The Wall

I always heard runners talk about 'the wall' but I had never really experienced it before...until yesterday! What is the wall? Well, sometimes, when you are running for many hours, your body just becomes too tired to keep going and even your mind is too exhausted to make your body listen to it when it tells you to keep running.  You can hit this wall at any time during a race or run, but usually it occurs near the end as this is when you are most tired and ready for the whole experience to be over. To be honest, when I heard runners talk about the wall I always thought it was a bit silly...I mean, surely when you're close to the end of a race, no matter how tired you are, you just force yourself to keep going, right? Wrong...I realised yesterday that when you do hit this wall, it's almost impossible to convince your mind, much less your body to hang in there til the end!  Yesterday was my third marathon ever.  I was hoping to get a time of under 4 hours in order to get a good seeding for Two Oceans 56km and Comrades 89km.  Even though the training programme I'm following advises novices to qualify with a 4:20 marathon, I figured that if I did my first ever marathon a year ago in 4:08, what would be the point of not trying to improve on that now?  So I set my mind to running a 3:59 marathon and as I started running I felt pretty confident that this wouldn't be a problem.  I ran with the sub 4 hour bus for the first 27km and I was having a great time.  There was a big group of us running together, I met many friendly people and there was much talking, laughing and general singing and cheering every time the 'bus driver' announced that another km had been completed and that we were still on track for a sub 4 hour marathon.  After about 27km I felt strong and slowly drifted in front of the bus.  There was still a long way to go, but my legs weren't tired in the slightest and I was feeling strong.  It started happening about 4km later...the wall started coming up in front of my every step! At about 30km the bus that I so confidently left behind, was catching up to me and 2km later, they had left me behind! I could no longer keep up the pace and all my strength from before, was starting to disappear.  At 34km the wall was up in full force and despite the fact that my legs weren't sore and there was no real reason for me to become so fatigued so quickly, I just couldn't keep going! I walked slowly up and down the roads, watched as people ran past me and watched as the time quickly ran away without my legs.  I knew that if I didn't stop walking and start running soon, it wouldn't be possible to reach my goal.  But something inside me was gone.  I had no determination and no strength left.  The wall took all that!  No matter how much I tried to talk myself into running or at least walking faster, I just couldn't do it! I walked more in those last 6km than I did in my first two marathons combined.  And when I got to 41.5km and my watch hit 4:00 I just didn't care.  I kept walking, and slowly too! 5 minutes  later I crossed the finish line...defeated by the wall!!

I was disappointed at first that this happened to me during an important race and that hitting the wall meant that I missed my goal by just a few minutes, but then I realised its probably a good thing.  Most runners who run further distances, will probably hit the wall at some point during their running lives.  So it was bound to happen to me in some or other race.  I'm just glad it happened now, so that if I ever hit that wall again, say for example during Comrades, I might be better equipped to knock it down and keep running!