BECAUSE I have Crohn’s disease. I somehow did it, although there were times I didn’t
think I could continue as after 50 miles my legs had gone. I had to walk up a lot of hills,
but once at the top I always got back on my bike.
The training weeks ticked past, and soon I had cycled over 1000 miles
since starting the training, and my Crohn’s Disease had not stopped me
once; if anything the training seemed to be helping my Crohn’s, although
that could be the endorphins speaking! Come D-Day I knew I was ready
and that nothing could stop me…except for a flat tire maybe! But
thankfully all went fine and I climbed my ‘Everest’.
That could have been the end of it. I had achieved what I set out to
achieve, so no reason to continue. But now my mantra of doing stuff
BECAUSE I have IBD was unrelenting. So I decided to make the most
of my new fitness as who knew when my next flare would happen. The
‘logical’ next step was to cycle the 200 odd miles from London to Paris. It
seemed like an easy thing to do as I could cycle over 100 miles in a day,
so doing about 70 miles each day for 3 days couldn’t be that hard.
When the day came to set off, though, I hadn’t been so scared since my surgery. I mean,
I have Crohn’s Disease, what hell was I doing? Cycling from London to Paris by myself?
That’s what other people do, and by that I mean ‘healthier’
people. The heavy rain that was forecast for the first two days
didn’t help either, but I pushed through this negativity and got
my head down. Always reminding myself why I was doing it
instead of why I couldn’t do it. Come day three, the rain had
stopped and the sun broke through the clouds, giving them
all silver linings. This put a silly grin on my face as part of my
mantra was that anything that I did BECAUSE I had IBD was in
fact my silver lining of my disease, as I wouldn’t be doing them
had it not been for my IBD.
Reaching Paris, I was in dream land. I couldn’t believe I had
made it. Staring up at the Eiffel Tower, I felt that anything was
possible, all I had to do was believe, which was handy as I
only had two days to recover and get myself to Scotland. You see BECAUSE I had IBD
I had signed up to join a friend on her challenge of summiting the highest mountains
in Scotland, England, and Wales within 24 hours. Again I could have waited for better
weather and done it next year, but I couldn’t take that chance so I said YES and made my
way north.
I either hadn’t recovered or eaten enough on the morning for fear of needing the toilet
half way up Ben Nevis in Scotland. Whatever the reason, about 30 minutes into the hike,
both feet were cramping up and my legs went to jelly. To help me carry on, I started
reciting a little ditty to myself, along the lines of “worst things happen at sea” but a bit
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