What is 'hitting the wall'?

What is 'hitting the wall'?

Hitting the wall is something that every marathoner is going to experience one time or the other. Even the best runners today that run 2.08 have a wall, but you can't tell because they are so proficient and they are so good, genetically speaking, at their racing ability. Hitting the wall is simply that your mind and your body has reached the point and it does not want to go any further, and most marathoners feel that. That is why we train at the 20 mile distance a number of times prior to running a marathon, because you reacclimatise your brain to go through that shot and know they can work through it. Hitting the wall is usually when an athlete that has trained properly is going out way too fast or an athlete that has not trained properly and does not have the conditioning to go that distance.