I'd checked the weather for my destination and saw that heavy rain was predicted over the weekend, but hadn't thought much beyond this. I picked up the hire car and started to drive to Austria and then the phone rang "Where are you? Still in London? Don't travel!". The vast amount of rain had caused the Danube to burst its banks in Passau, causing a catastrophic flood, and contaminating all the drinking water. Slightly further downstream at my destination, the river had risen 8m overnight and flooded the lower part of the town. The flooded field below used to be a couple of hundred metres from the river.
I made it to my customer, who then informed me they had other panics going on, but they'd see me the next day. I drove towards town where a policeman asked me to park my car about 1km out of the town, and walk to my hotel. The rain was still heavy and I was a little damp when I arrived, but the hotel was warm and dry (just). I did feel a bit silly arriving in town when most others were trying to save their houses and livelihoods. Hey ho.
In my last visit to Schaerding the hotel had given me a running map with a few choices of distances and routes. Unfortunately most went along the riverbank, which was now 8 m below the water's surface. The green blobs below are tall trees in a back garden.
I did get my running kit on and head out for a slow jog taking in a few dead ends caused by flooding and I was shocked at what I saw. I also noticed that my Achilles was starting to hurt again. Most mornings I was stiff and walking like Robocop.
After a few busy days I ran again on Wednesday evening. By this point the water level had dropped quite a lot and the clean up effort began. The sun was out and hot and weary fire crews were sat around drinking beer in the evening sun. I found a small section of the riverside that was accessible, but it was extremely boggy and I turned back. The Achilles hurt again and I knew I had some decisions to make.
The next day I was flying to Dresden, another flooded city (nothing to do with me!), and I put out some feelers as to who may want my place at the Bristol sprint tri qualifier for the 2013 London World triathlon championships. I need to take at least 2, probably 4 weeks off from running to solve my Achilles problem. It had caused problems at Grendon and I would not be on form for Bristol at the end of June. A tough decision to make, but one that I'd been putting off for a while.
After some meetings in Dresden it was time to get some dinner and to wander around the town, where I saw the scale of the flooding. On the railway bridge there were locomotives sat equal distances apart. I found out the next day they were placed over the pilings of the bridge, to stop it being washed away.
The next day we took the kids to the local parkrun where they did one 2.5 km loop and my wife did her second parkrun.
