Day 4: Austria
Travelling through the night, we reached Austria around 3am. Not much sleep achieved as we did shifts but once arrived, we managed a few hours.
Up around 7am to grab a quick coffee at a nearby McDonald's to then head for the sea to arrive at the official marathon course in Bregenz. Weather good with light rain, the standard leg dressings were applied but increased concern was pointed out to the legs by my physio with a more than normal warning.
At this stage, my legs were feeling ok considering, but there was added swelling in places around the injury which looked worse than normal. After about a half hour warm up, I set off comfortably until around 7 miles, where the left leg seemed to pull from underneath me.
Getting up and walking a few paces, I started running again for a further 4 miles until the same thing happened. By this time, my anxiety was setting in realising that this could be as far as I can go with the ever increasing pain that now was constant.
A few more miles just before hitting the half marathon distance, it happened again and to certain on lookers, I must have looked like I dropped a lit cigarette down my trousers hopping and stumbling all over the place.
Past the 13 mile mark and it was game over. My leg seemed to just stop functioning properly and I decided that that was as far as I could go. Completely gutted and very low at this point I hobbled back to my team to admit that this was it.
Three and a half marathons into the challenge and the reality set in that I was mentally fine but physically unable to complete the whole challenge I set myself. After speaking with my team, we decided that we should call it a day, at least until the London Marathon, where I am still going to try and complete. We shall see.
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