Due to a major flare up with my Crohn’s Disease, which required multiple surgeries in 2017 and 2018, it’s been nearly two years since I last completed an adventure challenge and it’s with the weight of that knowledge and experience that I go into my next challenge not knowing if I’ll be healthy enough to get to the start line let alone finish it.
That’s not an unusual feeling for me though, to set a challenge and not know if my health will allow me to make it to the start line. It was the same feeling when signing up to my first marathon in 2015. The only difference now for marathon number 13 is that even if I’m lucky enough to make the start line I know I won’t be healthy enough to run it but I’ll sure as hell be walking it.
You see, that was the promise I made myself, during the darker moments of my Crohn’s Disease flare up last winter where I required four surgeries in three months. This led me to defer my London Marathon 2018 place and so the promise I made was that if I’m well enough to get to the start line in 2019 then even if I can’t run it I’ll be walking the 26.2 miles in April 2019.
It’s going to be surreal and emotional experience for sure and the mileage will be incredibly tough but maybe not as touch as the mental aspect of thousands of people running past me with me desperate to join them and hundreds of well meaning people in the crowds screaming at me to run, when I know can’t.
I know there will be those who’ll be berating me with ‘banter’ from the crowd. Telling me that because I’m not running I’ve wasted a place, or that I’ve trained too much to be walking now. However you see they will all be wrong and not understand that not every disability is visible and that there is no right or wrong way to complete a marathon. So I will just have to grin and bear it but to be fair I’ve done it before. Both times I’ve completed London there were long sections I’ve needed to walk it. Only this time though it won’t be because of a running injury it’ll be because of my Crohn’s Disease.
I am fundraising for Crohn’s & Colitis UK as right now, over 300,000 people in the UK are living with these lifelong diseases that many people have never heard of. And the real number could be almost double that.
Because of the stigma and misunderstanding surrounding these diseases, thousands of people are suffering in silence.
But they’re not alone. Crohn’s & Colitis UK are working to improve diagnosis and treatment, and to fund research into a cure; to raise awareness and to give people hope, comfort and confidence to live freer, fuller lives.
Please help them to do this by donating today.
The Chronic Adventurer 