How I Discovered the Tasmanian Connection and Never Hit the Wall Again
Never Hit the Wall Again
How did I learn to glide smoothly past mile 20 all the way to the finish? Read on.
Tasmanian Connection
After bonking at several marathons, I discovered an obscure bit of research performed in the Outback in 2001. Okay, it was actually Perth. Think of it as a simulation where endurance athletes were asked to run for their lives from a Warner-Bros-style Tasmanian Devil.
Immediately afterward, in preparation for fleeing again from Taz, the bodies of these athletes loaded twice the normal amount of glycogen to their muscles from a gallon of syrup drunk over 24 hours. (Yes, that's a lot.) But even with some bloat, these Aussie athletes improved their performance by avoiding the glycogen depletion near mile 20 of a marathon known as "hitting the wall."
Hypoglycemic Correction
When I initially recreated the experiment, and successfully avoided the wall in several marathons, I went with the same maltodextrin base. The glycogen load worked like a charm. The bloat, stomach upset, and post-race crash notwithstanding.
But more recent research led me to a new miracle carb used by Meb and other elite runners as their sports drink of choice ... but not at the same crazy-high prices.
I found a generic version of this miracle carb at half the cost. Just like the premium brand, the generic tops off glycogen stores but replaces maltodextrin's hypoglycemic spike with a smooth release of energy augmented by a higher fat burn rate.
The new carb also avoids the maltodextrin side effect that bloated my belly and gave me some late-in-the-race dry heaves in those first Dr. Jeckel experiments on myself.
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LongLifeMarathon.com sells this proven solution to finishing a marathon without hitting the wall. The kit includes the original research paper and new research on the spike-free super carb. Run fresh without the glycogen depletion that slows so many to an exhausted crawl on the last miles before the finish line.