Riding Falls Creek Challenge for Crohn's & Colitis Australia

2020 was a really big year for me. My son Nate was born, a pandemic hit and I got really, really, really sick. I was meeting doctors multiple times a week, ended up in hospital and it wasn’t until I undertook a colonoscopy that they discovered I had something called Ulcerative Colitis (UC)

UC is an inflammation of the colon that can lead to a whole host of bad outcomes and it’s the kind of disease that no-one wants to talk about. It’s a world of colonoscopies and enemas and it isn’t particularly sexy to talk about.

So why talk now?

In one month on the 13th of March - I’m riding the Falls Creek Challenge - a 240km endurance event around the Victorian high country that Global Cycling Network has labelled one of the five hardest one day events in the world.

1. I want to use that as a launchpad to raise some much-needed funds for Crohn’s and Colitis Australia. They are a drastically underfunded not-for-profit and advocacy organisation that assist lots of people including myself in a much-needed space. At this point in time there is no cure for Ulcerative Colitis and they know so little about it. In the next month, I want to raise $1000 to aid them in their work.

2. I want to encourage people out there that what happens to you doesn’t get to define your whole story. This is not my first long-term chronic illness but it was particularly destructive to my mental health because there was so much unknown. I’m a new dad who suddenly can’t get out of bed. I can’t work. I can’t ride my bike. One of the things that saved me was a couple of conversations I had in the first few weeks of people who could share their experiences of not only living, but thriving with UC.