13 Things I Loved About Diabetes Training Camp

It’s been a month since I’ve done Thursday Thirteen. I’ve been busy, what can I say? One of those weeks that I disappeared from the planet, I was in Snowmass, CO at Diabetes Training Camp being run into the ground mentally and physically (although, since I was injured it was more of a mental thing than it was a physical thing, but still, I was getting run into the ground).

As far as I can recall, I don’t remember blogging about DTC. And so, without further ado, I welcome you to Thursday Thirteen Volume 2: the 13 things I loved about Diabetes Training Camp.

1) I got to finally meet Laura, who I’d been talking to on the phone since May, and we’d send txt msg’s back and forth before events, and on training days there’d be txt’s about what that day was all about. It was so cool to finally put a face to the voice, to have met her in real life instead of just talk to her on the phone and email her. Plus, instead of just running with her in spirit, I got to run with her in real life.

2) Dr Matt, he cared. He cared more than the doctors I’ve been seeing for the past 16 years cared. I’ve never had someone take my data and analyze it the way he did and to have him offer suggestions and get me from doing something that was really just not great from an athletic perspective (and really caused me to hit walls during races) to a place where that wasn’t a problem. That just meant a lot to.

3) The laughter, there was sooooooooo much laughter. One night, I was laughing so hard I was on the ground, unable to breathe, and I swear, in just 5 minutes, laughing that hard, it helped me get a little bit of a six pack. There was not one day in the entire week where there wasn’t some kind of giggling and deep laughter from the belly.

4) The peeps, I met mostly new people, some of them I knew in person, some of them I knew via email and phone calls, but the majority of them were new.

5) The food, I ate well, very well. And by the end of the week, I was over the fact that I was eating from a buffet style setting, and over the fact that 90% of the time the plates weren’t clean, and I’d just go grab food and enjoy it (it also could’ve been that by that point, I was just so hungry I didn’t care).

6) Breakfast. I’m not a morning person. If anything, on a good day, a normal day, in my normal non-camp life, I’m a growly bear in the morning. You don’t want to look at me, you’ll get your head bit off. But not at camp. It was difficult to be that way when everyone all around was all happy and they just wanted to talk and it was fun and enjoyable to talk to them. I really enjoyed getting up and going down for breakfast in the morning.

7) Snowmass. The elevation killed me, but the views were spectacular and the colors, and the nice clean air. The feeling that I was so far from the world and yet very close to a city. It was just amazing.

8 ) Celeste, the swim coach, she helped me become a fish that’s stealthy in the water, almost bubbleless when swimming instead of a shark attacking a seal. I could swim fast but it was all muscle and no technique. And now, if I actually take the time to slow down, I can swim further than 50m without tiring out so quickly.

9) All the staff was excellent, they each brought something to the table and they were great to talk to and get suggestions about whatever I needed to ask about. They were all very helpful.

10) I learned a lot. A whole lot. A whole lot that i’ve not blogged about, but there was a lot learned. One of these days, I might get around to blogging about it.

11) I got to meet and speak with Rick Crawford, who was once Lance Armstrong’s coach. His teachings hit me in the head, hard like a massive boulder, they may have even left a slight dent…

12) It was an awesome feeling to be in an environment where diabetes was normal and being a non-diabetic was the abnormal.

13) For the most part, I was there at camp present in all forms. It was only at the end of the week when I could’ve been in FL with my peeps and a daily call to a friend to tell her all that I was doing and learning at camp when I was mentally not there. I was very present, which is very not normal for me, usually my head is very far away from what’s going on around me.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments)