Runner’s World Gives Premium Subscribers ‘Inside Look’ at Elite Marathoner

Main image via Depositphotos.com

Runner’s World published an exclusive video yesterday giving viewers an “inside look” at an anesthetized elite marathoner via surgical tools and a rib spreader, Dumb Runner has learned. The anatomical exploration quickly became the publisher’s most-viewed video, despite its being available only to members of the longtime publisher’s premium service, dubbed “Runner’s World+.”

“We wanted to see what makes a professional distance runner tick,” Perry Cox, Runner’s World’s training editor, tells viewers in the video’s intro. “So we decided to slice one up and find out.”

Set to royalty-free music and narrated by Cox, the 13-minute video goes on to deliver on that statement as a scalpel-wielding man identified as John Dorian, M.D., opens the marathoner’s chest to explore the man’s cardiovascular system and other internal organs.

“Wow,” Cox says at one point. “Now that’s what I call a heart.”

The marathoner, a male, is not named in the video. Cox describes him as a “globally recognized elite runner with several podium finishes at race distances from 5000 meters to the marathon” and “a really good sport.”

Reached for comment, Runner’s World spokesperson Carla Espinosa said the video reflected the brand’s “commitment to cutting-edge editorial coverage, if you’ll forgive the pun.”

“This sort of inside look is precisely the kind of exclusive content our fans have come to expect from Runner’s World,” said Espinosa. “It’s stuff you just won’t find anywhere else.”

Runner’s World+ members can expect similar videos in the coming weeks, Espinosa said, including a peek into an ultra runner’s brain and a laparoscopic-camera tour of an Olympic hurdler’s digestive tract.

The condition of the marathoner is unknown.