‘The wall’ is part physiological, part mental, and it tends to rise up in front of a runner somewhere between the 30 to 42 kilometre mark if running a marathon. When you hit the wall, there is a feeling of heaviness in the legs, a shortness of breath, a dryness in the mouth and a slowing of pace. You tend to feel like there’s no way you can go on, your mind screaming at you to walk, cursing you for taking on this challenge, and crying for it all to be over. Some find it impossible to overcome the marathon wall, forcing many participants to pull out before the finish line. “From a physiological point-of-view, you hit ‘the wall’ when the body’s glycogen (fuel) stores are depleted,” Bupa sports dietitian, Nick Green, explains.
“Up until this point your body has been using a mixture of glycogen and fat to fuel your run. The feeling of hitting the wall is when you’ve run low on glycogen (the storage form of glucose) and are relying predominately on fat for fuel. Adequate consumption of carbohydrates before and during the event is the key to helping prolong your glycogen stores and delaying depletion.” The good news is, only about
How do I avoid ‘hitting the wall’?
If you’re a returning marathon runner who has experienced ‘hitting the wall’ in past races, try adjusting your taper, carb loading and race-day fuel strategies. If you’re a newbie, make sure you have these strategies to overcome the wall in place! Taperingmeans decreasing your training distances and intensity leading up to a race. Most good marathon training plans have these built in. If you’re not following any kind of training plan, try reducing the amount of running you’re doing by about 40 percent two weeks prior to your marathon and 60 percent in the final week. This should help you avoid hitting the wall on race day.
Carb loadingis the eating of additional carbohydrates in the week, and on the day, before a race. This is not about eating pasta every night, or a huge plate of grains every lunch. It’s about adding an extra handful or two of additional carbs to every meal as marathon race day approaches. Green explains: “The purpose of carbohydrate loading is to help maximise your muscle glycogen (fuel) stores. This is achieved by following a high carbohydrate diet for one to four days before the event, during a period of exercise taper.” Appropriate tapering and carb loading can get you so far, but alone won’t get you past the marathon wall to the end of a race. Appropriate fuelling during the race is the final piece to the puzzle. “Think of your glycogen stores as your muscles’ fuel tank,” Green explains. “In the first 60 minutes your body draws that fuel down. Start re-fuelling and re-hydrating 30 to 45 minutes into an event to keep on top of things—help keep that tank just above empty.”
Green discusses more on appropriate race day fuellinghere.
