You can follow my journey here: https://spark.adobe.com/page/VjF8LfW2gIdkB/

Story time!

Growing up I was always a sporty kid; swimming, rugby, triathlon and a host of other sports. I attended nationals for swimming (at both school and club level), played rugby at a club and school level, and won some national school medals for swimming. Ergo; sport was a huge part of my identity. Pretty much my whole identity. From about the age of 13 I started experiencing intermittent back pain and sciatica. Physios always dismissed it as not warming up properly, or growing too quickly.

At about 17, going into my final year of secondary school, my knee randomly swelled up. No biggy I thought, but that was the beginning of a year of hell. That week I was in hospital 9 times in 6 days. Multiple scans, blood tests and multiple missed days at school. At Christmas we went away skiing, all was well, and on the way back we stopped in Germany (we drove from Austria back to the UK). I got out the car and then I couldn't use my legs. It was the most ridiculous pain I had ever experienced. I ended up missing pretty much 3/4 of the remainder of my school year as I was unable to walk. I lost about 15kg during this time due to muscle atrophy. They finally diagnosed me as having Ankylosing Spondylitis (Arthritis of the spine). I already had joint effusion (wearing away of the vertebrae and some fusing). Why me? What had I done to deserve this? I had done everything right. I had eaten well and exercised. I took a gap year to figure myself out, what I was capable of, what I wanted to do, and now I'm probably in better shape than before I was diagnosed. I climb 4 days a week, I am running in the hopes of running an ultra marathon, I travel a bunch. Life is good now, but it has its moments.

I am running this half marathon to raise money to fund research into a disease that has no known cure, and to prove to myself that I can.

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