I enjoy running. I enjoy the competitiveness of races. I enjoy the improvement that can be achieved through practice. I enjoy the simplicity of the activity.

I have been running consistently for the past two years. I started out training with my wife for the 2013 Shamrock Run 8k held on St. Patrick's Day weekend in downtown Portland. The event attracts over 30,000 people each year. I was running about 15 miles a week during the training, and long runs would last six miles.

I was excited to be able to train because ten months before I started training I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC). Right before the diagnosis I noticed that I could not run a mile continuously. Two things were holding me back. One I kept needing to use a bathroom. Two I was exhausted within five minutes of starting the workout. I have occasionally trained for running events in the past, and it was always easy for me to run relatively quickly. The sudden lethargy while running was signaling something was going wrong, and it made me realize other times during the day when I was getting tired. The stairs at work were the worst.

The combination of blood in my stool, constantly needing to use the bathroom (especially when running), and now my inability to run for more than a few minutes made me realize I needed to visit the doctor. My doctor had me get a complete blood count (CBC) test, asked me to bend over, and set an appointment up with a gastroenterologist. About a week later, around nine on a Friday night, I received a call from my doctor telling me my blood tests were back. My hemoglobin levels were hovering around 7 g/dL where the normal range is 13.5 to 17.5 g/dL. My doctor suggested that I keep activity to a minimum and to go to the hospital for a blood transfusion if I felt like I was going to pass out.

A bunch of trips to the doctor and a colonoscopy later I had my UC diagnosis. Thankfully my health slowly improved over the next year and by December I no longer had to run in locations with a bathroom in close proximity. These changes allowed me to train for the Shamrock Run. The 8k went great and I continued to feel good so I ran a 10k in May. I got married in June and then picked up my running for another 10k later in the summer, a 10 mile run in the fall, and half marathon right before Christmas.

I was steadily improving. I kept increasing my weekly miles ran by five miles between races. For the fall 10 miler I was logging 30 miles per week. My performances were correlating with increased training. I decided I needed a way to track my progress so I started to compare my Functional Threshold Pace (FTP) after each race. FTP is the fastest pace you can maintain for 60 minutes. After each race I input my race time in a Run Calculator to estimate the pace I could maintain for 60 minutes, my FTP. After my Shamrock Run 8k I calculated my FTP to be 423 seconds, or seven minute and three second per mile. The figure below shows a steady improvement for the first ~650 days of my training at which point I was running at a FTP pace of 368 seconds, or six minutes and 8 seconds per mile (almost a minute faster than my first race!!).

Unfortunately those gains did not continue and my FTP pace dropped to 386 seconds (6:26/mile) late this fall. This was a dramatic drop in fitness and I was feeling terrible during my high exertion runs. Something seemed wrong so I scheduled another trip to the GI doc. After a stool test and another CBC test they discovered that my faecal calprotectin was very high (over 1000 where normal is less than 50) and my hemoglobin had dropped out of the normal range to 12.4 g/dL. A flare up was either in progress or about to erupt.

Fast forward to early 2015. I am now 100% on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), and I am feeling much better. With good health my run training is quickly improving, and I am confident that I will be able to drop that FTP back down to pre-flare levels at my next race at the end of the month. I don't like seeing that 6:26/mile pace on my chart so I have a lot of motivation to run fast; wish me luck!