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.
T is for Triathlon
tri·ath·lon [trahy-ath-luhn]
-noun
An athletic contest comprising three consecutive events, usually swimming, bicycling, and distance running.
I couldn’t use “T is for Triathlete” because I’m not a triathlete yet, but I’ll be able to say that I am when I participate in the Rattlesnake Triathlon in August up in Aurora, CO. I’m going to do the Sprint Distance one on the 17th of August. (I might be crazy enough to try and do an event in July, we’ll see.) A sprint distance triathlon is 500m swim, 12 mile bike, 5k run. I know I can do the biking portion. Next Sunday we’re going to find out if I can do the 5k run because I’m doing the Run for the Zoo in Albuquerque, which, coincidentally, is 5k. Swimming, well, I can swim, that’s all I know at this point.
A sprint distance triathlon is my start. The big goal for the next 18 months is to get prepared and be ready for the Square Lake Triathlon in September 2009. That’s what I’m aiming for.
I should actually say, that’s what we’re aiming for, because I’m not alone in this venture. Nope, currently, I’ve got Mari and Nancy (or perhaps they have me) on the team. Our team consists of women that live with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. We will be joyfully competing in the September 2009 Square Lake 70.3 triathlon. In the process of training for and competing in this event we will be proving to ourselves and the world that women living with the challenge of diabetes can unite with one another and our medical and coaching support staff to do something magnificent like completing a 70.3 Ironman.
We aim to demonstrate that WOMEN can be active and do intense endurance sports like triathlons. We want to demonstrate the power of women supporting each other to by physically active in general and with diabetes in particular. We want to be an inspiration to girls diagnosed with diabetes. We want to show what it is like to live with magnificence and joy at every turn; even in the face of this ravaging, frightening and very challenging disease.
I’d like to invite you to be part of this team, if you’re a woman with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes and you have the desire, discipline, and athletic ability to compete in a 70.3 Ironman please contact me.
500 Mile Challenge
Ok, so let’s review real quick what’s going on
1) Last week with a push from a friend, I found a reason to compete in a Triathlon, the big Triathlon will be an Ironman 70.3 but there will be small ones along the way.
2) I went and bought running shoes that I wasn’t completely confident in so that I can begin running, because you can’t very well do a Triathlon without running.
A day after I bought the shoes, I decided that I needed the cool Nike + iPod aka NikePlus thingamajig so that I could track my progress, because in reality, I’m too lazy to figure out how far I’ve run if I’m not on a treadmill, and keeping track of my progress is important to me.
But for the NikePlus thingamajig, I had to have an iPod Nano, my iPod touch wasn’t good enough, so I bought one of them too. Now before you go thinking that I’m crazy, I’m not crazy, this is normal behavior, I never slip into anything easily, I always go head first, if I’m going to do it, I’M GOING TO DO IT GOSH DARNIT!!!
So, this evening, I decide that I’m going to calibrate the Nike+ iPod Sports kit and so I put on my shoes, put the sensor beneath my laces (which isn’t the best alternative to not having Nike+ shoes, but I didn’t feel like concocting a good alternative), put leashes on the dogs and off we go.
I calibrated the walk of 400m then the run of the same distance and then I had to go back home. But by this time, Loki, one of the dogs, was in no mood for running, or walking for that matter, so he pretty much made me drag him home. When I got the dogs home, I put them in the yard and ran so that I could have a whole mile and not just eight tenths of a mile.
So I mostly walked, sprint a little at the end run, but at this point, it’s better than nothing. I’m thanking the gods above that I didn’t no take the dogs and just ran by myself because the shoes tore up my heels. I’ve never had a pair of running shoes tear up my heals, but alas, there’s a first time for everything.
After examining the damage to my feet and uploading my stats from my walk/run to Nike+, I decided I need to join the 500 Mile Challenge.
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner started it.
“I started this challenge for the vast community of blogging runners and diabetics. I’m hoping to inspire many to do great things, to push themselves to extraordinary heights, and to raise awareness of diabetes, and the United Nations’ designated “World Diabetes Day” held every year on November 14th.” [Jamie]
I figured that if I was going to be running in an effort to train for the triathlons that I intend on competing in that I might as well put my training to further work and make it count for something just as big as a triathlon.
Thanks to Nike+ and Mark (who created the Nike+ iPod Stats WordPress plugin to take the Nike+ data and make it available on websites) you can track my progress in meeting this goal by looking in the sidebar each time you visit this site:
If you’re interested in joining the 500 Mile (or 1000 Mile) Challenge, you too can do so, and no, you don’t have to be diabetic to join the challenge. You can sign up at YES.DiabeticRunner.com.
Running Shoes, Take Me Away
Anytime in my life that I’ve ever needed a pair of running shoes, it was Payless special, except for those once a year we’d get to go to a department store and get shoes for school, but mom always had a price limit, $40 or something like that, not too expensive so I never really got what I’d call sweet shoes, that was until I started working and I could afford my own shoes, and then I became an Adidas fiend. If I wanted a pair of running shoes I was more likely to migrate towards Adidas than I was any other brand, except Nike. Nike and I had a decent relationship for a while, but then I got all snobby and I couldn’t “brand clash”.
