Chemistry in Life:
The Biochemistry of Running
Angeela Riaz
Chemistry 306
Dr. Mark Lee
05/12/2015

Abstract
In common metabolic biochemistry human burns fuel (food) and generate energy. This energy is responsible off doing all types of processes of her body. Human body work in a very complex way when there is a demand on working muscles. During running so many changes are noticeable in human body. Those changes are faster heartbeat, sweating, hurting of muscles and very fast and deep breathing. These things consider normal doing marathon run. In order for runners to run marathon they have to train their body with hours of training. These trainings prepare their different body areas for example heart, lungs and red blood cells. Red blood cells are train so they can release maximum oxygen for muscle use during marathon run.
Before the actual race to start runners brain prepared their body for “flight or fight” process. This is done by releasing epinephrine which is also known as Adrenaline. The chemical formula of adrenaline is C9H13NO3. With the release of epinephrine runner’s body get ready for action. Muscles are used in any type of exercise according to Shuo Qing, “during running muscles are working to accelerate body and keep it moving”. Muscles generate force by using energy. In human body, muscle work as an electric motors. They use the chemical called adenosine dry phosphate (ATP) for the source of energy. Three different types of food Carbohydrates, fats, and proteins can be used to generate ATP. But mostly Carbohydrates in the form of sugar or glucose molecules are the major.
Marathon is always consider as an ultimate challenge physical activity, because it involves sustains long exercise of moving the muscles. This means that you need lots of energy that goes on to it. Doing this we need different type of energy. In different energy sources are available in human body. There is a couple of ways energy is available. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is main source that we utilize (Blann, 2010). There is very small amount of ATP available in our bloodstream which can be used for very short amount of time. It can be only use in matter of seconds, rest of the ATP we can synthesize in different ways. First source of Energy that marathon runner’s use is the ATP available immediately in the human body (Blann, 2010).
As ATP can only supply enough energy for a couple of seconds, so for sustained muscle contractions ATP have to be regenerated, so from their ATP is provided by reaction of Creatine phosphate and ADP (Brown, 2012).Creatine can be synthesized in our body or we can take it to the dietary sources. Creatine is present in muscles in its phosphorylated form which is called Creatine phosphate or Phosphocreatine. On other hand ATP molecule which have adenosine bond to three phosphate group (Brown, 2012). ATP release energy when it break it's very high-energy phosphate bond and free phosphate group which can form a molecule called adenosine diphosphate (ADP). This reaction of phosphocreatine and ADP, regenerate ATP. Both reactions are shown below (Blann, 2010).

According to Le Châtelier’s Principle mention by Del Coso, J., Fernández, “as the concentration of ATP is depleted in the first few seconds of intense exercise, the phosphocreatine-creatine equilibrium shifts to favor the formation of ATP. ATP can then be used again to power muscle contraction for up to 10 seconds of extremely intense activity, such as a 100-meter sprint” (Del Coso, 2013)

After the depletion of creatine phosphate glucose become main energy source for runner’s body. ATP can be synthesized by glucose breakdown to pyruvate. This process called glycolysis (reaction of glucose to pyruvate is shown below).Pyruvate can further process in and can form ATP but this process required additional oxygen. Since during running muscles are at their maximum action, oxygen cannot enter in muscle cells faster, which is required in oxidative phosphorylation and citric acid cycle to produce more ATP (Brown, 2012).In those anaerobic circumstances out of necessity pyruvate converted to lactate, which then transported to live via bloodstream and then recycled to pyruvate. Glucose for pyruvate is generated by glycogenolysis, which is a process breaking down glycogen to glucose. Glycogen is stored sugar in our muscles. Due to the buildup lactate muscles get tired and the anaerobic glycolysis last only for couple of minutes.

From there on another pathway become available. As mentioned above during running, our heart beat get faster and we breathe hard this result more oxygen to our muscles by bloodstream. After our muscle cells get enough oxygen the aerobic pathway get activated. In the presence of oxygen ATP can be a generated again by citric acid cycle and oxidative Phosphorylation. During the long race, runners should not go over speed. Keeping a consistent speed just under “anaerobic threshold” can avoid muscles fatigue. According to Blann, “the anaerobic threshold is defined as the level of exercise intensity at which lactic acid builds up in the body faster than it can be cleared away. For this reason, it is also sometimes called the lactate threshold”.
During long race burning the fatty acid from fat is very effective ( ). When human body burn one gram of fat, it generate more than double calories then compare to burning of one gram of carbohydrates. Marathon runners can use store fat and run for several days. Even though burning fat look good source of energy, it cannot reach muscles cell fast enough to provide ATP that is required for running. So glycogen and glucose is the best option for runners. Once all the glycogen finish, runner get in the confusion stage called “hitting the wall”. At this time runner speed slow down and runners consume food high in carbohydrates for further glycogen synthesis.
As now we know that in every cell of the human body the main energy source that can help everything moving is called ATP. To converting ATP into energy is complex process, but mainly ATP have adenine nucleotide bond to three other phosphates. Energy that is store in between the second and third phosphate group of ATP can be used in different chemical reactions. In the need of energy ATP make ADP by breaking its bonds and also create a free phosphate molecule. During running the work of the muscle increase and it increase muscle contraction. Lots of ATP is required during muscle contraction. Since ATP is very important, our body can synthesize ATP by different ways, which include phosphagen system, glycogen-lactic acid system and aerobic respiration. During running human body needs lots of energy and generate ATP from all three ways.
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