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Chicago Marathoners Share What It Feels Like to Hit "The Wall"

Nike Marathon Advertising Poster, 'Hitting The Wall - A Study' 1984 by Ralph Steadman

“The Wall”. You’ll know if you’ve hit it. You won’t if you don’t.

“The Wall” is that time during a full-length 26.2 mile marathon where, even despite your months or training, things go from difficult to really, really, difficult. It is a simultaneous battle between mental and physical strength. It is that sudden wave of extreme fatigue around that plagues your body. Varying from person to person, it happens around mile 20 and it is when all pre-race plans go out the window and self-doubt creeps in.

Also known as “bonking”, hitting the “wall”  is a condition of sudden fatigue and loss of energy caused by the depletion of glycogen storage in the liver and muscles. A runner’s primary fuel sources are carbohydrates (in the form of blood glucose and glycogen) and fats.

Fats require plentiful circulating oxygen to be optimized correctly, a precious commodity when you’re running at marathon race pace. Carbohydrates, on the other hand, requires less oxygen to be activated. Thus, most of your energy during a marathon comes from the glycogen carbohydrate.

It is highly unlikely marathoners hit “the wall” during training as the majority of training programs only train up to a 20 mile long run for preparation. While this philosophy is debated, it is done for good reason. One reason being that going the full 26.2 during training doesn’t give you body sufficient time to recover efficiently before your big race. The second being that the training strategy isn’t necessarily supposed to prepare you for the mileage of the marathon itself as much as it is to prepare you for the time spent on your feet during the marathon. Meaning, if you’re aiming for a 10 minute per mile pace at on marathon day, your long run training pace should be 60-90 seconds slower than race pace as the total time spent on your feet for both will be similar. Our Chicago Endurance Sports coaches can teach you all about that. 

With proper nutrition before and during the race, “the wall” is avoidable, which is why we host the Breaking Through The Wall marathon preparation seminar. Hosted by Olympic athletes, certified nutritionists, and the Chicago Marathon executive race director, the panel will walk you through the carbo-loading phenomenon, the nutrition that will be on the course, and when to take it so that the last 6 or so miles will be a breeze. These are some of the methods we’ll discuss during the seminar, which you can sign up for here.

  1. Carbohydrate loading.

  2. Consuming food or drinks containing carbohydrates during the exercise.

  3. Lowering the intensity of the exercise to the so-called 'fat max' level.

While some still believe “the wall” is just a myth, we reached out to our Twitter followers to see what cautionary tales they had about hitting “the wall” for the first time and what it felt like for them. Have a good story? Respond to our tweet on Twitter.

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