Hitting the wall

Me running over Tower Bridge in 2000

So what is this dreaded wall, what does it feel like and how can a runner avoid it? I did seven marathons and hit it in two. They were the 4th and 6th. I think I was part of the Marilyn school of thought before I experienced it. Sure I went through bad patches during my first three marathons but actually finished all of them strongly and I thought that maybe I was immune to this mythical wall that other runners spoke about. However, disaster struck on my fourth attempt. I decided I was going to go off at a fast pace and see how far I could get. I hoped that I might be able to get all the way and my attitude was one of do or die. I died at mile 22. I was aware that I was slowing down from mile 18 and after running up a hill just before the 22nd mile marker I literally ground to a shuffle. I had to concentrate very hard on each and every step just to pick my feet off the ground. I managed to keep running (of a fashion) but only because I knew that if I walked I would grind to a complete halt. The finish line of a race has never been so near and yet looked so far!

Marathon number five was another good one where I had a bad patch in the middle but recovered and ran the last four miles strong and fast, leaving the group that I had tucked in with during my bad patch and passing many others on my way to the finish. However, marathon number six was another one that went wrong! Again - it came back to getting the pace wrong. Unlike number four I hadn't gone into it with a gung-ho attitude. I thought I had planned my pace well. What I hadn't researched properly was the profile of the course. It was much more hilly than I realised so that when I arrived at mile 15, the one I had planned to start increasing my pace from, I realised that I wasn't able to go any faster and that in fact I felt pretty tired. It was all down hill from there. Well actually it wasn't - it may have saved me if it was but there was a long, gradual climb going on so I got slower and slower and then hit the wall around about 24 miles.

The slowing down comes about because glycogen stores become depleted. Glycogen is our primary source of energy. Carbohydrates that we eat are converted into glycogen and stored in the liver and muscles. The problem for marathon runners is that we only have around 90 - 120 minutes worth of glycogen but it takes longer than this to run a marathon so we have to start obtaining energy by burning stored fat, which does not burn as readily. When this happens, the runner can experience dramatic fatigue and hit the wall.

So, is there anything we can do to avoid the wall and make this transition from burning glycogen to burning fat less painful? It just so happens that we can. We can train our body to store more glycogen and teach our body to use fat.

Let's look at using fat first of all. This energy supply lasts a lot longer than our glycogen stores and, unlike carbohydrate metabolism, it doesn't produce the lactate that eventually slows us down so it's important to get our bodies used to tapping into the source. I found a very interesting video on You Tube today from runningraw.com that I have put on runbritain TV. Some would say that the maker of the video, Tim Van Orden's methods are a little extreme but he is right that, by running on empty, your body has to use fat supplies. He makes sure he takes no carbohydrates on board before his long run but stresses that he takes carbohydrates with him to start consuming once he is thirty (or so) minutes into the run to avoid doing himself any serious damage. One simple change you could make is to train first thing in the morning rather than at night. If you go for your run before eating anything in the morning your glycogen levels will be low and so your body will switch onto fat burning.

The other trick is to train your body to store more glycogen. One way of doing this is to eat several small meals a day. The theory is that, when you eat bigger meals the body takes some of the carbohydrates for glycogen in the muscles and stores the rest as fat but if you cut the size of the meals down there won't be much surplus after the body has taken enough for glycogen and so less will go towards fat. It's also important to refuel with carbohydrates as soon as possible after training. Because it is low in glycogen at this point the body will then take most of it and turn it into glycogen.

In summary I would say that when preparing for a marathon if you train your body to utilise fat stores, increase your glycogen stores and work out your optimum pace for 26.2 miles you should be able run straight through that wall with no problem whatsoever. Good luck!