Hello Wall

The ‘Wall.’ The enemy of every long distance runner and destroyer of BQ dreams. The inspiration for the movie “Run Fatboy Run.” I know the Wall, I hit it at my first marathon around mile 21. The Wall is breaths of exhaustion piled upon one another and cemented by a mixture of fear and doubt.

So, needless to say I was quite surprised to see the Wall—not to mention run smack into it—during last night’s 4M run. Yes, I hit the wall in a 4M run. At the start of the second mile I was doubting myself, questioning if I should ever race again, and how on Earth I was going to make it the entire run—let alone a marathon.

But that wasn’t the Wall. No, the Wall showed up shortly into mile 3. Bamm. Legs mush into jelly, every breath was a massive struggle. I wanted to walk. Walk, on a 4M easy run?

It is not a guarantee you will hit the Wall every marathon, but when you do the only questions that matters is how you will respond. Fortunately, I kept gutting it out and kept fighting, thinking only of moving my feet and pumping my arms…repeating the words “I believe.” Stupid Wall. Splits: 6:10, 6:38, 6:52, 6:42. In the end my average was right where I wanted it to be, but it was a struggle.