Taking A Beating
I’ve been on vacation, for a whole week, 7 days. I left last Wednesday (the 21st) and returned this Wednesday (the 28th). I was in Denver. Chillaxing if you will. It was kindof a mandatory vacation from work. I was supposed to return relaxed and rejuvenated. I was for a day. And then I slipped into my normal state of being today. I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned. I had crazy dreams (I feel so far from rested when I can remember my dreams. They’re so taxing).
When I was in Denver, I’d go to bed at 10ish. Be asleep by 11ish. Wake up at 6:30, remember I was on vacation and sleep a couple extra hours. I woke up feeling rested, ready to start the day.
That’s not the way it is at home. The stress of work leaves with me when I leave the building. It’s there haunting me in the middle of the night, and it’s smiling at me in the morning when I wake up.
I don’t like it. I want to feel rested when I wake up in the morning. I want to be able to make it through the day without feeling like I’m going to pass out because I’m so exhausted.
So, I’ve done some thinking.
I walk 2 miles a day. 1 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon. It doesn’t even begin to compare with the amount of activity I was getting when I was on vacation. It could be that I was getting so much activity that my body was so exhausted that I needed the good sleep and thus got it.
I ate better when I was on vacation. I ate well. I was getting all kinds of fruits and veggies and proteins and carbs, but not an overwhelming amount of carbs like I get during a normal day. I’ve got to strive to eat the way I was eating on vacation, it was just healthier.
I also think I need to force myself to go to bed at 10 regardless of me being tired or not. And I need to get up no later than 7 every morning. Even out the sleeping schedule. I’m hoping that with all this, things will start to feel the way I felt in CO. And that will make me happier.
27 Years Ago Today
I came kicking and screaming into this world. Strangely enough, not much has changed, I’m still kicking and screaming. Well, maybe I do more yelling than I do screaming. I’m not much of a screamer, but I do often get told to stop yelling.
Today I took the liberty of destroying all the hard work I had done last week in eating healthy and really just ate whatever. I even drank whatever. For a whole 7 days I had gone without diet coke, today I had 2. In the last 7 days, I’ve eaten all kinds of veggies and fruits, today, I had strawberries on my pancakes and my dessert at dinner (which wasn’t my dessert so much as it was my friends and I got to eat bites of hers, yes, I did have my own too).
I had already had my one beer this week (I like to keep it to 1, it keeps me inline) but I decided that I needed one tonight to go with my green chili chicken enchiladas (my favorite).
And then, when it was all said and done, I had this monsterous piece of chocolate cake that was, mmmmm, and I really don’t even like chocolate cake, but I think I looked at the dessert menu and went “I want the worse thing on here for me” and I ended up with the chocolate cake and it was good. I didn’t make it all the way through it, but I did make an attempt at it and made it through 2/3 of it.
It was a good birthday. Mom started my day off with a card and as she handed it to me she said “it’s not much, and I didn’t know what to get you because you just go buy everything you want.” I did get an completely cool gift card, it was an alligator and it’s jaw moved up and down. It’s the small stuff 
Now, for the rest of the week, I need to get back on my eat healthy wagon because I’ve got a 75 mile bike ride on Saturday and I can’t have my nutrition being all out of whack.
136
Did you know that 136 is the magic number for people that aren’t diabetic. It’s the number that says “you are diabetic” (all this coming from my sister of course, and her doctor, the PCOS doctor, I don’t get the correlation, but I also don’t care enough to ask).
136! If I were 136 all the time, I’d be ecstatic. 136 is an excellent number. It screams to me, I’m not high, I’m not low, I’m just perfect, I’m 136. For my sister it says “you’re diabetic”. I don’t get it, I don’t fully understand it. I like the number 136, she’s afraid of it. But then I have to remember from a conversation last week that what I deem as bad or good is what is bad or good for me and not necessarily any other person.
But seriously, 136, that’s a good number, I did gently argue with my sister about how my decent range can go safely to 150 even if I do prefer it between 100-120, but 136, it’s not bad, for me.
