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Day 20 #NHBPM – Regretting A Moment (Or Two, Or Two Hundred) November 21, 2012

Filed under: diabetes,health,National Health Blog Post Month — Susan @ 2:20 am

Day 20 – Tuesday, Nov. 20

“A health moment I regret…”
OR
Write about alternative treatments / regimens / medicine. What do you support? What is crazy?

I’m choosing the first prompt because if I choose the second one I’m afraid I’ll alienate a whole bunch of folks. I don’t want to get all confrontational. I think it’s a matter of personal choice. I think lots of things out there are crazy. I support PEOPLE, not regimes or treatments. Some people I care about might make different choices than I do. Some people think I’m crazy because I take pharmaceutical medications. We all have to do what we decide to do.

So… a health moment that I regret? Hmmm.

I regret waiting so long to take care of my health. That wasn’t one moment, but a series of a million moments that stretched into years. I regret waiting, knowing that I wasn’t in the best of health. I was in my forties and I thought I was OLD. That’s why I was always exhausted and out of breath, why I had chronically painful knees and back. I couldn’t go up a flight of stairs without wheezing. But I wasn’t old. I was overweight and sick. I regret having blinders on. I regret not wanting to see what was going on inside me.

But.. it’s never too late to take the blinders off.

 

Day 19 #NHBPM Life and Death?

Filed under: body image,diabetes,emotions,health,lessons learned,National Health Blog Post Month — Susan @ 2:08 am

Day 19 – Monday, Nov. 19

Questions I have for for other patients OR
Write about: Life and Death

It might seem melodramatic to say that losing weight and getting more active is a matter of life and death for me, but I think it is. I was on a downward spiral when I first started this blog. I had gone to Weight Watchers many many times in the past, but I didn’t think it was life and death. I thought it was skinny jeans or a high school reunion dress. So it didn’t matter much to me. Looks weren’t important. I thought, it’s what’s inside that matters. What I didn’t realize was that inside, my high blood pressure was out the roof, my lipids and blood glucose were out of control. THAT what was going on inside while I was scoffing at people who wanted to wear bikinis. It isn’t just about that.

It took realizing that it IS all about life and death. I can have a good life, or I can have a shorter, more difficult life. I know I don’t have 100% say. There are genetics and other factors to consider. But I also can lean towards the life part of it.

It wasn’t until I realized that my weight, my activity level WERE as important as life and death that I decided to do something about it. I’m glad it wasn’t too late.

 

 

Day 6 #NHPBM: Taking the High Road November 6, 2012

Filed under: 30in30,diabetes,emotions,National Health Blog Post Month — Susan @ 12:57 pm
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Day 6 – Tuesday, Nov. 6

News-style post
OR
Write about a time you had to take the high road

The only news I care about today is the election, but I’m too anxious to write a news style post, so I’m going to choose the “high road” post. But in order to do that I wanted to be really sure what that meant. I Googled it and found:

You may have faced moments when you want nothing more than to react loudly when somebody pushes your buttons. Taking the high road will keep the peace. It’s the best way to handle conflict and maintain your own moral high ground.

I’ve had my buttons pushed a number of times regarding my diabetes. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed that I realized that there are deep seated prejudices regarding especially Type 2 diabetes. When I began to participate in message boards and other diabetes communities, I read several posts from people (who either had Type 1 or had children with Type 1 – actually more parents of T1s) who were scornful and/or disgusted by any resources going to people with Type 2 diabetes. I quickly came to realize that many people view Type 2 diabetes as the kind that “fat people get” or people who just eat like pigs and bring it on themselves.

I felt that way myself.

I felt embarrassed and ashamed to have done such harm to my body and felt like I was unworthy of any sort of kindness or attention. Indeed, the same week that I was diagnosed, I attended a solo performance by a woman who had had Type 1 diabetes since childhood. She depicted an alarming/hilarious scene in which she is woken up to have her blood tested by an anxious mother several times a night.  Sitting in the audience, I was thinking, oh wow, there’s my people!

