He ran out of steam.
Footage posted to TikTok captured the harrowing moment that a UK athlete’s friends had to prop him upright after he blacked out following a 24-hour treadmill run for charity.
“This is the damage 24 hours on a treadmill did to me,” Joe Pritchard, 23, intoned in the dramatic voiceover clip, which has amassed 7.6 million views on the app.
The Brit had undertaken the automated super marathon for My Name’5 Doddie, a charity dedicated to discovering a cure for debilitating motor neuron disease, Newsweek reported.
The Forrest Gump-esque feat appeared to go swimmingly with the shirtless Pritchard completing the literally staggering 104.6-mile run in a pub in front of whooping bar-goers, as depicted in another viral clip.
“Thank you so much for all your support,” gushed the endurance athlete, who ended up raising over $5,000 for the organization.
While Pritchard may have raised a lot of dough, his body paid a heavy price following his epic “beer run.”
In the followup clip, shot after his initial blackout, a catatonic-looking Pritchard is seen lurching stiffly from the bar to the car with the help of his two buddies, who are forced to prop him upright because he can barely move.
“Initially I felt fine,” recalled the Brit, who sat down outside for 20 minutes following his grueling challenge. At one point, he even asked his pals if they wanted to “go out to the beer garden for a pint.”
However, Pritchard said he knew he was “f–ked” after standing up and realizing he couldn’t put any weight on his legs or really move them out all.
“I felt sick and weird,” the bedraggled Brit continued. “So I asked them to take me to the toilet. On the way to the toilet I blacked out, collapsed, vision went.”
Pritchard’s friends then took the drained power runner home, where he blacked out for a second time.
Eventually, the tavern trainer took a bath and felt a lot better, and, after several days, made a nearly full recovery.
“I am all fine now, there may still be some problems with my knee but it feels fine and I can now run on it again,” Pritchard told Newsweek.
Nonetheless, the incident illustrates the perils of engaging in excessive exercise even if it’s for a good cause.
“Being on a treadmill for 24 hrs means no sleep and extremely limited oral intake,” emergency physician and CrossFit coach Dr. Heather L Hinshelwood told Newsweek. “He was at the very least likely dehydrated when he came off the treadmill and could have had some electrolyte abnormalities such as low potassium, magnesium and sodium.”
The physician also warned that strenuous physical activity can even induce rhabdomyolysis, a potentially fatal condition in which muscles break down, causing toxic muscle fibers to leach into the blood and kidneys and potentially cause kidney failure.
Pritchard said that the one silver lining to him collapsing on camera was that his run reached “a much wider audience,” and, as a result, “more people have donated to My Name’5 Doddie and more awareness has been gained.”.
Nonetheless, he said that he “won’t be touching a treadmill any time soon.”
