Hitting The Wall

I went for a run before work this morning, about 10k and as almost all my runs do, it finished with quite a slog back up to the house (I live on a hill).

I hadn’t had any breakfast, or any water and had just supped a quick coffee before going out.

Usually this run wouldn’t be much of a problem for me, but I felt fairly hungry straight away, with a really empty stomach, and then as I hit the final climb out of Llanberis back to Dinorwig – BAM – I hit the wall.

I have only had this feeling this strongly a couple of times before and only when Alpine climbing. It is something that Mark Twight talks about in his excellent book Extreme Alpinism.

So, it was with heavy legs that I managed to carry on, at a snails pace, until about 10 mins later I suddenly picked back up again in to a second wind and carried on as normal.

I had been doing some fairly intensive weight training yesterday afternoon and perhaps haven’t been refuelling properly.  Although I’d always heard a run before breakfast helps with fat burning. God I don’t know. Maybe I was just knackered!

Anyway, if you can stomach the Americanisms, Twight’s book is pretty damned good, dude. I guess it’s getting quite old now too. It has been a great source of info and inspiration for me for about the last 10 years.