As people who follow me on Twitter or Facebook will know I dropped out of the Marathon Sandwich.  In reality I should never have even began the race.

The day before I was feeling a little ill, I had muscle aches all up my legs and had a mild sore throat.  I ignored this and put it down to a poor taper and standard DOMS, with a little sore through.  So I packed up my equipment and headed to Sheffield.  Meeting up with my friend Tim I was already beginning to feel a little rough and took a little lay down on his floor.  I made a call to meet up with another friend and go out for something to eat.

On the way to the restaurant in the car I was beginning to feel a a temperature coming on, my wife said I wasn’t warm at all and to suck it up.  We arrived at the restaurant and I ordered my usual of the biggest burger on the menu.  I pretty much order this no matter where I go.  Easy to eat when you can’t see!

By the time the food had arrived I was deteriorating fast, my temperature was steadily rising and I was beginning to feel incredibly fatigued.  When I began to eat I just couldn’t stomach food at all, so I pretty much left it all.  This should definitely have been taken as a serious warning sign.  I ALWAYS finish my food, the previous week we had gone out for something to eat; not even hungry I ordered the 1lb burger and demolished it.  I just can’t leave food!

Leaving the restaurant the muscle sorriness had reached new heights and even standing had become tiring.  Arriving back at my friends I decided to go straight to bed.  This is when my temperature soared through the roof, then the shakes, then the intense muscle pain until 3am!  I got barely no sleep and thought there was no way I would even be getting out of bed in the morning.

I managed to fall asleep and awoke with 2 hours sleep and had a decision to make.  Laying in bed I told my self if I can stand up when I get out of bed I will give it a shot.  I attempted to stand up and I could.  Well now I would have to live up to what I had said, so I decided I would run.

This really wasn’t my best idea!

I headed down to the start line and began to run, pretending I was fine.  This charade didn’t last lone as after the first mile my friends were asking if I was alright.  I said I was fine and we carried on.  By mile 7 my cover had well and truly been blown as I looked awful, I had to admit to how ill I was and it probably would be a good idea to call it a day.

Now the ultra runners out there might now what happens next……… I didn’t stop I ran another 8 miles.  I say ran thats probably a mild exaggeration.  I covered another 8 miles.  By this point I really had reached my limit for the day, which after all for me is the entire point of running.  To explore those limits, so what did I learn?

If I am so ill I can barely stand, I can still run a half marathon!