Hit "The Wall" @ Mile Seven... (Read 715 times)

when I went out for a 14 mile run today. Knew something was wrong at about two miles out when checking my Garmin and it was reading 10:00 min. per mile. What the heck? I felt like the pace should be much faster based on the perceived effort. On some runs, it seems to take a while to get in the groove and eventually feel a lot better about 30 minutes into it, so I kept on plodding away hoping this struggle would pass. Not today! It just got worse as the run progressed. When I hit my turn-around @ mile 7, felt like walking but had no intention of walking home or knocking on some strangers door and calling my wife to come and pick me up. So, I just gave it everything I had and kept running. Trying to keep my mind off the pain, tried to figure this out when I realized I had "hit the wall" and my glycogen tank was completely empty. Yesterday, I had an amazing 11 mile run @ an ave. 9:00 per mile. The last 4 miles the pace was sub 8:30's and I felt very comfortable with this run. Having not eaten anything before this run, didn't eat anything until two hours after, then I didn't eat again for four hours. My total calories for that day was a whopping 900 calories! The best I can figure is... that 11 mile run completely depleted my glycogen. Then, only consuming that few amount of calories when attempting the 14 mile run, was pretty much starting off with no glycogen reserve whatsoever. The thing is, this was not done on purpose. I just wasn't that hungry yesterday. Has any of you experienced the same thing and do you think I have accurately diagnosed what may have happened to me?

900 calories!!! The minimum you would want to eat for a day at your weight and still lose weight would be around 1250. You really need to watch your diet closer and even if you aren't starving eat something healthy especially within 10-30 minutes after a decent run.

Not enough fuel in the tank my friend.

The short version: I don't think its medically possible that your glycogen was depleted. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to confirm or contradict that statement, but if memory serves, your stores are replenished when you sleep; an 11 mile run one day might leave you tired or sore, but I don't think it'd affect glycogen stores. And I'm pretty sure you can't technically hit "the wall" that soon. Here's my question: why the @%@#$% are you going on 11 and 14 mile runs on a total daily caloric intake of 900 calories? Am I reading that right or am I misunderstanding? I think its safe to say that's a recipe for all sorts of disaster.

I believe it was in a book Hal Higdon had written saying something to the sort of... runs of 90 minutes will deplete the body of glycogen. He brings this up in one of his chapters about slow twitch/fast twitch muscles saying that once you run out of glycogen, it forces your fast twitch "A" fibers to take on the characteristics of slow twitch muscles. So, assuming that is correct and I had managed to drain the sugar tank, and only replenished the glycogen stores with only 900 calories, wouldn't that mean starting off on the next run with the tank half full? Don't know how accurate this is, but according to my Garmin, it says I'm burning 128 cals per mile. 128 X 7 = 896. This then, may explain the big bonk @ mile 7. To answer your question... Not eating enough after the 11 mile run was just an oversight. Not intentional at all.

You can run head first into the glycogen depleted wall and bonk bad during a hard two mile run if you start with no glycogen and run hard. Glycogen is not restored (during your sleep, during work, during the recent Giants/Pats game) unless you take in calories. If you do not take in sufficient calories, your glycogen will not replete. Next time, JK, stay in a Holiday Inn express. And grab some biscuits.

But at Motel 6 they live the light on. An experiment: I did 16 miles yesterday and finished less than 12 hours ago. I'm out to do 10 right now. But a) I ran slow, and b) I ate like a horse late last night. Will I "bonk?" We'll see. I suspect not. Food matters.