Will the diabetics please stand up
Friday night was the VIP dinner for the Tour de Cure Colorado riders that raised upwards of $1000. Going to this dinner, well, going to Denver was very much like going home, I know enough people that it’s like going home to family after moving far away and then coming back to visit. I got to see many faces that I haven’t seen in a while, some since May, some since March, and some that I’ve not seen since last August.
This was the first VIP dinner that I’ve ever gone to for a Tour de Cure. I bypassed last year’s VIP dinner at the Colorado Tour de Cure to go spend time with my Grandma. This year she was with me again, but the dinner allowed for me +1, so Grams came with me.
I had to dress business casual, and while that’s not one of my favorite ways to dress, I do clean up nicely (if I do say so myself) and I did look much better than if I’d shown up in surf shorts and a polo shirt. There was lots of mingling, visiting with people I hadn’t seen in a while, and meeting new people. I didn’t pay much attention to the food because I’m not much of a buffet type of person, so I just took some cooked veggies, some fruit, and some yummily covered (most likely full of sugar) chicken (I had no clue what it was, but it was good).
There was an ice breaker at the tables, little cards laid out with questions that we could all answer. My table got hung up chatting fairly early so I’m not exactly sure that we ever got around to really reading what was on the little cards. But in my opinion, that’s a good thing. I’d say that I got lucky sitting at a chatty table, plus we sat with Steve and Linda which gave me a leg up because I already knew them.
Eventually, we got down to business and speakers came up, etc. Tami told us all about the numbers, she’s big on numbers but that’s really a good thing because we (the Tour de Cure Colorado) have the goal of becoming the number 1 Tour de Cure in the country. Last year we were number 4 and it’s kindof a crime for me to speak of the number 1 tour (ahem, Napa), but one day (one day soon), we’ll surpass them. As of the VIP dinner, we had already made it to the 3rd spot. We were over $550,000 and had almost 2000 riders I think. So Tami encouraged us to keep on raising (because we still have 2 weeks and we’re a highly competitive group) so that we could beat the current second place tour…(But I don’t remember what the amount was).
Then (and this is very important) we recognized our committee members. Now, here’s what I’ve learned, behind every great Tour de Cure, is a great committee, it is the committee members that pull these things together. I had the opportunity to sit in on a committee meeting back in May and the amount of stuff that these people are doing, it’s amazing. I didn’t realize all that goes into making a Tour de Cure happen, and I know that I still don’t have the full picture, but I have a small one:
(I’d even go so far as to say that these people are the backbone of the Tour de Cure.)
Oh, at some point, we got medals depending on how much we had raised. I got a pretty nice medal, it’s silver. I was part of the “silver spokes” peeps for raising a grand. I don’t have pictures yet, but when I do, I’ll write about that. In the meantime, there’s more important stuff to write about 
After we watched this movie:
Mari got up and talked a little about herself and the Red Rider program, but really, that is all a blur because she did something at the end that left me with goosebumps for a good 5 or so minutes and really made me a bit emotional.
She asked that if we were a diabetic we stand up, and we did, there were quite a few of us, at least one at each table, and sometimes 2 or 3. And then, everyone clapped for us. It was the strangest thing ever. It’s not the kind of thing that you typically get recognized for, having diabetes. But we were recognized and honored. And that is very much the essence of the Red Riders. I still get goosebumps just thinking about those few minutes.
And then Matt and Joe from Team Type 1 got up and talked a bit about the team and what they’re doing. They’ve got a lot going on, but you can read all about that on their blog.
I did get a picture with Matt Vogel (a fellow diabetic), Dan Holt (not a diabetic because he can’t get anyone to take his pancreas out but I did offer), and Joe (another fellow diabetic and also one of my heroes).
It was a good night and when it was all said and done, I was so wound up, that I had to go for a short jog to get all my energy out before I could go to bed and finish preparing for my ride in the 2008 Tour de Cure Colorado!