And then she said, “I have Type 1 diabetes! Not the kind that people who eat tons of cheeseburgers get.”

I wanted to crawl underneath my theater seat and die. She was talking about ME, of course. I furtively looked from side to side to see if anyone was going to throw me out of the theater. Of course nobody had a clue what was happening with me.

But that was the beginning of seeing the bias that is out there. The conventional wisdom is that Type 1 diabetics are innocent, and that they have done nothing to “bring it on” themselves. And that Type 2s are to blame for their (our) conditions.

Since those early days I have learned that behavior and lifestyle are only partial factors in Type 2 diabetes. There are some elements of truth in that perception. But a lot of it is based in genetic predisposition, something that none of us can control. There are people who are very inactive and who eat fabulously unhealthy diets, who will never ever get Type 2 diabetes. And there are normal-or-underweight people who run marathons who might.

It’s been hard for me to not feel defensive and attacked when people make “type 2” remarks. And they do it all the time. Sometimes I feel like attacking back. Because honestly, I feel like I am doing the best I damn can.

But then I have to take a deep breath and take the highest road I can find.

Bottom line is, it’s good for ALL of us to make healthier food choices and to be active in our lives. Right?

This is Post #6 (WOW!) of National Health Blog Post Month.

Other bloggers I’ve discovered this month:

• Jess at Team Awesome writes about being thankful. http://www.talesfromteamawesome.com/2012/11/weekly-weigh-in-32-nhbpm.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

• Lorraine climbs on her health activist soapbox

http://thyroid-hope.blogspot.co.uk

 

 

Day 5 #NHBPM: On the Shingles Soapbox November 5, 2012

Filed under: 30in30,diabetes,emotions,health,lessons learned,National Health Blog Post Month,writing — Susan @ 1:23 pm

Day 5 – Monday, Nov. 5

Writing Prompts: Health Activist Soapbox.
OR Write a #ListOf3 Things that you’re thankful for / excited about / or inspired by

I really thought I was going to write about my three things today, and maybe I will as a post script. As late as yesterday, I thought I had nothing (or not much) to get on a soapbox about, but now I realize I do.

Last week, I was struggling with a bout of (pre-)shingles. I felt as if my bra strap was filled with burning thumb tacks. It was hugely uncomfortable, especially when I was driving. Which I do a lot. Any little bump in the road sent an electric shot of hot pain through the right side of my upper back. It was killer, and I was terrifying and depressed that it was only going to get worse. My back was going to break out into oozing pustules of painful, itchy yuck.

I had heard vaguely of shingles before, but I thought that they were something only suffered by Old People. I didn’t get the vaccine.

But a couple of weeks ago, I started feeling this… weird discomfort. It was limited to a very specific part of my body, as we learned in PT school, a determatomal patch. When I went to my trainer I mentioned this pain. I said, it’s not a muscle kind of pain. It’s my skin—or rather, UNDER my skin.

This is exactly what shingles is. It’s a dormant chicken pox virus that hangs out, sneakily, for decades, and then sometimes fifty or sixty years after the first outbreak, it wakes up! And attacks with a renewed and very painful life. Childhood chicken box tends to be itchy, but adult chicken pox hurts like hell.

This went on for about a week and steadily got worse. But nothing to be seen on the surface at all. After a week I went to see my doctor. She said it sure sounded like shingles. And that the only way of knowing was to take antiviral medication. If it got better, then it was probably shingles. And if it got worse, then we would have ruled shingles out and we could go on to figuring out other things.

For the first two days on the antiviral meds, the shingles pain seemed to get worse. I was getting depressed and frantic. But then it stayed the same. And then, slowly, it began getting better. And better. And now it feels pretty much normal.

I never got the rash. I WAS SPARED!

So what is my soapbox about today? It’s about… dealing with stuff EARLY. This happened with my diabetes when it was still in the Pre- stage. And I swear that this is one of the reasons it is still in good control. My endocrinologist echoes this. She says that if you catch diabetes before it has gotten to a severe state, then it will progress at a much slower rate than otherwise.

