What is the cause of "marathon wall"

Co-Flounder wrote:

The wall is caused by improper training. Most people train to finish. Their longest training run is only 20 - 22 miles.

How well would a miler run if his longest runs during training were 0.8 miles?

Or instead think of time running rather than distance, do a few distance runs with duration == to your goal time, to me that seems a more logical approach.

My answer is as others have already said, going too fast and/or insufficient training, which is probably obvious.

The marathon is such a hard event to train for, get it wrong and its a long wait until the next one. Hard to experiment.

Darby wrote:

Some facts:

- Caloric requirement of racing 42km is practically independent of the speed. Elites spend similar amount of calories (but at much faster rate).

Completely wrong. Elites use slightly more calories per minute, but run the race in fewer minutes than you. So they use far fewer calories in total.

Ermin Ngamet wrote:

So that's the consensus?

Going to hard is going to make you deplete you completely? I am not talking about dropping a little pace and finishing weak, not being able to maintain the programmed pace, but falling hard to recovery pace, to absolute jog, just to be able to cross the line.

I heard some people saying that it happen mainly in marathon and rarely in longer race. Because of pace? Because of the surface? Because of the training?

Long race are a must for marathon, however, you don't often run these long race ar marathon pace for more than 30 km, and generally that wall hit in the last 10k.

You can hit the wall and have plenty of glycogen left in the tank if your legs are simply tired because you didn't train enough.

cool!

umm, what? wrote:

Darby wrote:

Some facts:

- Caloric requirement of racing 42km is practically independent of the speed. Elites spend similar amount of calories (but at much faster rate).

Completely wrong. Elites use slightly more calories per minute, but run the race in fewer minutes than you. So they use far fewer calories in total.

It's ok. I understand that you are in need of a simple explanation. So consider this: a 3 hour marathoner with typical efficiency has VDOT of 53. Typical 2:10 elite has VDOT of 78. Both run at about 85% of their VO2Max (which is for average efficiency runner equals VDOT). So one is oxydizing 53*85%=45 units of fuel per minute, another as you wisely noted, SLIGHTLY more: 78*85%=66.3. 45*180 = 8100 units of fuel per marathon. 66,3*130=8619 units of fuel. A little bit more for elite, actually!

Ermin Ngamet wrote:

Thanks for the detailed answer.

That message sent by the body about low glycogen level, the best way to get around is refueling? How fast the added fuel is ready to be absorbed and used?

I am not talking about the pain which invade the muscle, but the feeling of complete lack of any remaining energy. Running on fat can't achieve anything good.

Actually, the effect is almost instantaneous. When carbs hit your mouth, your brain knows that the sugar is coming, so it stops trying to make you slow down. You can swish Gatorade and spit it out, and you'll still get a benefit.

Co-Flounder wrote:

The wall is caused by improper training. Most people train to finish. Their longest training run is only 20 - 22 miles.

How well would a miler run if his longest runs during training were 0.8 miles?

Nobody depletes their glycogen stores running a mile.

umm, what? wrote:

Darby wrote:

Some facts:

- Caloric requirement of racing 42km is practically independent of the speed. Elites spend similar amount of calories (but at much faster rate).

Completely wrong. Elites use slightly more calories per minute, but run the race in fewer minutes than you. So they use far fewer calories in total.

I assume that Darby meant to control for mass. If the elite athlete weighs the same as the non-elite, then the caloric expenditure is going to be similar (subtracting the BMR of course). Differences in economy between elites and non-elites are actually pretty modest, and differences in economy at different paces for the same athlete are almost nonexistent. In running, caloric expenditure mostly largely a function of weight and distance covered. (As an aside, this is why Garmin's calorie counts are so wildly wrong for running; they depend on heart rate, which is reasonable for cycling, but not at all for running.)

It's mostly a fitness issue in my opinion. Maybe sometimes it's a glycogen issue...this is more true for the much slower crowd...approaching 4 hours and beyond.

For the 2.5 to 3.5 hour runners its going out too hard vs overtraining. It can be a combo of the 2. Most people overestimate their fitness and go balls to the wall the first 10K. Obviously you're going to be walking at mile 20 if you do that.

Others just trained too hard. I see so many people running 50 miles a week and doing a 22 miler 2 weeks before their race at not much slower than goal marathon pace. Good luck recovering from that in 2 weeks. That'll hang around and rear its ugly head on the backside of the marathon.

The wall depends on how stiff you are.

If you're totally limp you you won't hit the wall but if you between 20-30% stiff there is that much less blood flow and you'll definitely hit the wall.

I imagine it's a lot of different things for a lot of different people. The one time I felt like I hit "a wall" was a combination of a lot of things. Poor training. Dehydration. Mental fatigue.

I have a tough time believing it's glycogen depletion, at least for me. Outside of that one very poor race, I never felt a sudden change in effort occur anywhere in a race.

I don't doubt it could be glycogen depletion for some runners. I knew one very successful 5k guy that slammed his head against the marathon several times and never could even get in the ball park of where he should have been. He switched up his training, pacing, etc. Same results every time.

I’ve only run one marathon, finished in 3:32. Longest training run was 20 miles at about an 8:25 pace. Honestly I never hit any wall. I took 6 gu gels during the race and drank plenty of water and had a salt tab too. Around mile 21 I felt like my legs hurt a lot so I popped Tylenol. The last 2 miles of the race felt hard, almost felt like I was woozy/lightheaded, but I held pace.

In the end I had even splits and sort of sprinted (sped up at least) in the finish chute

In retrospect I was probably in 3:25 shape but paced conservatively bc it was my first.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Evolution! In the old days of persistence hunting, the successful hunters who caught the prey within 20 miles got back to the cave first and claimed the women. Hunters who could run farther than that could maybe catch a few more kinds of animals, but they got back to the cave much later and the women were unimpressed. So the ability to run more than 20 miles was weeded out of the gene pool.

That's why even today, being able to run a marathon makes you less attractive to women. Men who can should not admit it.

Holy Sh!t Snacks! You are dumber than a slice of toast.

nowallforme wrote:

In retrospect I was probably in 3:25 shape but paced conservatively bc it was my first.

no, you weren't. you were in 3:32 shape.

Smarter Breakfast wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:Evolution! In the old days of persistence hunting, the successful hunters who caught the prey within 20 miles got back to the cave first and claimed the women. Hunters who could run farther than that could maybe catch a few more kinds of animals, but they got back to the cave much later and the women were unimpressed. So the ability to run more than 20 miles was weeded out of the gene pool.That's why even today, being able to run a marathon makes you less attractive to women. Men who can should not admit it.

Holy Sh!t Snacks! You are dumber than a slice of toast.

Holy butthurt marathoners! Why are they so touchy? Is it the skinny arms? The low T?