13 Things I Love about Riding In the Tour de Cure Colorado
This is my first edition of Thursday Thirteen and it seemed appropriate, that since I just rode in my last Tour de Cure of the season (well, my Tour de Cure season, there’s still a few more tours around the country happening all the way through October I think) on Saturday, that I mention what I love about riding in them. Actually, I’m going to mention what I love about riding in the Tour de Cure Colorado (because it is my favorite after all).
Note: these are in no particular order because it’d be too hard for me to arrange them from bestest to bester to best
1) The peeps of Colorado know how to do things right, there are no disappointments (thanks Sara, Tami, and committee members and all the volunteers!)
2) The people of Colorado are way friendly, you can show up to the ride knowing no one and walk away knowing more people than you’ll remember (sorry new peeps, I’m really bad with names, but if I see you next year, I’ll remember your face)
3) There are people there, with smiles one their faces, at the rest stops, willing to make you a pb&j sammich before you head off for the next leg of the ride (that’s my favorite part) but they also make sure that we’re ok if we show up looking no ok (they take care of us!)
4) You won’t get more support on a ride than that in the Colorado Tour de Cure (of course that’s based on my experience of having ridden in Tour de Cure’s in 7 different states). There are rest stops every 10 or so miles, there are people driving around making sure the riders are all ok, and all us riders support each other and make sure that we’re all ok if someone goes down or stops to rest or fix a flat.
5) They have an announcer when we come into the finish so that everyone knows we returned, (thanks Sandria) it’s just cool to hear them announce their riders and recognize that “hey, these peeps went out there and rode!”
6) This Tour, is the home of the Red Riders, it’s where it all began, it’s the Tour that has brought all other Tours the most greatest thing, bonding us all together and recognizing the diabetics. Making the ride even more friendly with all the hooting and hollering that goes on for those people in the magical red jerseys. The Red Riders really help bring to the forefront of our minds exactly what it is we’re riding for. (thanks Mari)
7) There is always plenty of food for the riders when we’re done riding. Good food too!
There are plenty of tables with umbrellas for shade for us to sit at when we’re all done riding.
9) Things don’t start getting tore down until late in the day, so it gives riders the opportunity to all come back, get fed, and mingle a bit. Plus, there are still people out by the finish line to ring the cow bells and let the riders know that they did great.
10) Each year it gets better, and each year, I know that when I go the next year, it will exceed the goodness from the prior year (and they kindof set the standard against which I measure all other rides, so really it drives improvement across the board for all Tour de Cures)
11) The routes are well marked (well, the longer routes, 50k, 100k, 100mi) there’s really no possibility of getting lost (which from an out of towner’s stand point, is very very very important, I don’t like to be scared that I’m going to get lost)
12) It’s one of the bigger Tour de Cure’s that I’ve ridden in, it might possibly be the biggest, this year there was 1990 riders, so no matter where in the pack you are, even if you get dropped to the back of the pack, you’re still with a pack of people.
13) The big routes (50k, 100k, 100mi) have big hills, but the hills reward you because you get to go flying down them, last year my goal was to break 30mph, which I did on a hill, this year down that same hill I was ecstatic to go fast, but then there was a FAR LARGER! hill that I almost broke 50mph going down (48.4mph to be exact)
Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments)
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
I’m gonna need a padded cell
On Thursday night I had my intake interview with Matt from Diabetes Training Camp. About and hour before my scheduled time for the interview I freaked out because I didn’t know what I was supposed to talk about but I was assured that we were just going to talk over the survey I took and that there was nothing to worry about.
So Matt calls and says that I pose a very large challenge for him and his group (I don’t think it’d be me if there wasn’t some challenge involved). The challenge I’ve set forth for them is dealing with my blood sugars while swimming. I don’t know if you recall but during the Bottomless Triathlon my blood sugar went from decently high to dangerously low in a very short amount of time. Let me reiterate. VERY. LOW. IN. VERY. SHORT. TIME!
So, it sounds like I’ll get to spend a decent amount of time in the pool, which is fine by me, I need to do that. I’ll also get to spend some time with Jim Carr for assistance with the CGM (which, I’ve still not blogged about, I know, I’m behind); and Carrie Cheadle the Sport Psychologist (which is good, I wanna know what to think about while riding my bike upwards of 4 hrs, it gets interesting in my head as it is right now).
