Paris Mountian 20K
Well, my first organized run...ever. I went back to where I've spent much of my life (Greenville, SC) for the Paris Mountian 20K. My wife has run this many times before and it was just something I was always certain I would NEVER do. So it was very appropriate that this was my first Triabetes run. I had on my Triabetes shirt and the tri hat John gave me (would have carried voodoo dolls if I thought it would help). I got there at 6:45 for an 8am start - even bought my breakfast with me because I was most worried about how my blood sugar would do. I checked in and got my cool t-shirt (almost went home after that) then I went back to the car to stretch and eat. At about 7:20 I ate breakfast and took 2 units (blood sugar 137). Earlier I had backed off the Lantus just a bit - because I figured that I would only be a few hours and wouldn't affect the rest of the day that much. I pinned my number on (number 4....felt like an elite runner - but they just did this by alphabetical order) and went to the start line at 7:45.
There was like, 4 people there. I walked around the building and didn't find anyone else and walked to the finish line where a few were getting some things ready - found out that the start was really at 8:30 and that the website was wrong and that someone should have told me when I signed in. So I sat around inside for 30 minutes.
As I walked out to the start line my blood sugar was 284. Thank you very much.
So in the crowd, I walked around just a bit - looking for some old students that used to run this race usually - when someone says "Steve?"
Turns out it was a dear long time friend of ours that we had lost touch with. He and his wife had gotten us into hiking and backpacking and dogs back in the day. I recognized his face but it was attached to a body that was 70 pounds lighter than I remembered. To make a long story short - he and his wife simply decided to make a change and now they are uber-athletes. Running races all over. Absolutely wonderful.
Anyway - he left me in the dust. As the pack was making it out of Furman a woman came up beside me and said "are you a diabetic? Type 1?" Turns out she is a type 1er and a diabetes educator. But here is the kicker. She says where are you from? Boone, I say. "I am from Boone" she says. Turns out she went to the middle school where Dave teaches and went to the high school I teach at. Small world - I'm going to hit her up for Greenville donations...
Anyway the race went well - I was low by the top of the mountain (4 miles) I was 89 half way through and 93 at the end. 5 clif shots. Pretty surprised by that. I didn't expect to have to eat so much. Much of the course went right around where Ashley and I used to live when we first moved in together in college - it was a basement apartment of the nicest older couple. So it was really nostalgic to run down old roads and say "I used to catch fence lizards on this old split rail here"... ok, maybe its only nostaligic for nature geeks.
I finished at 1:49:27 and was happy with that. An hour later I was 334....ah, Diabetes. I was fighting high blood sugar the rest of the day. How ironic that the only stable blood sugar I had all day was while I was running...
There was like, 4 people there. I walked around the building and didn't find anyone else and walked to the finish line where a few were getting some things ready - found out that the start was really at 8:30 and that the website was wrong and that someone should have told me when I signed in. So I sat around inside for 30 minutes.
As I walked out to the start line my blood sugar was 284. Thank you very much.
So in the crowd, I walked around just a bit - looking for some old students that used to run this race usually - when someone says "Steve?"
Turns out it was a dear long time friend of ours that we had lost touch with. He and his wife had gotten us into hiking and backpacking and dogs back in the day. I recognized his face but it was attached to a body that was 70 pounds lighter than I remembered. To make a long story short - he and his wife simply decided to make a change and now they are uber-athletes. Running races all over. Absolutely wonderful.
Anyway - he left me in the dust. As the pack was making it out of Furman a woman came up beside me and said "are you a diabetic? Type 1?" Turns out she is a type 1er and a diabetes educator. But here is the kicker. She says where are you from? Boone, I say. "I am from Boone" she says. Turns out she went to the middle school where Dave teaches and went to the high school I teach at. Small world - I'm going to hit her up for Greenville donations...
Anyway the race went well - I was low by the top of the mountain (4 miles) I was 89 half way through and 93 at the end. 5 clif shots. Pretty surprised by that. I didn't expect to have to eat so much. Much of the course went right around where Ashley and I used to live when we first moved in together in college - it was a basement apartment of the nicest older couple. So it was really nostalgic to run down old roads and say "I used to catch fence lizards on this old split rail here"... ok, maybe its only nostaligic for nature geeks.
I finished at 1:49:27 and was happy with that. An hour later I was 334....ah, Diabetes. I was fighting high blood sugar the rest of the day. How ironic that the only stable blood sugar I had all day was while I was running...
