On Tuesday, May 3rd I will get my first Remicade infusion. I've spoken with three different patients or someone related to the patient with Crohn's disease that have taken Remicade, so I pretty much know what to expect. One patient was on Remicade for 5 years, one was on Remicade for 7 years, and one was only on Remicade for 3 weeks. Clearly, everyone's body takes a different period of time before building antibodies and rejecting the medication. At the very least, my wish is that Remicade will work for a minimum of eight months so that I can get through the NYC Marathon with very few issues. I'm not nervous, I'm just curious to see what kind of results and/or side effects I'll experience while on Remicade. I also had a great follow-up appointment with my colorectal on Friday. She cleared me to start running again. According to the surgery report I have "significant perianal Crohn's disease..." Usually the scale is moderate to severe, so I'm not sure where "significant" is located on the scale.
I'm seriously considering joining the running group MarathonFest. In fact, I plan to attend an information session this Saturday to learn more about the program to make sure it will fit my training needs. I've even convinced a running friend to come to the info session with me to see if we will be interested in the same pace group within MarathonFest. If we decide to sign up, group runs start the beginning of June. Since I'm training for the NYC Marathon, the first run on the schedule is a 10 miler. Even though I'm a little intimidated by that, I already had a 10 miler scheduled that same weekend anyway on the schedule I made for myself. I'm going to challenge myself in the month of May to work on maintaining speed as I increase mileage so that I'll be able to get into the pace group I want, 11:30 - 12:45, which would give me between a 5:10 - 5:30 marathon time. I know I can maintain that pace for 4 miles, but I'll have to work hard to be able to maintain that pace for 10 miles. Oh, by the way, if I can maintain that pace on race day, I will PR!!! I think I owe it to myself to get a good support system that will encourage me along this journey. Plus, I'm hoping to meet other local runners that will be going to the NYC Marathon. At least I have a month to improve my time.