Oh, and as far as which cell I’ll need, padded, regular but alone, regular with others; it’ll need to be a padded cell, that way they have somewhere to put me for the protection of others when I go low
If I lived on Wisteria Lane
When I told her (the woman in my dream) about my dream, she said that her sister says that her (the woman in my dream) neighborhood reminds her (the sister) of Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives. That right there, two words “Wisteria Lane” very much fit for what my dream was.
I was a newly wed, married to a very handsome man named Gregory, he was tall and had dark hair and green eyes. He asked me where I’d like to live, and I told him, you pick, I don’t mind. The next thing I know, I’m living in a massive house with a nice lawn out front.
If I were looking at the street, the house to the left of mine, was a little bit smaller, but their yard was very nicely done, and the back yard was a back yard to be coveted. The lawn was huge and nicely groomed and perfectly green, and there were beautiful flower bushes on the outskirts of the lawn. The house was white and a 2 story, but then again, so was mine.
There were white picket fences around all the front yards. It appeared to be the perfect neighborhood.
I was out front tending to my yellow rose bushes when the neighbor, from the house to the left, comes over, she’s wearing a light pink sundress and she’s carrying a plate of nicely organized cookies. They were stacked just perfectly. As she introduced herself, I knew exactly who she was and where I was (because I wasn’t aware up to this point) and I called back behind me to where the front door was “Gregory, you moved me to [insert state here]!”
I woke up with the most vivid images in my head and when I started asking the woman from my dream all kinds of questions, most of the things I saw from my dream were spot on. It’s crazy because I’ve never been to the state where she is, heck, I’ve never even met her, I’ve only talked to her on the phone, I know very little about the area where she lives.
Oh, and for the record, I probably wouldn’t tell my husband (that I currently don’t have) that we could move anywhere, that was the strangest part of the dream I think, just telling him that we could move anywhere…
I stole a car
Anxiety dreams are ramping up, except instead of just not getting where I need to be, more interesting things are happening along the way…like me stealing cars.
I was wandering around aimlessly in the middle of the day with a knapsack on my back and a notepad in my hand. Like, a moleskine notepad, one of the larger ones. I was on the hunt for something but not quite sure exactly what it was I was hunting for. I was in an extremely nice neighborhood with big houses and nice cars.
At one point, I walk up to this one house that has this really nice white car sitting out in the drive way, I walk past it, up to the patio area, unlatch the gate and I sit down to try and think about what it is that I’m doing.
As I’m sitting there, I’m staring at the car thinking about how it’s a very nice car and it’d be able to take me anywhere that I want/need to go. So I get up and go to the car, it’s not unlocked, but there’s also no place for a key to go either. The car, it talked to me, said it needed to scan my eye. Thinking I’d never be able to get into that car, I walk away from it. I hear something behind me unlatch and as I turn around, I see the door open. Being that the door opened, I approach it and I sit down in the car. It was really nice in that car.
And as I’m sitting there in the car admiring it, a car with a bunch of teenagers drives up, two hop out, and the car drives off to another drive way where it drops off more kids, and this goes on for like 3 driveways. At the driveways, the kids are breaking into cars. Of course, the car I’m in, I’ve already broken into (if I can say that) and so one of the kids, a girl, taller and bulkier than me, grabs my shirt throws me up into the air, hangs onto me, and then slams me into the ground. It knocked the breath out of me. But I was livid, I wasn’t gonna let some person steal a car that I had practically almost stolen myself, so I get up, and I pull the same move on her. Except she doesn’t get up, she’s bleeding there on the concrete. The guy that was with her, runs away scared. I was scared too, there was a chick at my feet bleeding, and not moving. But, instead of worrying about her at that point, I worry about me and start feeling my ribs to make sure I’m intact.
The car was still open and I still had no clue where I was going so I went back to the table where my notepad was and I start writing things down. Then, I touch them with my finger and a little screen in the middle of the page materializes and shows me what I’ve written in google.
