Discussion: Walking

I've had that problem of needing to walk hit me a few times on long solo runs at around the two-hour mark. One moment I'm trundling along slowly, and then suddenly walking seems so, so tempting and I've stopped running. Then I pick up the pace again and repeat. Like you, I'm sure it's psychological because I never feel that I've actually had to stop, just that it suddenly happened. Some of the guys I run with believe in taking in calories even for races shorter than 80mins; maybe that helps.

But anyway, it sounds you're doing really nicely. Holding the same pace you were running for the first three quarters of the run (which you were, barring the walking sections!) should take you sailing through 2:10. Go CJ, go!

Yes the insane thing was that my legs didn't feel that tired and my breathing/HR all felt fine but the feeling that I needed to walk was very strong. Interesting thought about the calorie intake, I had sports beans with me, which I had been fine consuming on long slow runs but I probably only managed to ingest about 50 calories before my stomach decided it couldn't cope with any more, might have to try out a few more options in training.

I've read that 2 hours is approximately where you deplete glycogen stores. Personal strategy for tackling the classic orienteering races, when I expect to be out around 2 hours, is to eat at about 1 hour and again at 90 mins. Speed still drops off a bit near the end but nowhere near as badly if I don't eat...

I always feel like (and sometimes do) walk in O but never in road races, even the marathon. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm sure it's a mental thing rather than a physical thing. I don't know whether it's doing more road races that gets you used to it (i.e. now you know you can do 13 miles you know you don't have to stop) or whether there's something more techical (or it's just stubbornness)