I actually talked to my sister
My sister called me last night and interrupted my sleep which I desparately needed after waking up at 3:30 and doing the Bolder Boulder 10k. Normally, I would’ve ignored her call, I do that often to her because we usually end up in a fight. I don’t much enjoy fighting with her anymore, they’re pointless fights, doesn’t get me anything but the feeling of annoyedness and a million questions in my head.
Last night however, for some odd reason, I picked up the phone. It ended up being an hour phone call because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had been sleeping and didn’t feel like talking to her (I mean, I could’ve not answered, but since I did I suppose I thought I owed it to her to listen.)
She went on and on about PCOS or something or other (I didn’t pay much attention because I’ve been listening to that part of the story for years and frankly, it doesn’t matter to me, I could care less). Then she got to the point where she thinks and everyone else thinks that she has diabetes and “oh my gosh what do I need to do”. Of course, I told her to go to the doctor and get a fasting glucose test done and BAM! she’ll know if she has diabetes. Of course (because she has an answer for everything because that runs in the family, the answer for everything part) she says, “I have, they have done the test, and it shows I don’t have diabetes”.
I roll my eyes. We’ve had the diabetes talk before, she’s on metformin, she’s overweight, she doesn’t eat healthy, and she doesn’t exercise. Usually I tell her she deserves it if she gets diabetes. She’ll have earned it. And I truly think that, still to this day, but I didn’t express that thought this time. I kept my mouth shut and let her continue on.
And then she started describing symptoms that went with Type 1 diabetes (and now, I know my sister, and I know she’s a hypochondriac, she has been all her life and of late she’s been a cyberchondriac, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had looked up the symptoms and told me what fit, something in my head says she’s not smart enough to get that there’s more than one type of diabetes.) She said she’s lost 45 lbs since August, now the last time I saw her, she looked as fat as she did every other time. She’s a cow, she doesn’t look like she’s losing weight but she says she is, in pounds per day apparently. I asked her about water intake, she’s drinking a gallon a day (it’s also the magic number I was drinking when I got diabetes, a gallon of milk a day in addition to all the water and other stuff). I asked her about going to the bathroom, well, once every 2 hrs which is more than I normally go she says.
She wanted one of my machines, I’m stingy with my machines and even more so with my test strips, not to mention I’m on vacation. I told her to go to Walmart get an One Touch Ultra Smart Mini and check her blood before she goes to bed, when she wakes up, at meal times and 1 and 2 hour post meal. I really had no clue what I was telling her, but I also kindof thought nothing would come of it. I told her to do that for a few days and call me when she had records. I also told her that if she went over 200 to call the doctor (I have no clue if that’s accurate, but whatever).
The point of this story is, I actually talked to my sister for an hour without fighting with her or raising my voice.
Bolder Boulder 08
This morning was the Bolder Boulder, a race that has been happening in Boulder, CO for the last 30 years. It’s huge, it’s the largest timed road race in the country, the second largest road race in the country (it’s right behind the Peachtree 10k in Atlanta, GA), and it’s the 5th largest road race in the world in terms of participants. It’s HUGE! There were about 53k runners, and I was one of them. It was all very exciting.
Now, I don’t exactly like running, in fact, I like to say that I hate running. It’s just not as fun as cycling (it takes forever to get to where you’re going and you don’t see as much) or swimming (I’m a fish, I love the water, I used to enjoy swimming, even if it’s been a while since I’ve done it, swimming, in my opinion is better than running), but by the 3k mark of the Bolder Boulder, I was enjoying running.
It was the first time in a long time (actually, it may have been the first time ever) that I was actually in a good place mentally while being athletic, I wasn’t counting down the miles or cursing at the hills, I was enjoying it. And really, I don’t think that’s every happened in the last year in which I’ve been riding, I’m usually in a bad mental spot, I have problems getting out of my head when I’m riding, but I did it today with running. Very exciting for me.
I took off a little fast in the first mile, in fact, by the 1k mark, I was walking because my shins had cramped up. It actually hurt less to run; but because someone very wise told me to listen to my body and not push it too hard because she didn’t want to have to come get me from the medical tent I walked miles 2 and 3. (Plus, I hadn’t really trained to run. The last time I ran was in April and it was all of 3 miles.) After miles 2 and 3, I picked up my pace again, and did decent.
