Is it all just a marketing Sham? (Read 1698 times)

xor

posted: 8/14/2008 at 12:38 AM
modified: 8/14/2008 at 12:39 AM

Okay... I actually have a serious question about bonking, and perhaps this isn't the best thread for it, but here goes. The winter of my senior year, my 4x800 team was the second seed by a fraction of a second in the state meet. I was anchoring, and my team was behind when I got the baton. I caught up to the runner in first place, and went by him. I was way over the line, but I needed a decent split for my team to win and break the state record. Everything was going well, and then with 25m to go, I just lost control. Of everything. My arms and legs were literally all over, they felt like they were going in circles. I remember about a second of that, and then I remember seeing the other runner go by me as I fell over the line, and then I remember being past the finish line, lying on my back with my coach looking down at me. The weird thing is that the other runner never passed me, despite the fact that I remember seeing him go by me (maybe a hallucination?). What the heck happened here? Is this bonking, or something more (or less) sinister?

First off, it's important to understand that people may not all mean the same thing when they say "bonk". ESPECIALLY "bonk". "The wall" is usually associated with glycogen depletion. "Bonk" gets tossed around for various things *including* glycogen depletion. It also casually gets used to mean a generic race meltdown. Or "low blood sugar" which is related to glycogen depletion, but not the same exact thing. But. Unless you didn't eat for a day or so before your relay AND ran a whole lot of other heats beforehand, you did not deplete your glycogen stores by running a single 800. Nope. What happened? Dunno.

dnephin

posted: 8/14/2008 at 7:01 AM

Quote from Lane on 8/14/2008 at 12:31 AM:

Okay... I actually have a serious question about bonking, and perhaps this isn't the best thread for it, but here goes. The winter of my senior year, my 4x800 team was the second seed by a fraction of a second in the state meet. I was anchoring, and my team was behind when I got the baton. I caught up to the runner in first place, and went by him. I was way over the line, but I needed a decent split for my team to win and break the state record. Everything was going well, and then with 25m to go, I just lost control. Of everything. My arms and legs were literally all over, they felt like they were going in circles. I remember about a second of that, and then I remember seeing the other runner go by me as I fell over the line, and then I remember being past the finish line, lying on my back with my coach looking down at me. The weird thing is that the other runner never passed me, despite the fact that I remember seeing him go by me (maybe a hallucination?). What the heck happened here? Is this bonking, or something more (or less) sinister?

So you won? I think what you experienced was a sort of transcendental/runner's high overdose. Blackouts/slow motion memory recall/fuzzy thinking are all signs of it. There's no cure but to slow down and smell the roses along the way. But you may not win then. The overdose isn't fatal anyway and nowadays, you can just have someone else video you so you can fill in the blanks. Either that, or you were huffing, which you shouldn't be doing.

DWARP
Marathon Madness Mob

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