July 23, 2009
Sarah W.

About once a week I see the facebook updates that a lot of the WILD women have on their page, counting down the days until the big race! We are now officially under 100 days and I think for a lot of it the reality is kicking in that we are actually doing this!

Our coaches want us to start looking at times, making sure we will meet the 8-hour cut-off and by next week the intense training begins! I know for me, and a lot of girls on the team, our goal is to meet this cut-off and finish the race (hopefully with good blood sugars while we do it!)

But as we get into this last phase of training and the race inches closer and closer I read a quote the other day that I have been repeating to myself when I am on a long run and going so slow that wonder how I am ever going to finish 13.1 miles. And I think this quote speaks for all of us. “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start”.

No matter what happens in October, whether we finish, don’t finish, finish with a great time, don’t meat the cut-off, drop too low, or finish with high blood sugars what I have been realizing lately is that none of this matters. What matters is that we committed to doing this and have worked our a**es off to reach our goals and inspire others along the way. The mere fact that we are attempting to complete this race while dealing with diabetes at the same time is a miracle in itself!

July 22, 2009
Ramona

My mother was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was six years old. I remember snippets: how her vision was blurry but no eyeglasses helped, how she finally self-diagnosed diabetes after looking it up in the dictionary (it was the 1970s and my mom was 38 years old – her doctors didn’t even consider Type 1 diabetes), and how she always had Lifesavers. Fantasizing about my grown-up life when I was in elementary school, I imagined I too had diabetes and had to prick my fingers and take shots, just like my mother. I never remember Mom being “sick.” She ran, she swam, she worked hard, and she always had energy. To me, diabetes didn’t mean disability; it meant using cool electronic gadgets and getting to carry around cute little purses with important supplies. It was fun to fantasize about having it.

I remember the exact moment, just before my thirteenth birthday, when Mom diagnosed me with diabetes. I walked into the kitchen and said I needed glasses because sometimes my eyes were really blurry. She sat me down and tested my blood sugar right then and there. When we saw the result – somewhere around 250 – she said, “Oh honey, I think you have diabetes.”

Instead of feeling sad or scared, I was actually kind of excited. I remember calling my middle school friends and saying, “Guess what I have… diabetes!” When I returned to school, I told my teachers I would need to test my blood sugar and take insulin during classes. The first time I tested in science period, my classmates were so interested the teacher had to stop class to let everyone watch and ask questions. I offered to test my friends’ blood sugars after school. Until the principal intervened, I was doing lab work on the blacktop every day at 3:20.

In my late teens and twenties, I travelled a lot. In 1992, when I was 17, I worked on a farm in a remote village in Poland for 3 weeks. A year and half later, I went to northeast Brazil, very close to the Amazon, for three months to help build a school. From age 20 to 21, I taught at a teacher training school in rural Mozambique. I brought 12 months of diabetes supplies with me in my carry-on – that’s 5-7 shots a day for 365 days, plus test strips, insulin, and assorted accoutrement. I’ll never forget the face of the Bulgarian airport screener as he pawed through my giant duffle bag of syringes, incredulous that I would blatantly try to carry them through security. During college and graduate school, I spent 15 months in Russia. After graduate school, I worked in Berlin for 5 months, returning to the U.S. by container ship – a 12-day journey across the Atlantic without a doctor on board. I was able to have these experiences because it never occurred to me that I couldn’t or shouldn’t due to diabetes: Family and friends were supportive, and my mother was an incomparable role model. Everywhere I travelled reminded me how lucky I was to have diabetes in a country like the U.S. rather than somewhere like Russia or Mozambique, and to be surrounded by caring family and friends.

So what makes having diabetes difficult? For me, 2 things:

1. Managing diabetes requires a constant awareness of one’s body and of food. Like many other young women, I struggled with body image and food issues as a young adult. I am sure having diabetes had something to do with this. Now that I’m older, I focus more on health. To be healthy with diabetes requires learning to live with a degree of energy, emotion, and intellect in constant reserve for diabetes management. That’s not bad, but it’s not always easy, and it’s difficult to share with people who don’t have diabetes.
2. The impact of diabetes on my body and lifespan is unclear. I cannot be certain high blood sugars aren’t taxing my kidneys, rupturing blood vessels in my retinas, or compromising circulation in my extremities. Nor can I be sure that an unexpected attack of low blood sugar won’t send me to the ER tomorrow. The result is an ever-present, underlying sense of vulnerability and uncertainty about my health and future, aggravated by the knowledge that I will never attain perfect diabetes control.
   