I had a goal of doing 15 minute miles, I figured this was good enough because 1) I hadn’t really trained and 2) I had to do 6 miles (that’s more than what my quasi-training covered by double). As I said, I over did my first mile and walked miles 2 and 3 and then I walked ran miles 4-6.
These were my splits and I’m happy with them. Could I have done better, yes, but that would’ve required that I trained, and I didn’t so these are perfectly good times for me:
| mile 1: | 0:12:20.53 |
| mile 2: | 0:15:04.85 |
| mile 3: | 0:15:02.48 |
| mile 4: | 0:13:21.82 |
| mile 5: | 0:12:25.73 |
| mile 6: | 0:12:46.11 |
| net time: | 1:23:30.72 |
| pace: | 13:27 (based on net time) |
This being my first 10k run, I now have a PR (personal record) of 1:23:30.72 and plenty of room to improve. I know that I need to back off on the first mile, I over did it this time and that forced me to go slower than I would’ve preferred on the second two miles (even if I was close to my 15 min mile goal). If I had gone a little slower, I could’ve probably made it to the end of that mile and kept on running through the next 2, I think I needed to have at least 13:30 min miles in the first 3 and then I could’ve ran closer to the 12 min mile mark for the last 3. My times are all over the place and I would like to see them become more constant.
Also, I need to consciously choose to practice the concept of the Negative Split which is something that Gale Bernhardt discussed with us on Friday night. The Negative Split concept is to start out with the beginning half going slower than you think you ought/want to and then plan to finish fast.
This race was a learning experience, I’ve got an idea of what I need to do to improve and I’m excited. I called a friend to tell her how I did and she said, “now imagine if you had trained how much better you could’ve been. You’ve got the potential to be something great if you’d just train.” That’s not the first time I’ve heard that this week, and now I’m willing to actually put aside my stupidity (at least for a little while) and get serious about training and doing things the right way to see what I can become.
It Could’ve Been Easier To Accept
So amidst all the questions that went on this past week was the comment “I don’t like these questions, it makes me go places I don’t like to go. To emotional places.” And a question followed that comment of course “What kind of emotions?” And then me “anger, irritation, frustration” And then her “what are you angry about” and me “my diabetes” (you take the diabetes away, and I really have nothing to be angry about.)
So, somewhere amongst all this, something was said, I really don’t remember what. Something like accepting the disease instead of being angry about it or something. Whatever it was that spawned the comment I do remember must’ve been insignificant in comparison to what I’m about to tell you. I never told anyone this ever before. But considering most the people in my life would seriously knock me upside the head for this comment it’s just safer to not speak it out loud.
What I said was: “I think it would’ve been easier to accept if I wasn’t raised Christian” and of course, I had to expand on it. And so I explained how as a Christian (which I usually don’t announce because I don’t like the connotations and standards we’re upheld to as one) I believe in a loving merciful God. But here’s this loving and merciful God that’s letting the world go to hell in a handbasket and His people are suffering and it’s bull crap. The God I believe in, could stop everything in it’s tracks, bad stuff doesn’t have to happen. (And if you’re a Christian, don’t give me the “we have choices” crap. I didn’t choose to have diabetes.)
So my theory is, if I didn’t grow up with an understanding of this loving and merciful God that I could’ve maybe had an easier time in accepting my diabetes. (Mind you, I’m working on accepting it.) I have good reasons to be angry at God for letting me get diabetes (don’t give me the unjust anger bit either). There was no good reason for me to get diabetes. He could’ve not let it happen and He did and so my toughest battle is with this God. I have problems accepting things that didn’t have to be. It would’ve been one thing for me to be like all the other people in my family who are unhealthy cows and get diabetes, but it’s another thing for me to get it without making bad lifestyle choices. That I could’ve accepted, I would’ve done that to myself.
As it is, I have huge problems accepting it. It didn’t have to happen. I didn’t have to get it. Where’s the all loving and merciful God now?
