Fitness

First Crohn’s stopped me from running, and then a stoma gave me a new lease of life. Now, the ongoing issues with the Ken Butt have scuppered things again.

Last year saw the inaugural Lundy Island trail race take place and as soon as tickets were available I quickly signed up to ensure my place on the limited space boat to the island.

I had signed up almost a full year prior to the race so had plenty of time to get excited about visiting an island I had heard about but had never visited. Due to it’s location it’s not a place that’s particularly easy to get to without a bit of planning an effort. The race would be a a perfect way of visiting the island and seeing the entirety of it.

Prior to surgery, and prior to the last Crohn’s flare up, I used to enjoy entering races. Crohn’s would quite often get in the way but I managed it well. With the surgery undertaken and a rough idea of how long it would take to recover I set myself a target of completing a race, and supporting a charity in the process.

A running club that involves a 5 or 10k run followed by a free beer, all before lunch? Welcome to the Mikkeller Running Club.

I’ve always been an occasional ‘parkrunner’ with probably only half a dozen or so completed each year. I used to use Saturday morning’s for long runs exploring new areas and routes so would never be able to squeeze in a parkrun. I would tend to complete a parkrun when I had a big race on a Sunday and wanted a short, but well organised run.

Throughout 2016 and 2017 I had been building up the distances I was running and had completed a number of ultra distance races. The ultra was a type of race that I was enjoying. I enjoyed the challenge of running the distance, the varied scenery that you’d see along the way, the friendliness of the runners and the overall sense of achievement.

I’ve been swimming with a colostomy bag for quite a few weeks and have been getting on ‘swimmingly’ with it. After surgery I wanted to start getting fit again and it was the first type of exercising that I started doing. Wearing a colostomy bag in the swimming can come with some risks and it was only inevitable that I would experience one of them.

I used to love running. I used to love getting out on the trails, running back and forth to work, participating in races, running everything from parkruns to ultra marathons and my favourite of all, running night races! Then Crohn’s Disease, my arch enemy for the best part of two decades, decided to rear its head and cause a big flare up. 

I made the decision to have surgery to help sort things out and have a temporary, but hopefully long reprieve from the disease. This would mean that I could return to running but how would I get on running with a stoma?