UOAA Discussion Board

At http://www.tourdeguts.org/ you can follow the course of a great way to spend the summer - bicycling across the northern states from west to east.

A Minnesota couple, both with a history of IBD - he had UC and now has a J-pouch - are hoping to raise some funds for CCFA through this personal endeavor.

Read their blog and check their itinerary - maybe you are somewhere along their ride?

Linda

Hello! My wife and I have returned from our cross country bike ride and are happy to report that all went well. My j-pouch performed very well for the entire trip and I found the exercise didn't seem to bother it at all. Probably the biggest problem was the fact that bathrooms were not always available when I most needed them, being on mostly rural highways and camping alot. Other than that, I found that my diet really affected the pouch's performance, especially because I had traded my desk job for 8-10 hours on the bike, so there were times when the pouch was under more stress than it was probably used to.

Having most recently been a long-distance runner, I can now more definitively say that cycling is much easier on a j-pouch than running, most likely due to being a less-jarring activity.

Finally, I'd like to thank Linda for posting this on the UOAA website and for making our stay with Charlie and Joyce possible. We had a fantastic time with them and learned much about the UOAA and the Washington state GYGIG ride.