At this point, I decide that if anything knows where I’m going, it will be travelocity, because if I made plans to go somewhere, I made them on travelocity. so I write and I touch but travelocity isn’t coming up. I’m getting aggravated. I know I have somewhere to be, I just don’t know where that place is. I close the notebook and head back to the car, the garage door opens when i sit down and I’m staring into a giant toybox. There were road bikes and mountain bikes and kayaks and camping gear and backpacks and ice picks and ropes and harnesses, it was an adventurists dream.
I loaded a kayak and a mtn bike on the roof of the car and then I packed camping gear. I got in the car, the door closed behind me, the garage closed in front of me, and the car took off without me ever doing anything. Concerned that I still didn’t know where I was going, I opened my notepad, it turns out I hadn’t written “travelocity” and that I had written “twitter”.
And then, sadly, I woke up.
My Pants Don’t Fit
I’m having a fit, because my pants don’t fit. The weather has started to cool down and I’ve gotten lazy about shaving my legs so I’ve been wearing pants a bit more often. I know the scale says that I’ve gained weight since winter, but I’d like to attribute that to muscle growth, not fat. But by the same token, my belly isn’t decreasing in size (which is all my fault, I’m not a fan of doing a million crunches), and my thighs seem to have gotten bigger, I can handle my belly size because it’s not increased, but my thighs, I don’t like my jeans tight around my thighs.
Last week I was looking through my pants that aren’t jeans and I found a pair that I didn’t wear last year because they didn’t fit. I put them on, and BAM! they fit, that was exciting, but when I looked at the tag, they said they were a size bigger than all my jeans. I shouldn’t have looked at tag. I have a complex when it comes to the size of my pants. Blame it on me being a women and the social stigmatism of the size of clothing that we constantly battle.
I started thinking about when I was a size 6. There was one year, where I could actually fit into a size 6 pant, and I fit well. That was the excitement of my college years, that one year that I was no longer a size 12, but I was half that.
Being able to drop enough weight and muscle/body fat to get into a size 6 was a bonus to having almost killed myself. I say bonus because I didn’t know that it was a side effect of not taking insulin and having my blood sugars run high for the year that I did.
My mind wandered back to that time in my life when I pulled my pants on and they felt a little tight. I’ve said it before, I’d be very easy for me to go back to not taking care of myself. I started thinking about how long I’d have to run high before my clothes started fitting loosely again. I couldn’t calculate it in my brain simply because that wasn’t the point of not taking care of myself a few years back. I had no clue how long it was before I started dropping from size 12, to 10, to 8, and then finally into size 6. Would it take a month or two or more? And what about when I started taking care of myself again, wouldn’t I just gain all the weight back…
It seemed like more work than it’s worth to figure out what kind of abuse I’d have to do to my diabetes in order to fit into my size 10 jeans. That stopped me in my tracks, I’ll go back to the size 12 for now, they’re looser and more comfortable (but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it by any means).
Sugar Up
I went on my second training ride with the Outlaws today and I must say, compared to the first ride I rode with them, this one was soooooo much better. The blood sugars weren’t quite as well behaved as I would’ve liked them to have been (read: like during the socorro chile harvest triathlon) but they eventually straightened out and I rode a strong second half. I rode a good first quarter too, well, a good first 10 miles where I was averaging 18mph and keeping with the pack, it was during this time that I decided I liked riding in a pack, I get to draft, that was a nice feeling.
At about 10 miles, I knew my blood sugars were plummeting from the 221 that I started at. It was at this point that I started thinking that I really needed to stop every 10 miles and check my blood and eat a gel, but I kept going. The first rest stop was only a few miles ahead. In my head, I had already decided that I was done when I got to the rest stop, I just didn’t feel that I had the energy to put in the 60 mile ride that was slated for today. I had decided that I was going to be happy with 30 miles.
But then I got to the rest stop, and I told my teammates I was done and something about Dread Pirate and Flaming Mo only riding another 20 minutes further made me decide to keep going (after asking about the horrific hill of course). I checked my blood, sure enough, it had dropped to 93 and my pump was screaming at me. I downed some gel and some fluids and we were on our way.