As I age and as technology advances, diabetes is becoming increasingly manageable: My nine-to-five job encourages a more regular eating, sleeping, and exercise schedule, with minimal opportunities for adventure travel, than my student life did; and I now use an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor. I’m also increasingly aware that relative to more intractable diseases such as cancer or unpredictable events like car accidents, diabetes is not so bad.

The most recent chapter in my life with diabetes is Team WILD. Training for a half-Ironman is HARD. I’ve completed 7 marathons, but I honestly don’t know if I can train hard enough to complete the Longhorn 70.3 in October. And that’s ok. The journey has been worth it, regardless. Hearing the stories of other women with diabetes has touched and inspired me unexpectedly, I’m paying more attention to my blood sugars than I have in years, and I’m able to bike and swim distances for the first time in my life. Thanks, Team WILD. See you in Austin!

July 21, 2009
Lorrie

My second triathlon of the season is now in the record books. On July 19, 2009, my alarm awoke me at 3:45am. Who the heck gets up that early—a hardcore triathlete of course? Well, at least I have all of the triathlon gear to make me look hardcore, but hardcore I’m not. It’s crazy, so my parents think, but somehow I think it’s kind of fun, at least that’s what I thought before I looked up my results. I was disappointed in my overall time. I really thought I did better than my overall time reflected.

As I was looking over my times, I reflected back on each step of the way. Here’s what I recall:

• Bed at 8:00pm the night before event. Awoke at 10:00pm and took 9 units of Levimer. Set temp basal on pump to 0% for 10 hours.

• Up out of bed at 3:45am. Checked BG level (157). Dressed and ate a bowl of Special K with blueberries cereal. Had a bit more than the suggested serving. Bolused for 33 grams.

• Off to race at 4:30am.

• 6:00am transition site setup. 6:30am Checked BG level (151). Ate 23 grams of carbs, but entered only 19 grams in pump.

• 6:30am left pump in transition. (Note: temp basal was still at 0% because Levimer was in action).

• 7:30am swim starts. Lake water was freezing 58 degrees. YIKES! Half mile swim. A few minutes into the swim, I felt this blow to the side of my head. I say to myself, what the heck, as I catch my goggles before they hit the water. Close call, I think to myself, as I regain my composure and put my goggles back on. I’m sure the woman who hit me didn’t mean to, but I still give her the evil eye. After the stampede is through, I settle into my swim and complete the swim portion in 12:29. I was very happy with this. (Note: I do remember reading somewhere to put the goggle straps under the swim cap to help prevent them from flying off if you get hit. I think I’ll do that for the next event).

• Transition was slow due to stripping off wetsuit, rewetting feet to get sand off, putting on socks and shoes, helmet, glasses, and most importantly taking care of all the diabetes related stuff: Reconnecting pump and sensor, finding lost sensor, checking blood and bolusing for the 257 that appeared on my meter after the swim. My temp basal was complete and running at normal basal rate. I decided not to set a temp basal because the event wasn’t that long and my BG level was in the mid 200s. This took 7:44.

• The first and last 1.5 miles of the bike was on a terrible road. The race official told us to be careful during this portion of road because there were lots of potholes. I rode this portion carefully for fear of getting a flat. Once on the main highway portion, there were two loops to complete. On the first loop, I felt great. Speed was averaging 18 to 20 miles per hour. I was in my aero bar position and legs were cranking. Just before I started my second loop, I started to feel extremely tired. I wondered if my BG level was dropping quickly. I glanced at my sensor, which read 200. Hmmmm, what’s wrong? I reached for some Chomps and ate three or four. I don’t remember exactly. Throughout the second loop, I started doubting my abilities. I struggled through the remainder of the bike and completed the 13.2 mile course in 48:22. I didn’t feel good about the ride.

• I didn’t bother checking my BG level prior to the 4 mile run. I wanted to hustle to make up lost time on the bike. My transition time was about 3.30. I started feeling good about a mile into the run. My first mile was a bit slow and calves had a bit of cramping, but once I got through the first mile, I started to pick up some momentum. I did walk through the three water stations, which was my plan. I usually don’t hydrate enough and wanted to make sure I did. I completed the run in 42:17. This was a bit slower than my usual 10 minute mile, but I was okay with it.

• Overall event time was 1:54:20. BG level 131.

