Why your legs die after 30km and how to fix it.
Have you ever experienced your legs launched a coup against you master?
Here’s what I mean. In a track race or road race which is 10km or shorter than 10k, usually your breath, heart, and the whole body suffer a lot. You already feel so hard in the whole body. You almost lose your mind or you want to lose your mind so that you can escape from the suffering.
But in marathon race, very often only legs die. Your breath is still calm enough, your heart beat is not so fast yet, you are very calm and are still able to judge the current situation very well calmly.
However, your legs cannot move anymore. It’s like you cannot step on a gas pedal. You want to still run faster, but you cannot feel your legs. Suddenly, your legs go away and your legs are like numb.
Have you ever experienced this situation?
Everyone has this kind of experience at least once in a life. Today, I will explain why and how to overcome this kind of situation.
Roughly speaking, there are 4 reasons.
First one is that your glycogen is depleted.
Second one is that your leg muscles, tendons or ligaments already hit the limit.
Third one is that your central nervous system stops you.
Fourth one is that you have too much oxygen debt.
Let me explain each one step by step.
First of all, it’s very often unconditionally said that if you slow down dramatically after 30km point, it is because your glycogen is depleted. But how do you know?
It could be. But, in most cases, simply your leg muscles already hit the limit. It’s like your bicycle gets a flat tire. No matter how hard you step on a pedal, if the tires do not have enough air, you are forced to slow down and in a radical case, you should walk.
But the questions is, more exactly speaking, what happens to your legs?
Our muscles make power when it is contracted. And to keep muscles contracted, they need to loosen up enough. And to loosen up muscles enough, muscles need energy.
More exactly speaking, when muscles get contracted, muscle fibers need calcium ions and calcium ions come from sarcoplasmic reticulum, and that is very easy because there are 10,000 times more calcium ions in sarcoplasmic reticulum than in muscle fibers. So, because of osmotic pressure, it goes to muscles fibers from sarcoplasmic reticulum very easily. But the opposite is difficult.
We need power to move calcium ions back to sarcoplasmic reticulum against osmotic pressure. And that energy should produce in mitochondria. If mitochondria in the muscle cells do not keep producing enough energy, your legs do not move anymore.
And also, the more you make this chemical actions in your body, the smoother the chemical actions get. So, you can keep running at a certain pace more and more.
Second, yes your glycogen would be depleted. Exactly speaking, it is probably not completely zero. Rather, your central nervous system forces you to slow down or walk to keep glycogen to stay alive. But anyway, once the amount of glycogen gets closer to zero, you are forced to slow down or walk, even if your breath is still calm or your heart rate is still slow.
Third, if your central nervous system is not used to running long at a certain pace, your central nervous system forces you to slow down or walk before it should do that, in other words, it is still too early.
Fourth, you have oxygen debt, in other words, protons get accumulated in your tissues. And that’s why now your tissues are too acidic and cannot produce energy properly anymore. It is also very often said that at marathon race pace, you don’t use anaerobic metabolism at all. But based on my many tests, it depends on how good you are.
The better endurance ability you have, the more you also use anerobic metabolism in marathon races, while the worse endurance ability you have, the less you use anerobic metabolism in marathon races or your body doesn’t use anerobic metabolism at all.
Just think about this. Top runners who have very good endurance run through marathon race only at 15-20 seconds per kilometer slower pace than 5000m race pace. In this case, of course, they use anaerobic metabolism. In terms of blood lactic accumulation level is about 4 mmol.
While many slow runners run through full marathon race at 40 seconds per kilometer slower pace than their 5000m race pace. In this case, they hardly use anaerobic metabolism.
But if you have too much oxygen debt, in other words, too acidic, then the feeling is pretty much same thing with the feeling during a track race or a 10km race. So, you’ll feel it and in this case, your breath is hard, your heart rate is fast and once you slow down, you could still recover.
The phenomenon that your legs give up after 30km is a bit different phenomenon.
