Hitting the wall

Distance running comes with a unique feature known as “hitting the wall.” This is when the body is depleted of electrolytes, the needed means for the body to carry oxygen to muscles. Training helps put off the wall -- it’s better to burn fat for fuel -- but the wall is a fact of life for running any distance of the marathon or longer. The physical effects of the wall include fatigue, sluggishness, mental confusion, even apathy and negativity. Successful runners accept that reality and simply muddle through. As a renowned ultra runner once put it, “It never always gets worse.”

This summer, many in digital publishing are hitting the wall. The effects of this wall: post-pandemic fatigue, slowed growth, uncertainty, even apathy. Like in running, this too is inevitable. We tend to celebrate the exceptions to the norm, the people who strike a chord and see growth take off with a squiggly line up and to the right -- or that’s how it looks in the Substack analytics screenshots shared on Twitter. For most people, this isn’t reality. Growth isn’t a hockey stick but a plateauing with, ideally, mostly steady progress.