So, now that I’ve reflected on my times, what have I learned? First, I probably didn’t have enough fuel on board at the start. I figured the event wasn’t a long one, so I didn’t need a lot of fuel. I may have been wrong and bonked during the cycling portion. I’ve also learned not to be so hard on myself. I was telling my mom about the event, explaining each portion and how it works. She’s not an athlete and knows nothing about sports. In fact, she used to tell me to score a touchdown before each of my high school basketball games. She came to every game and cheered when a basket was made, even if it was the other team making the basket. My dad would have to tell her she was cheering for the wrong team. She would just say, well isn’t it good for the person who scored? My dad would say yes for them it is. My mom would say, then I’m going to cheer. Anyway, I told my mom that I was disappointed in my overall time. In her wisdom, she said did you score a touchdown? I said, I guess I did.

July 21, 2009
Kathy

Just over three months until the big race! Can you believe some of us joined in this adventure almost one year ago? To me, it seems like we are in the thick of things now, no turning back. We trained hard, and have maybe our hardest training to go. We learned so much thanks to each other and our coaches, yet have so much more to figure out about truly training for an endurance race while managing the ever-changing ‘art’ of having diabetes.

It sounds like we’ve all has some sort of 1st overt the past year. Some of us newbies to the sport of triathlon had our first open water experience, first wetsuit wrangling, first official sprint triathlon, or even our first snot rocket (ask Katie for details about that one). Some veterans and others on the team had 1st of their own, like the disappointment in training for a tri but not being able to complete it, either due to a broken ankle or to the lovely Lake Michigan swells (effectively turning the swim portion of the tri into another run). Whatever your 1st of the past year have been, here’s to the 1st 70.3-mile adventure of Team WILD!

Since I didn’t have too much to say this month, I thought I’d add some pictures of me swimming in a beautiful lake in northern Wisconsin over the July 4th weekend.

July 16, 2009
Karen L.

It’s weird to think of myself as a hardcore athlete. I’ve never pursued something this doggedly at which I have no natural talent and little experience. It’s a humbling venture thus far, and yet rewarding in the improvement I’m seeing in myself. I’m also really grateful to have the time and energy to devote to training right now.

I’ve had a few races in the past many weeks. Twice I participated in the local Stroke ‘n Stride races, which are aquathlons much like Kathy described in a recent blog. In these, you can choose a one-loop (750m) or two-loop (1500m) swim, and you follow that with a 5K run. The swim is my weakest triathlon link, and so it’s not really surprising that I came in DFL when I did the two-loop race a couple of weeks ago. I was a little chagrined, anyway. I was waaaay behind the next-to-last person, but I tell myself that DFL > DNF > DNS, right?

So, I’m working on the swimming. I’ve gone to a bunch of open water swims, and I’m having some lessons with a swim coach, and hopefully we’ll get it all worked out so that there’s no need to freak out about the swim cutoff in our goal race.

Last Sunday I raced in the Boulder Peak triathlon, which was my first Olympic-distance race and thus a PR (woo!). It’s kind of known for the bike course, because it goes up Old Stage road:
Thankfully, I live very near the course and have biked this loop before, so am familiar with the big hill. Also, I have triple chain ring in front, which I _definitely_ needed.

When I did my first triathlon in May, a sprint, I’d gone really high on the bike ride and found my blood sugar over 400 in T2. Sadly, I found out that this pattern wasn’t just a fluke on that race day in May. Although my blood sugar did _not_ follow that pattern when I did the aquathlons, and I was _not_ dehydrated on this race (something we thought might have happened to cause the high in my first tri), at the Boulder Peak I found my blood sugar over 500 late in the bike, and confirmed that number with an entirely different meter/poker/strips combo when I reached T2.

This time, I can definitely say that the high adversely affected my race performance. Besides having to go to the porta-potty in T2 (Jenny, I just couldn’t do it – worried about squishy running shoes), I fretted about whether I should run at all, or maybe visit the med tent instead. That thought pissed me off, and I’d done what I could by taking insulin when I first discovered the high and then a little more in T2, so I figured I’d go to the med tent if I passed out (note: has never happened) and otherwise I’d finish the race. So I shuffled along at a pace that was really slow for me, with lots of walking and testing breaks and much water consumption. I felt pretty crappy.

