Joe:
Interesting point. Yes, I too have hit the wall. It seems to appear at approximately 20 miles for most of us. It may be partly mental, but I believe it is mostly physical. Hopefully somebody who knows their stuff can chime in and bail me out here, but I think your body runs out of glycogen stores or something like that and you start to fall apart. I just know you feel totally spent when this happens. I have made it through all of my 20 to 23 mile training runs without hitting the wall as I run those at an easier pace than my race pace. When I ran the Chicago Marathon I did hit the wall at approximately 20 miles and had to fight to keep from really falling off my pace and missing my goal. I think I slowed by at least 1 min per mile for miles 20-25, but found a bit of a kick for the last mile when the finish was in sight.
I would imagine most who hit the wall on Whitney are dealing with AMS more so than the typical marathon wall, but perhaps some think they have AMS when they really just hit the wall? A little of both maybe?
Last edited by trail runner; 11/03/10 06:19 PM.
