Haven't updated the blog for a few weeks but the training had been going really well...atleast until today.
Today was our longest training run before the marathon....21miles! I was pretty excited about this one, since I had been logging plenty of miles over the last few weeks and was feeling pretty good about the upcoming marathon. Of course, there was one monster that I hadn't yet encountered so far. Folks in the running community commonly refer to it as "Hitting the Wall"!
I have heard and read about hitting the "wall", where your glycogen reserves get completed depleted. What I hadn't anticipated was how crippling it is.
Normally, it hits you around the 18-20 mile mark, but being the overachiever that I am, my body decided to bring it in at mile 15. And it was one of the weirdest feelings ever. Here I was, in mid-stride, going about my business and just like that....I stopped dead in my tracks. Mentally, I could have gone for another 10 miles but physically, I couldn't go more than 0.2-0.3 miles before stopping to recover. At this point, I was pounding packs of Gu Gel and Cliff Shot Bloks to restore my glycogen levels but that feeling of hopelessness is something that I never want to experience again. It took nearly 3 miles of really slow running/walking before my energy levels rebounded enough for me to start running again and finish off the run.
Overall, it was still a heck of a run and it did teach me to fuel up better the next time I head out.
TL;DR: A glass of milk and a banana is NOT enough fuel for a 20 mile run.
