Jennifer Cruickshanks celebrates team gold with Fife AC Women at the National Road Relays in Livingston back in March (photo by Bobby Gavin)
By Katy Barden
Talk of ‘mud as a leveller’ would generally be considered as fair comment but, by using such a simple descriptor, Jennifer Cruickshanks is doing herself an injustice.
Mud is one thing. Racing with rheumatoid arthritis – a chronic auto-immune disease that causes joint inflammation and pain – is another thing altogether.
The Fife AC athlete, who was diagnosed with the disease in November 2021, is referring specifically to the tough conditions at November’s British Athletics’ Cross Challenge in Liverpool.
‘Mud always adds an extra bit of fun to it,’ she laughs. ‘It was so thick that even if I was fitter, I don’t think I could have run much faster.’
Having returned to racing over the past 12 months, joy and pragmatism have at last emerged from the pain and frustration endured by the 31-year-old paediatric nurse.
Cruickshanks first experienced symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in 2021, although in hindsight it could have been longer. She’d had sore knees on and off since 2020 but assumed the discomfort was due to running-related niggles or the fact she needed new shoes.
She remembers warming up for Forfar 10k in August 2021 as she built towards the Covid-delayed London Marathon (October 2021). Her training had been going well but her elbows and knees felt stiff.
‘I just thought I was tired, maybe getting a cold or something,’ she says. ‘Now I know that the stiffness was due to inflammation.’
Her marathon training continued, but after a 21-mile training run one of her legs became so swollen that she had to go to A&E.
It turned out to be a knee cyst that had ruptured, but that was only the beginning. While she was off work her other knee started to swell. She knew something was amiss but she didn’t know what.
For a while she thought London Marathon was still a possibility, but the severity of her condition progressed at pace over the next few months. She’d had blood tests done in the August, but it wasn’t until she saw a rheumatologist in November 2021 that she got a proper diagnosis.
‘He took one look at my joints and said I had rheumatoid arthritis,’ she says. ‘It was kind of a relief. I knew there was something wrong and to finally have a diagnosis, I thought, ‘At least now I can get on with the treatment.’
Jennifer celebrates with Fife AC team-mates after winning the Women’s team title at the Lindsays National XC at Falkirk in 2020
Her condition further deteriorated and at her lowest point she could barely dress herself.
‘My fingers were really swollen and I couldn’t even squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush,’ she says.
‘I remember holding the toothpaste with one hand and having to use my whole arm against the wall to try and squeeze it, so it was quite grim. I couldn’t open a can or a bottle of juice, or chop things with a knife, my hands were just so sore. Everything was swollen. I think the only joints that weren’t ever sore were my shoulders – and obviously I couldn’t run.
‘I was off work for a couple of months but it should definitely have been longer. I lived on my own at the time so that was really difficult. Eventually I moved back in with my mum and dad because I literally couldn’t do anything. Everything was a mission.
‘Looking back now I can hardly believe it was so bad before I actually got any treatment.’
Jennifer started medication in December 2021 but it took a long time to get the balance of drugs right.
The greatest impact has come from being approved for a ‘biologic’, a powerful drug that protects against the effects of inflammation. Having been told it would be ‘life-changing’, Cruickshanks was devasted when it initially failed to make a difference.
A second drug has proven much more successful. She now takes two injections a week plus two other immunosuppressants (four immunosuppressant drugs in total).
Having not run at all for five months after getting diagnosed, then a few ‘very short-lived failed come back attempts’, a return to parkrun events in 2023, and eventually to racing in 2024, has been mentally and physically rewarding.
‘I’ve never been totally pain free, but the medication has enabled me to get back to running and get back to work and have a more ‘normal’ life,’ she says.
‘When you’re so used to running and that’s what you do – most of my friends run, my whole family runs, my partner runs – and for a couple of years I was just watching other people run. It was nice, but it’s not the same as taking part yourself. I just really wanted to get my club vest back on.’
Jennifer’s first official race back was Inverness 5k in March 2024, followed up by the Scottish National Road Relays – a race impressively won by Fife AC’s senior women – and more recently the British Athletics Cross Challenge and Scottish East District Championships.
It’s been a satisfying comeback, but as a runner ‘before’, Cruickshanks says it was easier to return to the sport she loved because she knew how it made her feel.
‘If I hadn’t run before there’s no way I’d have pushed, because when I started back running again it wasn’t comfortable, it really wasn’t enjoyable,’ she explains.
‘There’s no way I’d have kept going, but I knew what I was missing.
‘I had a great NHS physio too. He was so encouraging and patient with me. I’d be crying in my physio appointments saying, ‘I just want to run’, and he was really, really great. He runs for HBT (Hunters Bog Trotters) so he obviously understood.
‘I felt like a lot of people didn’t understand, they’d say, ‘Do you need to run?’ . But actually when you’re so into running and everyone around you runs, that’s what you want to do.’
Cruickshanks will always have rheumatoid arthritis, the key is to manage it and to keep it under control.
She says she listens to her body more now, a necessity given the exacerbated impact of niggles, or the coughs and colds which are more likely due to the multiple immunosuppressants she takes. On the plus side, a running-related niggle is a relief in comparison to the prospect of an arthritic ‘flare’. It’s all relative.
‘I’ve never got to the point where it’s so well controlled that I don’t have to think about it, because I do. It’s great that I’m able to run, but it’s by no means perfect. I still have some symptoms, but it’s so, so much better. In comparison to what it was that would be totally manageable.’
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Features, Fife AC, Jennifer Cruickshanks