At this point, I still didn’t have the energy to keep up with the group, it was another 10 miles before I caught up to them again, but it was ok because I had them in my sights for most of that 10 miles and when I didn’t I knew where they were headed. At one point, I could see them going up the big big big hill and they were so small that they seriously looked like ants on that hill. Having nothing better to do as I was hammering away at my 14-16mph speed, I started singing:
“the ants go marching one by one hurrah hurrah, the ants go marching one by one hurrah hurrah, the little one stops to chew some gum, i don’t remember the rest of the song, and they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out, of the rain. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”
The funny thing about this is that the clouds had just rolled over the mountains and the wind was threatening to knock me off my bike and the rain was coming. they looked like ants and the rain was coming. I think I’m the only one amused by this, but, hey, what can I say.
As I made it up the hill (because that was my goal at that point, to make it up the hill), I had passed the 20 mile marker, so then my goal became to go to 25 miles. It was around that point where my Outlaw buddies were waiting for me, and after telling them all about the mangled 6 ft rattlesnake that I had seen, I checked my blood and “sugared up”. Dread Pirate came up with that term. Bones asked if I were ready to go and she said “hang on, she’s sugaring up, we don’t want her to pass out while riding” to which I said “hrm, I haven’t tired that one yet” and gave a small laugh. I had come up a little from the last check, I was now 103. I had another gel and washed it down with some cytomax.
At this point, we had to head back towards town because the storm was comin and there were big rain drops falling from the sky so we crossed the overpass and headed back to where we began. I did much better on this portion of the ride than I did the first, I was riding a steady 16-18 mph, but mostly I was keeping at 16mph. When they made a turn off to add a couple more miles to their ride, I kept going straight, 50 miles total was more than enough distance for me and I was content and set into my pace at this point so it didn’t bother me that they we going to take a detour.
At the next stop made (stops were being made at about every 10 miles by this point; I can thank this stop to a flat tire one of the guys unfortunately got) my blood sugar was 134 and I was happy with it. I was so happy, that I didn’t have a gel, hindsight being 20/20, I should’ve because I went low at the end. I dropped to 76 and at the very end my energy and speed dropped with my numbers (there’s a strong correlation between the two).
Once I got past my lack of energy in the first half of the ride, things went smoothly for me. When it was all said and done, the ride was a very good ride. I maintained a good steady pace, my thoughts were fairly positive, besides deciding that I was prematurely done with the ride early on in the game, the thought that I couldn’t do the ride was never solidified in my brain. The blood sugars were ok, I wouldn’t consider them great, I do ride better when I’m in the 130 range out of all the other numbers I had, well, the 221 was ok as well I suppose, but I’ve still got to work on gaining some regularity among those numbers.
OH! and as an added bonus, something happened today that has never happened before, I had a sweat stain on the crotch area of my shorts. I was sitting and StarBucks with some teammates and I couldn’t figure out why the white stuff wouldn’t come off my shorts, and I asked what it was. I was told “Congratulations, you rode hard enough that you’ve got a sweat stain”. And then there was a conversation about sweat stains. Never in my life have I been so excited about a sweat stain.
For those who care, here’s the elevation profile of the ride (yes, I care):
And the full stats:
48 miles ridden
at 15.9 mph
with a max speed of 27.8mph (gotta love that atrocious hill I climbed, that’s really not as atrocious as it looks)
in 3 hours
The Sound Of Ambulances In The Night
Last night, I got to experience something new. Personally, I’m not sure I appreciated it as much as I should have, in fact, I was very much annoyed by it. And, I didn’t respond to it the way I should’ve responded to it. That very well might have voided out the whole reason of me getting a constant glucose monitoring system (that I haven’t blogged about, I know, I’m a bit behind these days).
So, here’s what happened. At some point in the middle of the night, I was awaken by what sounded like a very muted ambulance. My first thought was my watch, so I put my wrist up to my ear, nope, not my watch. I couldn’t figure out what it was so I sat up. Apparently, I had been sleeping on top of my pump, which is why the sound was muffled. My pump doesn’t ever make a sound, I’ve got it on vibrate so I didn’t know what it’s problem was. It seriously was making the sound of an ambulance. wheeew wheeew wheeew. It got on my nerves quickly. So I looked at what it’s problem was, oh, it says I’m low.
