this photo of two books by Norman Vincent Peale, and I noticed the sales pitch on the cover of the book on the right.  Peale was widely respected as a Christian leader in his day.

The Vitalist mentality has been around for a long time. But I see many signs that it is now giving way to the Nihilism of Destruction.

Pan Dora writes:

Paula Radcliffe has 2 children. Is there a required number she must produce before she will no longer be exercising her fertile years away?

I direct your attention to a letter sent in response to this article ……

” This article is a sensationalist “summary” of the actual research paper. Of the 40 athletes tested, the “more permanent damage” was detected in five older athletes in ultra endurance events – I’m sorry to break it to everyone looking for an excuse not to exercise but a marathon is NOT an “ultra endurance” event. They would be looking at people who are training for an Ironman Triathlon or “ultra marathon” of 50 or 100 miles. They also tested 7 marathon runners, NONE of whom had this problem … so actually it is not saying that marathons are bad for you! Also, how do we know that the kind of heart damage recorded in those 5 older athletes isn’t simply a symptom of ageing present in the general population? We don’t because the sample group for this study is so small and they didn’t include a control group of non-athletes. The authors of the original article even said they do not want people to read it and say “marathons are bad for you” because that is NOT what the evidence suggest.”

Sounds like some of the writers employed by the Mail Online need to find something else to write about, as it would seemthey know little about science or ultra-endurance sports events.

Laura writes:

At a recent marathon in my area, two runners, one in his twenties and the other in his forties, dropped dead. They were both men. I gave the impression in my post that this was a problem confined to women, which it is not. However, this is only one study of 40 athletes. As one of the experts in the article stated, a larger study is necessary and is not enough to conclude that marathoners are running themselves “to death.”

I made no comment on Paula Radcliffe’s fertility. I referred to the trend of suicidally low fertility among educated white women which has paralleled the trend of increased athleticism. Even if women are not running themselves to death, they are running their culture to death, expending immense amounts of energy on exercise that could be spent on something much more fulfilling: motherhood.

Regardless of the health effects, I agree with James P. that Radcliffe’s appearance is disturbing.

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