Orange Silver April

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

They do say that the wall should be avoidable by taking in enough carbs in the race, provided you've done the long runs (which you did). In my humble opinion (i.e. what I've done) I would double your gel intake to one every half hour, and maybe swap water for energy drinks in the last hour.

I'm reaching that conclusion myself. If running burns between 3,000 - 3,300 kJ per hour, it seems reasonable to think that one 400kJ energy gel per hour is insufficient.

The main problem for me is the stomach, which after three hours seems to pack up and refuse to ingest carbs. However, I look at Ironmen triathletes and ultramarathoners and note that they complete these astonishing events by cramming in as many kilojoules as they can as they go, so I guess it's just a case of training, training and more training.

It is the case that I've trained my stomach to cope with three gels per race whereas initially one was about as much as I could "stomach" (literally), so I think I'll go with your suggestion and start taking more gels and using more electrolytes during training. After all, training the stomach is probably just as important as training the legs and head when it comes to endurance running, eh?

Thanks Dan!