GRhobbyjogger wrote:
So a buddy and me were discussing that point in a marathon where things start to get tough. That feeling of fatigue, heavy legs, hamstrings tightening up, whatever. Looking back over both good and bad races, the point seems to happen in the 15-18mi range. Now we both have experienced the wall and glycogen depletion and that is a totally different experience. Does anyone know what it is and the possible cause/cure? Of course the usually suspects of going too fast, undertraining, dehydration, fueling have been brought up.
What do the masters of the LRC boards think of this and any past experiences to avoiding it?
Interesting. I was terrible at the marathon. About 3000m is my max for a real all-out effort, but my marathon was a good 15 minutes slower than my 5000m/10000m times indicated.
Only did two marathons. The first one I was cruising and passing people at 21 miles, and dead at 22 miles. The next year, I got the pacing spot on - only 30 seconds between the two halves - but about 18 miles, even though I wasn't struggling, I had an near-overwhelming urge to stop, even though I wasn't struggling. Mentally, I just didn't want to do it any more. Strangely enough when I got to 20, I started feeling good, and the last six miles, I was passing runners by the dozen - it was London and around the 2:40 range, so very populated - all the way to the finish.
We didn't have gels in those days, so I'm guessing that the 18-20 mark was the switch from glycogen to fat burning, and that the lack of glycogen was causing the body to send signals to stop, even though I was running pretty easily apart from that. When the fat burning kicked in, because I was still quite fresh from a cardio-vascular/muscular standpoint, I was off again.