On April 24, Mike Flynn, chair of the Department of Health and Human Performance, will give the College of Charleston’s “toughest final exam!” This spring, Flynn has been teaching Sport Physiology and Marathon Training. For their final exam, his students will run the Country Music Marathon in Nashville.
Initially, more than 100 students expressed interest in the course. That number was pared down to 31, and those are the students who are slated to run the Country Music Marathon.
During lectures, students learned about muscle and heart physiology, energy delivery, sports nutrition, injury prevention, fluid and heat acclimation, pacing strategy, and other relevant topics. They also completed lab exercises on body composition, lactate testing and VO2 max testing. After the lecture, the class trained as a group; students were also expected to train on their own, but they had to follow a set schedule.
“I taught this class five times while at another university,” Flynn said. “Despite my 20+ years of clinical research, I was known to everyone as the ‘marathon professor.’
“There are just a few health and human performance or science majors in my class, and nearly everyone is a novice runner, so their learning curve is high. I really enjoy watching students improve, and taking the concepts they study out of the classroom cements their learning.”
Although there are no plans for a future marathon class, Flynn will be teaching a First-Year Experience course in which students will run the Cooper River Bridge in spring 2011.
For more information, contact Mike Flynn at 843.953.5558.