My blood sugar came down 300 points between mile 1 and mile 3.1 on the run course. I was immensely relieved to see that trend, but coming down that much in that short a time is really exhausting, and I can’t say I had a stellar second half of the run. I did figure that I wasn’t doing much worse than the young guy with IT band problems and chafed nipples (my partner Tony helped with the latter problem by giving the distressed runner bandaids from his cheering spot near the run turnaround – he’s good that way). I also was doing better than the poor woman whose shorts had lost most of a cheek, replaced with blood; another thing to be grateful for – I wasn’t hit by a station wagon on the bike course!

So, I made it over the finish line and got my towel that had been sitting in ice water (best party favor EVER!!!) and my blood sugar was 186 (after having it be 130 at mile 5, then eating). It was really nice to stop moving. I had great numbers for the rest of the day.

I’m doing the CWW practice the weekend after next, so I’ll practice new control strategies in that ‘race’. My goal that day will be to have good blood sugars, with no crazy highs. Wish me luck.

July 5, 2009
Karen R.

Quite a few more yards and the end is finally in sight. Cross the finish line, get my t-shirt, and try to find cold water. Aid station's water is just as warm as mine--did they use no ice??? Wish I could have been more positive throughout this, but I find running in the heat particularly onerous. This race emphasized what I need to work on and will work on for the rest of the summer. No more sprint distances for me, just an Olympic distance a few months from now and then on to Austin. See you in 110 days!!

July 2, 2009
Jennifer S.

So with the time to rest the past week I’ve also reflected while completing these slower workouts. I’ve had a chance to think of the things I’ve (we’ve) accomplished since our intensive Yoli training plans took form in January.
My year started out well with a great ½ Marathon, although I wasn’t feeling the best to run it, I did well considering the flu I had days before, and was thankful for the training I had done before this to actually be able to do the event at all. I think it really sank in how important REAL training is for endurance events!

Onto the first rehearsal ....in March? I feel like I’ve been training, and training and training. I thought that was a long first rehearsal, what was it total…I think I logged 2 hours or something….thinking on it now it’s like sitting by the pool sipping a drink. I did that rehearsal in the gym, too cold outside to bike or run….clearly I’m not as hard-core as some athletes.

April was fantastic in San Antonio with many of you….and it brought a new dimension to both training and what it would be like on race day. A 3-31/2 hour rehearsal that day, that went well overall even if I was upset with my lack of swimming ability and panic attack in the open water. (Thanks to Celeste for swimming by my side and reassuring me I was doing fine!) Reflecting now….I should have kept going out there, did the second lap and sucked it up…but the learning process teaches a lot!

May was a marathon that I did with my husband and sister-in-law. We chose to do the Cellcom Green Bay, WI Marathon as a Relay…what a fun option! And to cross the finish line hand in hand with both of them…my sister-in-law a very newbie runner (she did 6 miles of the course) afforded me the chance to feel what it will be like in October with all of my wonderful teammates and our millions of supporters there cheering us on! I also experienced true endurance athlete spirit as I convinced my best friend to do a 50-mile ride with me for my training….this was her first ride of the year!! I’m not such a nice friend! But she has the type of personality that is endurance perfect….she just keeps going, even if it’s slow and steady toward the finish!

2 weeks later I did our 4-hour rehearsal, a little backwards as I had to do the swim at the end since pool availability was nil at the hour I started the rehearsal. It was a good experience to feel the impact that riding and running has on the legs before getting in the pool, and the importance of the swim training in using your legs as little as possible for the swim to save them for the coming 2 transitions.

June ….hmmm, long workouts here and starting to do the Bricks. Best experience I think was definitely doing the 63 mile Tour de Cure this year and getting to wear my first Red Rider jersey!! I was so excited to put it on I changed right at the station where they were handing them out!! Had a great ride, followed all of the super fueling and hydrating tips from Marcey with great results.

The next weekend brought me to the longest of our rehearsals….5 hours…1 hour swim, 34 mile ride and 7.2 mile run. And as I heard from Mari at our camp in Austin…..”This is your race!”, I’m reminded of this as my husband does the rehearsals with me, he’s always great to remind me to set my pace and ignore that he’s there….it’s like having Mari’s comment always in my ear!

As I look at the training ahead, I know we are all on the same path. We have our individual frustrations and successes, but we also have the same goal not only to finish this strong and as a visible team of WILD women, but also to offer inspiration to all exercising women with Diabetes.

Onto my next short-term goal: my first Tri (sprint length) at the end of July. I expect to do well and learn from this as well!!