Week 9, Day 4 (The Wall)

Distance: 16 miles

Total for the week: 27 miles

Overall total so far: 193 miles

Notes: By far the worst run ever and the most grueling physical experience of my life. Quite simply, Tracey and I both ran out of fuel at about mile thirteen. Literally, we had no more carbohydrates to burn. This is called "hitting the wall" or "crashing," and I'd heard it was a pretty nasty experience. Well, it was. My legs simply could not run any longer. And yet I had to keep going, through the heat of the day, because I needed to relieve our friends who were watching Abel—they had a wedding to get to.

So I walked a while, and then jogged for a minute until the burn overtook me again, and then I walked. At one point I sat on the grass next to a tree and just didn't move for a while. Finally I arrived and basically collapsed on their lawn for a while. When I got home, I sunk onto the couch and shivered under a blanket in my running clothes with a stomachache. It took a few hours to feel any better. Eventually we went for ice cream at Friendly's, and then I started to feel kinda normal again.

This was the first time during the program where I had any whisper of "Maybe I can't do this after all." Writing about it a few days later, I can see all the stuff that went wrong and the ways to correct it, and I am optimistic again. But that was awful. We have two more cracks at sixteen, then two weeks of eighteen before the training tapers for a few weeks to build strength before the marathon.