So, basically your glycogen is depleted or gets closer to depleted, your muscles are already sold out, your central nervous system is not used to the situation you are facing now and that’s why the central nervous system is too scared and that’s why it forces you to slow down too early or simply you are gutless.
We need to address those limited factors.
Now, how can we solve the problem?
First of all, very simply the more you run, the more your leg muscles get strength and so that you get more aerobic resistance, in other words, your legs can run longer without any problems if you do not have metabolic problems, in other words, if your breath is not hard yet and your body is not too acidic yet.
With that being said, you need to increase your moderate volume step by step. Moderate volume is simply the volume you can handle without any problems. The simplest way of thinking is, if you run 600km a month without any problems and your body adapts to the stimulus, your training volume is 20km a day. In this case, 20km a day is your moderate volume.
Second, you do long runs. The longer you run, the more your feet hit the ground and your legs and feet should be resisted on it. If your body adapts to the stimulus, your body gets more aerobic resistance.
And also, you should think about the following thing. The faster you run, the bigger the impact of hitting the ground. So, if your body adapts to the stimulus, your body gets more resistance.
The volume and the intensity, both is very important. But also, you need to think about that if the training load is too high, your body cannot adapt to the stimulus, meaning you cannot get faster. While if it is too short or too slow, you cannot get enough strong training stimulus for your goal.
So, the basic idea is repeating moderate volume with moderate intensity runs. And once a week or once every two weeks, you do high volume with moderate intensity. And you increase the distance step by step.
Don’t stick to someone’s long run. I know that many top runners do 35km run, 40km run or 25 miles run etc. But if your moderate volume is 10km a day and the longest run in your whole life is 12km, even 15km run is long run for you. Don’t be shame about saying that 15km run is long run.
Someone online will laugh at you. Just let them laugh at you until you run marathon under 3 hours 2 years from now.
And if you do 30-45km at your 80-90% of your race pace finally, that’s enough.
And also, at the same time, once your central nervous system gets used to run long at one time, your central nervous system doesn’t stop you until you reach at your physical limit.
Another question is, what about longer than 45km run?
For example, if I do 50km run or 60km run, does that work better?
Well, one of the greatest coach on the earth Renato Canova express this kind of workouts very well. He calls it ‘Mentalization’. Meaning, you get used to run long mentally and it has a positive effect of course.
But how about physical effects?
Well, first if you run 50km or longer than 50km at 80-90% of your marathon race pace, you tend to get tired too much. And your body could not adapt to the training stimulus anymore.
And second, if you try to get those long runs enough easy (not too hard), you need to slow down too much. Probably 70% of your marathon race pace. And it doesn’t give you enough training stimulus. Remember, how strong the total impact of your legs hitting the ground depends on the intensity and volume. Not only one factor.
However, to be equal, let me say this too. Many Japanese legend marathoners who ran marathon under 2:10 for male and under 2:25 for female and won medals at world championships or Olympic games often did longer than 50km run, like 60km, 70km, 100km, even 120km.
But also please note that those legends did this kind of workouts always if it is far from their next target race. Like 6 months or more than 6 months before their target races.
So, in this sense, this kind of workout is mentalization too. They do not do these workouts to shape them up right before target races, but they did these workouts in the fundamental period to build up basic physical and mental strength and toughness.
So, please understand that I’m not saying these ultra long runs are meaningless or even if you do these ultra long runs, I don’t think that you are stupid, rather you are getting something other people do not have.
But this could be said for all long runs. Training should not be too hard for your body. It doesn’t break your weekly training schedule or meso-cycle and it should be repeatable.
If you need to take 3 days completely off from running after your 42km run, it’s too hard for your current body. In the future, maybe it is a good workout or simply you need to run slower probably. Training is not adventure.
If you want an adventure, you should read Dragon Ball instead of marathon training.
That’s if folks. Great success always does not come from taking one pill, but repeated effective workouts. So, don’t forget to increase your moderate volume gradually and do long run once a week or once every two weeks.
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