Bodyworks: Running a marathon won't kill you — or will it?

He paused. This is what he usually does when he contemplates saying something he thinks will upset me. Mind you, this pause never stops him from uttering his pronouncement; it just slows him down a bit.

“Look, I think you need to be careful about this marathoning. You're almost 44 years old.” He waited to see if I'd erupt. I didn't. “I mean, it could kill you. Just like it did those guys in the Philadelphia Marathon.”

I knew what he was talking about. Dad lives in Pennsylvania where, in November, two men died — one at the finish line, the other a quarter-mile short of it — during a marathon. These deaths received a lot of media attention. And it prompted questions like my father's from the family members of concerned distance runners everywhere. So, do Dad and I have anything to worry about?

I always remind runners that the first person ever to complete a marathon dropped dead at the finish line (or so the tale of Phidippides goes). But I don't think you need a Greek legend, or even a news report from the City of Brotherly Love, to tell you that running 26.2 miles puts a considerable strain on the human body.

In a new study in “The New England Journal of Medicine,” researchers looked at just how dangerous running is. In particular, they examined heart-attack risk during marathons and their little sisters, half-marathons.