Meeting Gale Bernhardt
There’s a whole different world out there for me as an athlete vs me as a non-athlete. That world also contains a whole different way of thinking.
As a child, when going to baseball games with my family and especially my great grandmother (who loved the Dodgers) I knew the famous players, the ones that were always spoken about. Those are the ones every kid wanted to grow up and be like, those are the ones who’s autographs we wanted.
It wasn’t until recently, this week in fact, that the thought of the coaches behind the athletes even entered my mind. It’s kindof amazing that this kind of thing escapes you. It used to be that an athlete was great because they were great, I couldn’t describe it, they just were, that was my non-athletic way of thinking. Now as I’m growing into this role of being an athlete, the thinking that comes to me is “behind every great athlete is a great coach” (I mean, if the coach isn’t great they get fired, right? just like in the movies?)
Well tonight, (thanks to Mari paying attention to email sent out by the Bolder Boulder peeps) I got to meet and listen to Gale Bernhardt as she answered any questions we had.
Me, Gale Bernhardt, Mari
Gale is a renowned Olympic athlete trainer and I learned so much from her. People had great questions and that lent to her giving us great answers.
I learned the concept of the negative split; which is to start out going slower than you think you ought/want to in the beginning half and then plan to finish fast.
I learned that carb loading the night before an event isn’t exactly ideal. (Like duh *eye roll* where’s all that food the next morning…)
She talked about tapering training the week before an event (which would require that I had really been training in the first place, but still, I listened and got an idea of what I have to do to go from running a 10k to biking 75 miles 6 days later).
She talked about what to eat the morning of an event and when to eat it (which will depend on each person, like for me, protein before an event doesn’t bother my system, but for others it may).
I asked her what she tells her athletes when they’re getting discouraged during training. She turned around and asked me what was discouraging, I kindof hung my head and straight up said “I hate running” and gave a little giggle. She told me to get a dog or to find someone to run with. One of the other girls said that running with someone made all the difference for her. That she too used to hate running and now she enjoys it, but now she runs with someone.
I’m so glad that Mari was paying attention to what was coming through her inbox because I saw the “3 Days 13 Hours Until the 30th DICK’S Sporting Goods BolderBOULDER” email and just kindof shrugged it off. Skimmed over it and didn’t think much of the information that was in it. I mean, I’m running in the Bolder Boulder, I’m in the KBCO wave, and it starts at 8:15 or something, what more did I need to know?
Curiosity vs Judgement
She said “I’m going to tell you two words and I want you to define them. I’ll give them to you separately. The first word is curiosity.”
I’m getting used to being asked questions, still not so comfortable in answering them. They make me think, I don’t want to answer them. Sometimes I ask why, as I did this time and she told me “I’ll tell you after you define them.”
Curiosity, that should’ve been easy enough, people call me curious all the time, it’s one of my traits. But I can’t describe it. “Tell me what you’d tell someone who didn’t know what it means.” She says. I’m still not budging, muttering perhaps, stalling. This is a hard question. I don’t like hard questions. They make me dig a little deeper than I like.
I said:
curiosity is when you want to know more about something and you’re not satisfied until you feel that you know all about whatever that something is. Question after question gets asked.
Then I got the next word, judgment. I didn’t like that word, it’s harsh.
Me:
well, it can be good or bad. I remember telling my mom after I wrecked my car for the second time that I had made a bad judgment call. (And I also said something about how as a Christian I’m not supposed to “judge” but that we’re really some of the most judgmental people out there and this lead to another conversation to be later discussed in another blog post)
Her:
what about open/closed mindedness with these words?
Me:
well, judgement is close minded. You make up your mind, and that’s it the end of story, you’re not willing to hear anymore about it, your mind isn’t going to be changed. A wall has gone up. And curiosity is open minded because you’re exploring.
I guess I did well enough after that because I then found out why the words were being asked. She had checked her blood earlier in the day and it was I don’t remember what number, but I frowned. I judged that number. It was “bad” in my mind. Not great considering the amount of exercise she had gotten, again, in my mind. And she said, “it’s actually ok” and I was cool with that.