So, this is where I didn’t respond the way I should’ve, I turned off the alarm, laid back down and went back to sleep. I did that 5 times. Not once did I ever get up and check my blood the way it was telling me I should’ve.
So, here I have this tool, to help me out, because I don’t feel/sense my low blood sugars, and I typically don’t wake up in the middle of the night if I’m low. It alarms and I actually wake up, and then I proceed to ignore it. The little graph shows that I was in the 60s. I woke up at 80. I’m one lucky person because that could’ve not ended well (read: because I’m an idiot my parents could’ve had another “we need to rescue our seizing daughter” incident).
I’m gonna have to work on my response the the sound of the ambulance in the middle of the night. But hopefully, I don’t hear it for a couple months, that would be nice…
Intake (to jail) Interview
Back in March, I registered to go to Diabetes Training Camp this fall in Snowmass, CO. This was before I became a triathlete, it was back when I was just fighting with my blood sugars when I was cycling. Then came along all the triathlon stuff, boy can I say that I’m happy I’m going to training camp…I need some assistance handling the diabetes while I’m busy being an athlete. At this very moment, I’m just 3 and a half weeks away from being in Snowmass. As the time to arrive at camp approaches, the coordinators are taking care of business at their end.
I got an interview saying I had to fill out an incredibly long questionnaire (which asked some rather hard questions in my opinion) before I could get my appoint for my intake interview. There was a whole section on ranking things from 1 to 7. 1 being not a problem and 7 being a very serious problem. And there were questions about people to which I was like, whatever, it’s not their problem, it’s my problem. And then there were questions like feeling angry or overwhelmed or unmotivated and those are the ones that ranked high on my list (and there were only 17 of these, the whole questionnaire was like 8 pages long). There was all kinds of stuff, everything about me and my diabetes, my doctors, etc, blah blah blah…but that’s not the best part of it all.
So then, after I answered everything and submitted it, I get an email about scheduling my intake interview (this is the best part). Now, this is where my brain just sort of wandered off into left field. Intake interview I thought. It’s like I’m going to jail or something and they’re trying to figure out whether I need to be put in a padded cell, a regular cell all by myself, or if I’m safe enough to be put into a cell with other people.
I have my intake interview next week, I’ll let you know what cell I’m getting tossed into at that point
Super (hero) Laura
I’ve said it often, I have a bad attitude about my diabetes. If you didn’t know that, now you do I’d say that I’m working on it, but realistically, I’m not really, well, maybe just a little bit (it’s hard to work on adjusting my vehement hatred towards something, I mean, I hate it vehemently, what’d you expect?). Except for there’s something that is rubbing off on me with practically every conversation I have with a fellow DiabetesSisters Triathlon Team teammate.
Laura has got this weapon that she doesn’t keep hidden. She shoots first and then doesn’t proceed to ask questions. There’s no ifs ands or buts about it. The thing about it is, her weapon isn’t a bad weapon, I probably shouldn’t be calling it a weapon, because it’s good, weapon sort of has bad connotations. Laura has got PMA. Positive. Mental. Attitude.
Laura’s PMA is a drastic change from my generally not pleasurable attitude surrounding diabetes in my life. We’ve got some cross attitude annoyance issues from time to time but she always wins in the end. It’s hard for my bad attitude to beat out her good attitude. Not that that’s a bad thing in any way.
That PMA has been rubbing off on me and she’s taken “can’t” out of my vocabulary (I get beeeeeeeped if I say the word “can’t”, it drives me nuts, but I’ve stopped fighting it, my brain keeps trying to find ways around the word “can’t”. It hasn’t found many). But, I can’t complain, taking the negative attitude and replacing it with a positive attitude in my mental diet made a massive difference this past weekend in my triathlon and I just have to hang on to that.
Laura’s PMA and the way it radiates from her (like it’s a super power) makes her the latest hero in my books 