As anybody who has ever run a marathon can tell you, running a marathon is hard. The question naturally arises what part of a marathon is the hardest.
The hardest part about running a marathon is the final 4 to 5 miles. This is where the muscle and blood glycogen levels are depleted and you need to rely on mental strength to finish. The psychological halfway mark of a marathon is mile 21 of the 26.2 miles.
Let’s take a closer look at all of the parts of running a marathon, which parts are slightly easier, and which parts are much harder, and see if we can work out a way to make those really hard parts of running a marathon feel slightly less hard than they might otherwise be.
What Is The Hardest Part About Running A Marathon
When it comes to running a marathon there are some parts of the marathon that are physically hard and they are other parts of the marathon that are mentally hard. Aside from these, there are sections of running a marathon that induces feelings of anxiety.
When it comes to the hardest part of running a marathon from the anxiety point of view, there is the morning after signing up for your first marathon when you wake up and you realize what you’re just done. Then there are those days of feeling anxious and full of self-doubt when trying to process all of the advice from well-meaning runners when your entire training plan seems too much to cope with.
For me, the greatest cause of my anxiety was the feeling of not knowing what to expect on the marathon day. Those feedings became infinitely worse from the moment my alarm went off on race morning until I was up on the start line waiting for the starter’s gun to go.
From my perspective, the hardest physical part of running a marathon is the section between mile 23 and the finish line. This is when the marathon also becomes incredibly tough mentally. It is almost as if the mental halfway point of a marathon is around the 23-mile marker. It seems to take as much mental energy to get from the start line to mile 23 as it does to get from mile 23 to the Finish Line at 26.2 miles.
Why Running A Marathon Is Hard
The reason why running a marathon is so hard, especially when you first get into marathon running, is the very well-known phenomenon called hitting the wall. The physically challenging part about running a marathon is that it lasts over 2 hours and for many of us a marathon lasts quite a bit longer than that.
The trouble is that our bodies have enough glycogen energy stores to last approximately an hour and a half. Once your glycogen stores are depleted, you no longer have a readily available quick-burning fuel source. You now have to rely on converting body fat to glycogen which is a process that requires energy to be able to make it happen. Converting fat into energy is also a much slower process which means that you won’t be getting energy to your muscles at the same rapid rate as what you were doing when you were using your blood sugar level to be able to fuel your running.
While you run you can consume the calories in your race nutrition. However, the sad truth is that your stomach cannot absorb calories at the same rate as you are burning them while running a marathon. You will still need to convert body fat to energy while you are running.
When the body switches over from this blood sugar store of energy to burning fat, you need to slow down your running speed to be able to accommodate the slower supply of energy. If you try to keep running at the same place that you were, you will completely deplete your energy stores and you’ll be forced to stop while your body tries to convert some to enough energy to be able to start running again. This is the infamous wall that runners hit at some point during the course of a marathon.
How Do You Survive A Marathon
The question of how to survive a marathon, especially psychologically, boils down to doing your research. Know the course before you run your marathon. Know where the hills are, know where the downhills are and know where the aid stations are so that you know where you’ll be able to get additional calories/liquids, and potentially even cooling-ice if it’s a really hot day.
Speaking about the heat and weather conditions, plan your outfit that you will be wearing carefully, bearing in mind that just by running a marathon you going to be producing body heat, so don’t overdress.
You’ll make your life much easier if you don’t try anything new on race day. If there’s anything that you want to use or eat during the course of your marathon, practice eating that same food during your longer training runs.
What I do every time I sign up for a marathon is that I check with the organizers what type of sports drink they will be having at the aid stations out on the marathon course, as well as what types of gels or food they will have. That way I can practice on my long training runs using exactly the same sports nutrition that will be available at the aid stations when I’m running my marathon. I find that by doing that I can avoid any gastrointestinal problems during the course of my marathon.
How Mentally Tough Is A Marathon
Running a marathon is incredibly mentally tough. A study led by Professor Jeff Lovell of the Sport Psychology faculty at Hartpury University suggests that high levels of mental toughness enable long-distance runners to complete races of varying distances.
The degree of mental toughness required to complete a race increases exponentially as the distance of the race increases. This is simply because as the races get longer, the levels of fatigue increase, and when you’re absolutely exhausted it is only your mental toughness that can make you keep going.
What Does It Take Mentally To Run A Marathon
In order to be able to run a marathon, you need to be able to employ psychological skills such as imagery, which is mentally rehearsing how you will be performing and getting to the next checkpoint/aid station. You also have to employ the skills of self-talk both during the course of your preparation and during the race itself.
For instance that during my really hard training sessions, such as intervals, I tell myself that I’m putting fitness in the bank, that I will be able to cash out on race day and that will get me to the finish line.
When I’m out running a race I use self-talk to keep myself going when conditions are tough. As long as I keep taking steps I’ll get to the top of the hill or through the bad patch. When I feel shattered I’ll set a goal of 10 steps, then count off those steps. Then I repeat the process.
Are Marathon Runners Mentally Strong
Marathon runners are most definitely mentally strong and this mental toughness that they get from running a marathon is something that can be applied to other aspects of their lives as well.
What I found often is that when I am met with a challenge in my normal life, I can often fall back on the mental toughness that learned during the course of running marathons. I can tell myself that I have been able to get through bad patches in a marathon and make it to the finish line. Therefore, I can make it through whatever challenge I’m facing right at that moment.
Is A Marathon All Mental
I wouldn’t say that running a marathon is all mental. There is most definitely a physical aspect to running a marathon as well. After all, when we do marathon training there is most definitely a physical aspect to the training as we train ourselves to be physically fit enough to run a marathon.
Because we have completed a marathon training plan that is designed to get us to the start line physically fit enough to be able to complete the marathon, the remaining component is our mental resilience. This is the aspect that can make it feel as if a marathon is all mental. We have got the physical fitness we need; it is the mental part we meet on race day.
Just because we have completed the physical training that will allow us to run a marathon does not mean that the running of a marathon is not a physical endeavor. Just look at a group of marathon runners trying to climb a flight of stairs the day after finishing a marathon to see whether or not running a marathon has a physical aspect.
Can Running A Marathon Be Easy
No matter what your fitness level is, or ability levels are, none of us ever find running a marathon easy. It doesn’t matter if you’re an elite runner competing for a place on the podium, or a complete rookie who is doing their first-ever marathon. Each and every one of us needs to cover the same 26.2 miles.
Physical discomfort during the course of your marathon is completely unavoidable. And what’s more, as we become better runners we run a marathon that little bit faster pushing that little bit harder which means that even as we become stronger completing a marathon never gets easier.
However, we wouldn’t want it any other way. We sign up for running a marathon because we are looking forward to the challenges that it presents us. If marathon running was easy, most of us would lose interest.