She asked me about what curiosity and judgement was because she wanted to explain something to me about her and her numbers. She explained to me that instead of judging the numbers we should be more curious about them. What caused that number, what could’ve been done differently to not get that kind of number.
In my brain it’s kindof like Thomas Edison and how he learned more than a thousand ways not to make a light bulb but eventually found one way that was successful. And that’s what I think she was trying to get at. In being curious about our numbers we learn; instead of just saying “oh that’s good” or “oh that’s bad”. And being an athlete, it’s important to be curious because that’s how I’m going to learn how to handle my diabetes when it comes time to participating in big events.
I’m going to learn the thousands of ways to get a number I may not like, but in being curious, I’ll find the way to get the number I do like while participating in whatever activities I may choose.
Diabetes Sisters Triathlon Team
I wanted to title this “we have a name” but that’s not particularly informative (I know, roll your eyes, my titles aren’t always so informative, so what’s the difference now…) but the reality of it is, we have so much more than just a name. I’ve been working behind the scenes for a couple weeks now (as have Mari and Nancy) to recruit more women to join our team. On tonight’s phone call, there were 7 women. That’s half (more or less) of the 15 that we wanted to recruit to our team. It’s very exciting.
One of the things that Mari, Nancy and I had been struggling with was coming up with a name for our team, we had sent emails to all our creative people and we had a massive list of possible names, but nothing fit quite right. I was very excited when on this phone call Mari announced that we’d be partnering with Diabetes Sisters and thus we’d be the Diabetes Sisters Triathlon Team. It fit perfectly because we are a team of women with diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2). We now have a name.
We set some goals for the coming week for what each of us would be doing in terms of training. I’m going on vacation, but I’ll be doing a fair amount of training in all three areas (swim, bike, run). I’m excited.
It’s very exciting. We’re still looking for women that want to join us. Women that have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. Women who have a desire to participate in a triathlon and who already have experience in one of the three sports (swimming, cycling, running). We’re going to complete a Half Ironman distance Triathlon in September 2009. If you are new to triathlon, a Half Ironman, also known as a 70.3 Ironman, is a 1.2 mile swim followed by a 56 mile bike followed by a 13.1 mile run. (70.3 is the total mileage completed).
If this is something that you’d be interested in, we’d love to have you join us. Please feel free to contact me.
RoadkillID RoadID
They’re in all the cycling and running and triathlon magazines. They’re on our numbers sometimes at the various events. They’re a sponsor of the Tour de Cure. I believe that every Tour de Cure I’ve ridden in, my number bib has had “RoadID” on it, and in my goody bag there’s been a flyer.
Last summer I almost bought one, I never finished the ordering process though, never got out the credit card and submitted the information. When I was in Florida for the Orlando Tour de Cure something in my head said “you really need to get a RoadID, your medicalert bracelet isn’t enough”.
I finally got one and I’ve been wearing it religiously, actually, I got two. I got the dog tag for normal activities to go with my MedicAlert dog tag and I got a bracelet for when I’m out cycling (or doing other training because I don’t like the dog tags when doing intense activities).
It’s funny because not but a few weeks before I made the purchase I had written about how annoying the medical id’s can be. The dog tags are fine if I have a shirt that’s not a v-neck on, or a camisole, basically, a normal t-shirt or polo will cover them. The bracelets are fine if I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt, again, it has to be covered. If I can’t find my tags, I might ponder wearing my medicalert bracelet but only if the outfit that I’m wearing (lately short sleeve) can handle there being a black band on my wrist. Sometimes I pull it off, sometimes I don’t.
Even though I have my medic alert bracelet and dog tag, I got the RoadID because if something should happen to me while I’m out there cycling on the road (like, oh, I don’t know, an idiot driver hits me with their car) the phone numbers for my parents, grandma, and uncle are on the tag and they can respond probably faster than MedicAlert could give the paramedics, ER doctors that information and them have to turn around and call someone, I like to think that I saved them a step. I just feel safer having the extra information on me. (But I still won’t wear them if I’m dressed up and all cute lookin)