Because my shirts were Adidas and my pants were Adidas I couldn’t very well run around in Nike shoes right? And since I didn’t like the Nike pants because they didn’t rip away like the Adidas I had to change shoe brands, not that it killed me by any means.
Today however was different, I couldn’t just go in a buy a pair of shoes because it was the brand I preferred or the colors I liked, no, today, I went and bought running shoes for that in which they were intended, running. I’ve never really been concerned about how shoes worked when I ran. A few years ago when I was running I’d just put on my shoes and go, if my friends wanted to go running and I didn’t have my shoes, I’d put on their shoes (because we were same sized feet) and go.
I went to Fleet Feet because the Boulder store comes highly recommended and the Orlando store is also highly recommended. I do not recommend the Albuquerque store. It looks like the athletics monster went into that store and vomited, it’s a surprise that the store isn’t closed for breaking fire code regulations or something. Another thing was, and what I was really hoping for is that they’d fit me for a pair of shoes put me on a treadmill like they do in the Orlando store and watch me run, they didn’t even have a treadmill that I could see in the Albuquerque store. The guy that was watching me walk so that he could decide what kind of shoe to put me in asked if my left leg had ever been injured, the whole time he was looking at my right leg, so I grabbed my left leg and said, “left leg” and he said what about your right leg, and I said, “no, not my right leg only my left leg” and he said something about over pronation on my right leg whatever that means.
I was a little skeptical in his analysis just because he didn’t know right from left but I walked out with a pair of Saucony Progrid something or other.
I’ve got half a mind to go up to Boulder this weekend and see Kathy because she was who was recommended. I hear that she’s very good when it comes to picking shoes that are the right fit. I’d just hate to be running in a pair of shoes that aren’t quite the right fit and therefore might cause injury. I want to feel comfortable in the pair of shoes that a store representative gives me, I don’t want to have any doubts about the questions they’re asking me or anything else. I don’t want to injury myself before I even get to my half Ironman race in 2009, that will break my heart.
Do you swim or run?
Do you swim or run? Want to learn???? Those were questions Mari asked me last week in an email. We’re working on something and it involves (thus far) Her, Nancy (a new friend), Me (all type 1 diabetics) and an Ironman 70.3 (that’s a 1/2 Ironman: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run, which adds up to 70.3 miles) in 2009.
I already have the bike part down, I proved that two weekends ago when I did that metric century in Phoenix, I can ride 62.5 miles. But the question now is, can I ride 56 miles after swimming a mile and a half and then after swimming and biking, run 13.1 miles? I believe that I can.
Doing a triathlon isn’t a new thought to me. It’s something that’s been in my head for a couple years now, last year even I started asking around at the gym, asking the trainers if they had participated in triathlons and how do they suggest training for one, etc.
When I was in Phoenix a few weeks ago, when I was talking to Jerry of Team WHAT? he said something to the effect of Tuscon being a great place to train for triathlons because the weather is fairly even keel and doesn’t change like the weather in Phoenix. He was riding his tri bike and I think that’s how that conversation got started. He told me that for my first triathlon to make sure that the swim portion was in a pool and not in open water because open water can be a little intimidating the first time around. When I told him that I wanted to start with a Sprint he said that a Sprint is a great place to start.
This is just what I needed to turn my want of participating in a triathlon into a reality. Before I didn’t have anything but doubt surrounding whether or not I could do one. It’s not even something I really spoke out loud to anyone that personally knew me, I’d only speak of it to people that I didn’t know because they were the least likely to say “oh, you can’t do that, what about your diabetes? how are you going to train? what about not having insulin in your system while you swim?” (I could go on and on with the questions but I’ll refrain). Despite my general hard headed and stubbornness, too many “you can’ts” and I would begin to think that I couldn’t instead of fighting back and pursuing what I wanted to do. So not many people knew that I wanted to compete in a triathlon. But now it’s a reality. I can fight off any doubt that arises because I won’t be doing this alone. I’ve got Mari and Nancy so far to support me and me to support them, it’s gonna be FUN!
Mari and Nancy both have done several triathlons (different distances). Me, I’m going to start training now and by July/August I should be able to do my first sprint. I’d like to do several sprints and then I’d like to attempt to do an Olympic distance triathlon by December. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I can cycle already, and I’m not necessarily in it to win the first time around (although my competitive spirit will drive me to keep up with the best) all I need to do is get my swimming technique under wraps and start running again.
When I was talking with one of the trainers at the gym last year, she did tell me that the biggest mistake first time triathletes make is training for the areas they’re not good in, and slacking off where they think they’re good. So like, for instance, that’s be equivalent to me thinking that I don’t need to cycle and that I only need to focus on swimming and running. But I’m not going to make that mistake. I’ve got a plan. (BeginnerTriathlete.com helped me with it.)
If you’re a triathlete and want to give me pointers along the way I’m all for it 
And stay tuned because this isn’t the last you’re going to hear of the Ironman 70.3 of 2009 for us women diabetics.