What running extreme distances does to a person’s body
By Sarah Berry
In the dark before dawn, Sean Bell hobbles from bed, jimmies his sore, swollen feet into shoes a size too big, and starts to jog. Exhaustion makes it difficult to fathom how far he has to go. Instead, he focuses on running until sunrise, when he will take a break to eat.
The 26-year-old will run 84 kilometres today, as he has for the last 115 days and will continue to do for the next 60 days until he has finished what he set out to do: become the fastest person to run the 14,272 kilometres around Australia.
Sean Bell knows better than most the toll extreme distances does to a person’s body.
The nails from all 10 of his toes are long gone, nausea is constant, and his body is mutinous: regularly projectile vomiting and streaming blood from his nose.
“It’s a huge shock to the body every day,” says the Melburnian. “Your body is rebelling and asking you to stop and you’re not. Your mind has to tell your body to find a way.”
An extremely popular challenge
In the name of the lost dreams of two beloved friends, who died unexpectedly, Bell decided to try and support the dreams of others. Through his run, he is aiming to raise $1.4 million for the Make-A-Wish Australia foundation.
Through his run, Bell is aiming to raise $1.4 million for the Make-A-Wish foundation.
Extreme charity challenges have become increasingly popular, says Sally Shepherd, the executive manager of Membership and Marketing at the Fundraising Institute Australia. This type of fundraising isn’t limited by the location; it inspires people; and it fosters a real sense of community impact, she says.
Plus, new research suggests the higher the degree of difficulty of the challenge, the higher the donation.
About 20 per cent of charity fundraisers on GoFundMe are based on an extreme challenge, and they account for over a quarter of all funds raised for charities in the past 12 months, says Nicola Britton, GoFundMe regional director.
Raising the bar, but not healthy
Worthy as they are, extreme challenges take their toll on the body, as Bell is discovering, and as 52-year-old endurance runner Natalie Dau found after running 1000 kilometres in 12 days at the start of June.
While the Brisbane-born, Singapore-based mother “only threw up once” during her run across Asia, her legs filled with five kilograms of fluid and “exploded” in size.
Swelling can be an electrolyte imbalance or because gravity causes an accumulation of fluid, says Sports Medicine Australia spokesperson Dr Luke Nelson.
Dau also battled a kidney infection that made each step painful and led her to urinate blood. Even with three courses of antibiotics, she struggled to kick it.
A medical examination later revealed she had developed rhabdomyolysis, a life-threatening condition where the chemicals from muscle breakdown enter the bloodstream, and can cause kidney failure.
Natalie Dau, a 52-year-old endurance runner, ran 1000 kilometres in 12 days across Asia.
Her doctor explained that it was why her kidney infection didn’t improve, says Dau, who was raising money to empower girls through sport.
It takes a special sort of person to achieve such feats of endurance and continue through such pain, says Nelson.
“It’s raising the bar,” he says. “But it’s certainly not healthy.”
Nelson has coached athletes who, he said, have put themselves “in a hole” for a year after an extreme endurance event.
The stress of multi-day events on the body can create ongoing issues related to injury, including fractures in the foot or shinbones, and hormonal imbalances.
The sustained fatigue can also lead to reduced immune function, increasing the risk of cold and flu, and may even cause allergies and asthma.
If people manage to remain healthy and injury-free, they still face potential psychological and energy-related issues.
Though it typically improves mental health, exercising for extended periods through pain, injury, loneliness, and helplessness (if injuries continue) can become problematic, says Professor Tony Blazevich of Edith Cowan University.
Two litres of ice cream a day
With extreme endurance challenges, getting enough energy to fuel the demands can be “the biggest limiting factor,” he adds.
Though there is individual variation, the maximum sustainable rate of energy uptake in endurance events is about 2.5 times our resting metabolic rate.
But, as Blazevich points out: “Reduced gastrointestinal blood flow plus agitation from the bouncing during running makes eating and digesting difficult… And our body will adapt to burn less energy as body fat levels are reduced, so this will again slow our running ability.”
Dau, whose average pace was seven minutes a kilometre, burned through about 23,000 kilojoules daily in mercilessly hot conditions (39-degree, shoe-melting days).
“I couldn’t stomach gels,” she says, so she relied on peanut butter sandwiches, orange juice, lemonade and Gatorade as well as chocolate bars, hamburgers, roti and pasta.
Replacing the 54,000 kilojoules Bell burns per day, as he runs at a pace of six-minutes-30 to seven-minutes-30 a kilometre, is just as challenging. He is consuming two litres of ice cream and seven soft drinks a day along with pizza when he has the energy to chew, or blended food when he doesn’t.
Any of us can train our bodies, both physically and mentally, to endure more, but genetics still play a role in how much more we can push.
“Genetics will influence the rate of energy absorption in the GI tract, the amount of energy our muscles can produce, the energy cost of running (being light really helps!), and even the resilience of our bones and connective tissues,” Blazevich explains.
Adds Nelson: “Not everyone can turn themselves into a Sean Bell.”
For Dau and Bell, the price their bodies pay is worth it for what it gives them mentally.
“I just wanted to go out there and say, to females in particular, you can do anything, you can push yourself. Don’t be scared,” Dau says.
“It taught me how precious life is,” says Bell. “You can go to sleep and not wake up. Life is short so [my motto is] chase your dreams and help others chase theirs.”
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