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The Marathon Wall (The Wall)
Rating
"The Wall" is the sharp drop in strength and pace that many runners experience around 30-35 km of a marathon, when glycogen stores in the muscles and liver become depleted.
In detail
The body stores glycogen (carbohydrate fuel) for an average of 90-120 minutes of intense effort; once these stores run out, pace slows sharply and the body switches to the less efficient burning of fat. It feels like a sudden, almost frightening loss of strength — the legs turn to lead.
How to use it
You can avoid the wall through proper fueling during the race (carbohydrates every 45-60 minutes, see the race nutrition calculator) and sufficient volume of long training runs, which teach the body to use glycogen more economically.