TGO Challenge Day 9 Saturday 16 May

Paul was up early and left, leaving me to get myself organised and decide what to do. As I lay in my sleeping bag after waking up, I thought about what was going on in my legs. I had assumed that it was all muscular and that I would walk through the pain and discomfort but the more I thought about it, the more it dawned on me that my legs don't have muscles up the front in front of the bones. I realised then that I was probably suffering from shin splints, something I'd only read about before. Amazingly, I was able to get internet access where I was and googled shin splints and, yep, that's what I'd got without a doubt. I knew then that it wasn't going to get better. I texted Roger Smith at Challenge Control for a bit of advice. He was very helpful but obviously it was for me to decide what to do. I looked at the map. I was about 8km out of Aviemore where I knew there was a rail station. Anyway, I packed up and started walking. At a junction of paths, one way went towards Aviemore and the other went towards Loch Morlich which would be my route were I to continue. I went a few steps each way a number of times and dithered about for a few minutes. In the end, I went in the Aviemore direction. It was hard as I had been so looking forward to finishing. However, there would be no easy way to bale out with five days to go.

Reaching Aviemore, I headed for the station and found there was a train to London at 1.30pm. I bought a ticket and went off to raid Tesco for food and drink to last me the long journey home. So, that was that. The right decision made though.