A 22-year-old engineering student, who participated in Chennai Marathon run here, died allegedly due to cardiac arrest after reaching the finishing point on Sunday.

According to police, M Santosh, a student of Anna University in Chennai, collapsed after reaching the finishing point of the half marathon run of 21.09 km.

Santosh fainted immediately after reaching the finishing point at the Gandhi Statue and was rushed to Government General Hospital where he died of ‘cardiac arrest’, police said.

Expert’s opinion

Unlike many activities, training for a marathon is serious business. In failing to train properly, you not only risk failing to complete the race, you also risk seriously injuring yourself which may prove fatal as in Santosh’s case.

Dr. Malissa Wood, a cardiologist, four-time marathoner, and codirector of the Massachusetts General Hospital Women’s Cardiovascular Health Center says that among marathon runners, the biggest cardiac risk seems to arise in people who train the least. People who worked up to a marathon by running at least 45 miles a week for at least three to four months ”were golden. They didn’t get into any trouble at all,” said Wood. ”If they trained less than 35 miles a week, they were in big trouble.”

Translated for the rest of us, this means that for people who are not in peak shape ‘’sudden, strenuous activity can trigger a heart attack,” said Dr. Arthur Siegel, a 20-time marathoner and director of internal medicine at Harvard’s McLean Hospital in Belmont.