Running with Crohn’s: Back to work

Running with Crohn’s: Back to work

On 8/19/2013, my doctor declared me fit to return to all normal activities.  Those normal activities include returning to work (I was on disability on and off since the beginning of June).  This includes traveling to my current project site by plane.

This week I flew to my project away from home for three nights.  I had to pass through a security screen that included millimeter wave scanning. Since this particular scanner detects the extra heavy pockets of cargo pants, it clearly would detect my use of a sanitary pad to help with my continued seepage from the fistula surgery.  To avoid unnecessary scrutiny, I stopped at the last restroom before the security screen and removed my pad.  Then I passed through security.

At the security screen, I did pass through the millimeter wave scanner and my cargo pants pockets were “found” by the scanner and lead to an extra security pat down.  As I told my wife, it was OK: the security guard was very friendly.  J  After passing through security, I made my way to the nearest men’s room and put on a fresh pad.

Since I had a connecting flight and my initial flight was a delayed, I had to hurry to my connection.  If you plan to do a lot of flying and you select flights with short layover times, I highly recommend staying aerobically fit.  I often select these flights and must get to my departure gate in less than 20 minutes.  This is not a problem when my arrival and departure gates reside in the same terminal but it gets more interesting when they reside in different terminals.  The timing forced me on several occasions to run through the airport and on one occasion, I missed the connection.

I had to work ten hours on my first day back at work and I found this abnormally tiring.  I still managed to do my planned 3.35-mile run in the evening but it took a lot of will power to get my butt to the trail.  I did feel good for doing it though.  Sitting through a 4-hour meeting on Monday and a 9-hour meeting on Tuesday taxed my ability to sit on my fistula repair.  It is not so much painful as really irritated and uncomfortable.

I am planning to do a much shorter but more intense workout tonight, speed work.  I intend to try for a 10K PR in mid-September of 56 minutes or less.  This requires a significantly different training because I do very slow but long-distance running when training for a marathon.  For the 10K, I will attempt to keep a 9 min/mile pace for the entire race.  This is 2 min/mile faster than my typical marathon pace (going from 5.5 mph to almost 6.7 mph).

If you travel a lot for business, I highly recommend using your recreation time to exercise.  Go lift weights, run, cycle, swim, or whatever you can.  At a couple of my projects, I even joined local sports teams just for fun and exercise.  It is much easier to keep up an exercise program when you are isolated from all of those things you normally have to do when you are at home (laundry, dishes, lawn care, etc.). 

However, I do find it more difficult to eat healthily while on business travel.  When on a business trip, I take a multivitamin (such as Centrum).  I also try to limit the quantity of food that I eat by only eating half of my dinner.  When I have a refrigerator, I box the other half and eat that for lunch the next day.  This week I am experimenting with consuming a diet shake (such as slim fast).  This also helps me increase my fiber intake (which will be in another entry).