I’m surprised the Chinese girl’s plimsolls aren’t melting as she passes me on the hill. It’s 35°C and rising at the start of the second annual Great Wall Marathon. No amount of sunblock or light-coloured headgear makes it seem like anything less

I’m surprised the Chinese girl’s plimsolls aren’t melting as she passes me on the hill. It’s 35°C and rising at the start of the second annual Great Wall Marathon. No amount of sunblock or light-coloured headgear makes it seem like anything less

finished despondent in 3:24. Was sub-3:00 unrealistic? Did I set off too fast? A Yours seems to be a classic case of ‘hitting the wall’. Your target seems quite reasonable, given your half-marathon and 10K times, but you never know whether you’re a

run at the pace I wanted to. I think the wall hit me at 20.5 miles. It got progressively worse as I got closer to the finish. My muscles were screaming in pain, my vision was completely blurred (and flickering strangely) and my hands were tingly

, they occur during the rest period that follows. You need to give yourself at least two days between the quality sessions in your programme – and by ‘quality’ I mean intervals, fartlek, hills and even long runs.How Do I Avoid The ‘wall’?The ‘wall’ is a

production."18-24 MILESWith glycogen stores bottoming out, it's now that you might be facing up to the dreaded 'wall'. Many runners are under the misapprehension that the fuel type you use suddenly changes at different points in the race, but that isn

Time: 4:26Finishing time 4.26.45Would have gladly run back and throttled the enthusiastic supporter at 21.5 miles telling us all we had conquered the wall!First Marathon, great experience, hope to be back next year.Index of all quotesNext quote

success as registering on time and doing up your laces.But while those are things to do on the day, the time to start forming your mid-run habits is a long time before you're limbering up on the start line. It should start now.Wall To Fall

Time: 4:51Many thanks to the 11min/mile pacer starting at the blue start. I was doing well untill about 19 to 20 mile mark and then I hit the wall, well I think it was. My legs went solid and could hardly move them, but I had another sachet

Time not givenHit the wall at mile one and never recovered, only racing my clubmate kept me going.Hoped he would start walking at mile 23 so I could put a consoling arm around his shoulder and we could both walk in together, but he kept going