Hitting Wall symptoms

"Michael E. Carey" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

All,

Whenever I hit the wall in the late stages of a marathon, I have a

peculiar

Quoted message said:

symptom that I was wondering if anyone else shared or can explain. My vision is strobed. In other
words it has the sensation of rapidly alternating between light and dark. I am trying to determine
if this is a symptom of something specific that if corrected would cause me to finish stronger.

It probably means that your brain is about to expire from hypoglycaemia.

Certainly flickering vision is well described as a symptom of hypoglycaemia in insulin dependant
diabetics and can also be a symptom of an impending epileptic fit.

Hitting the wall isn't an inevitable part of running a marathon. Prepare well and pace yourself
properly and you won't hit it.

Tim

Tim Downie said:

Hitting the wall isn't an inevitable part of running a marathon. Prepare well and pace yourself
properly and you won't hit it.

Same for training runs. 🙂

--
Doug Freese "Caveat Lector" [email hidden]

Quoted message said:

It probably means that your brain is about to expire from hypoglycaemia.

If this is due to low blood sugar, it certainly is not good to let it get to that point. I have had
good experience with downing a slug of honey as a way to get a fast bump up in blood sugar, but if I
were you I'd be using something a lot earlier than when your vision starts to flicker.

Doug Freese said:

Tim Downie said:

Hitting the wall isn't an inevitable part of running a marathon. Prepare well and pace yourself
properly and you won't hit it.

Same for training runs. 🙂

It's a fair cop guv. ;-)

I never said *I* was perfect.

Tim

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This has happened the last two marathons I have run. I have run several in the past (about 12-15). I
am trying to break the 3 hour barrier. This past fall, I had this flickering vision for the last 3
miles. I went to the medical area and one of the things that they did was check my blood sugar. They
said it was OK. This was about 20 minutes after I finished though.

I do drink sports drink at every stop. If hitting the wall = running out of sugar (glycogen), and
flickering vision is a symptom of this, then I would expect most people that run marathons that hit
the wall to have this symptom. From what I gather, this is not a common symptom so I was wondering
if it was something else.

The thing about a pending epileptic fit is kind of scary though.

Maybe I should try experimenting with gels again. I gave them up because I felt that with gels and
drinking water, all I was doing was mixing my own sports drink in my stomach. Might as well just
drink the sports drink so that is what I do.

"TopCounsel" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:20040202194609.13694.00000708@mb-
m27.aol.com...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It probably means that your brain is about to expire from hypoglycaemia.

If this is due to low blood sugar, it certainly is not good to let it get

to

Quoted message said:

that point. I have had good experience with downing a slug of honey as a

way

Quoted message said:

to get a fast bump up in blood sugar, but if I were you I'd be using

something

Quoted message said:

a lot earlier than when your vision starts to flicker.

Michael E. Carey said:

This has happened the last two marathons I have run. I have run several in the past (about 12-15).
I am trying to break the 3 hour barrier. This past fall, I had this flickering vision for the last
3 miles. I went to the medical area and one of the things that they did was check my blood sugar.
They said it was OK. This was about 20 minutes after I finished though.

I suspect that the moment your muscles stop draining your bloodstream of what little circulating
sugar there is, the levels will rise fairly quickly. A thumb [censored] sample taken at the finishing
line might well have told a different story.

Quoted message said:

I do drink sports drink at every stop. If hitting the wall = running out of sugar (glycogen), and
flickering vision is a symptom of this, then I would expect most people that run marathons that
hit the wall to have this symptom. From what I gather, this is not a common symptom so I was
wondering if it was something else.

Symptoms of hypoglycaemia can vary quite a lot from person to person. I don't think you can rule it
out just because it's not common.

Quoted message said:

The thing about a pending epileptic fit is kind of scary though.

It's unlikely and I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it.

Quoted message said:

Maybe I should try experimenting with gels again. I gave them up because I felt that with gels and
drinking water, all I was doing was mixing my own sports drink in my stomach. Might as well just
drink the sports drink so that is what I do.

Given your experience I'm in a poor postion to offer you advice but I would remind you not to
neglect the other two causes of hitting the wall, namely, poor training and poor pacing.

As Doug has already pointed out, with my recent experience of hitting the wall during a training
run, I can't pretend to be any sort of authority on the subject but I was knowingly pushing the
envelope on that run and what happened to me wasn't a mystery.

Whatever, best of luck with achieving a sub-three marathon. Maybe I'll get there in a year or two.

Cheers.

Tim
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I remember my Dad once saying his vision was doing the strobe thing......................about 90
seconds before he passed away.

Quoted message said:

I remember my Dad once saying his vision was doing the strobe thing......................about 90
seconds before he passed away.

This can't possibly be true. Charles Manson is still alive and in prison.