October 20, 2009
Ramona

When I signed up for this almost one year ago, I figured by the time race week rolled around, I would be in the best shape of my life. Well, I’m not, and I’m struggling with that. I wish I felt lighter, faster, more agile and more confident. Instead, I’m worried that I won’t finish in 8 hours, or at all for that matter.

I’m trying to remind myself of a couple of important things, though, to temper my glum thoughts. First, from the beginning Team WILD appealed to me for its inclusiveness and mission to inspire. Sometimes the greatest inspiration comes from the person to whom one can most easily relate. For those women who best relate to lean, muscular, tour-de-forces – women who manage to workout 5-6 days per week no matter what – there are some amazing women on the team to choose from! But for women who need someone else – someone who ends up missing more workouts than she’d like to admit and feels as insecure as they do running in spandex – there is me. If by crossing even the STARTING line I can inspire one woman like me to push herself to the limits of her endurance, whatever those may be, then I will be happy.

Second, the magical thing about training with Team WILD has, in fact, very little to do with how I will perform on Sunday. The magic, for me, is in the experience with exercise and diabetes I have shared with my teammates, not only this year, but in the many years before we even met: when we were diagnosed as children, when took dance classes or went to summer camp, when we got our first pumps, and when we figured out what to do with them during our first triathlons. Sharing those experiences, helping each other develop strategies for new experiences, and building confidence and clarity along the way have been the most important outcomes of this experience for me. And those will remain, regardless of when or how I cross the finish line.