This just happened again with the Pre-Shingles.

I can’t tell you how many times people say, “I’ll just wait and see what happens.” Ie., I will see how bad it can REALLY get. Before getting it checked out. But the problem with that, is that if you wait until something gets REALLY BAD, then the damage is already done. You’re already going to be badly messed up.

I really feel like I dodged a huge, nasty, terrible bullet with this one. I’m staying with my aunt and uncle in laws this week. Their sister-in-law had shingles. It was horrible and painful and spread to her eye and blinded her. Seriously. BLIND in one eye. I am so very grateful I caught mine in time.

The second thing I am on my soapbox about it, take your medicine. Medicine is not inherently evil. A lot of people I know are all, “I don’t like to take medicine.” Who does? Sometimes medicine has terrible side effects. I myself admit that I did not take the Lyrica samples that my doctor gave me for nerve pain. Partly because I was holding out for it to get REALLY BAD (which it thankfully never did) and partly because I read that a side effect is: weight gain. Hahaha. Which I knew I did not want. So sometimes we have to choose.

In this case, though, I am very very grateful that I took this ginormous blue horse pill three times a day. I feel like it spared me an awful situation. I’m taking them until the bottle is empty.

So that’s what my (unexpected) soap box is about today:

  1. Get it checked out in the very early stages, whatever it is.
  2. Take your medicine.

Bonus blogette (second prompt):

  1. I’m thankful for my doctor and my medicine.
  2. I’m excited to be re-joining Team in Training, this time with the Run Team (my first time ever!) starting next weekend. I will be training to do the Oakland Half Marathon with my team in March, but also for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon in January.
  3. I’m inspired by Juniorette, my daughter, who just ran a sub-2 hour half marathon at the US Half Marathon in San Francisco yesterday. I’m so proud of her! She is a rock star. We’re going to be doing the Tinkerbell Half together and all I can say is she is going to be waiting a LONG time at the finish line for her mama.

My girl!

Once more: this post is #5 in a series for National Health Blog Post Month. Check out these other fantastic bloggers!

 

Big Blue Test: IT WORKS. October 25, 2012

Filed under: diabetes,exercise,good things,health,healthy challenge,lessons learned,non-scale victory (NSV) — Susan @ 3:52 pm
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I’ll never forget the first time I did the Big Blue Test. It involves taking one’s blood glucose, then exercising for 14+ minutes, then taking it again. Simple. I first did it the first year I was diagnosed with diabetes. I had never done this particular before-and-after test before, and I remember my blood glucose going down a LOT after exercising. It was such an eye opener and it was THE thing that helped me make the direct connection between activity and health. MY health.

Last year I was fortunate enough to participate in the Big Blue Test video promoting exercise for people with diabetes. It was so much fun, such and honor, and to this day I do not fail to get goosebumps when I hear that song.  This year’s video is pretty darn cool, too!

The deal is that every day between now and November 14 (World Diabetes Day) – you can take the test at the Big Blue Test site. You don’t have to have diabetes in order to help people with diabetes! Each test done will mean a donation toward much needed supplies for people with diabetes.

This morning I put on my BBT T-shirt. I tested, then got on the elliptical in my garage for 22 minutes, then tested again. The drop isn’t as huge as it was the first year, BUT that’s because I ate an apple with peanut butter less than an hour beforehand and I can tell you that without the exercise, it would have been a lot, LOT higher.   So YEAH exercise, and YEAH Big Blue Test.

Please join me!!

on the elliptical

Ta-daa!!!

 

 

 

Challenges Can be… Challenging! October 17, 2012

Filed under: book,challenge,diabetes,exercise,friendship,healthy challenge,lessons learned,running,struggle,writing,yoga — Susan @ 9:49 am

I’ve been thinking a lot about a comment that was left recently, in which Karen said, “I don’t ‘do’ challenges…” and I nodded my head. She’s not that kind of person. So many people aren’t. But then I had to think. I AM the kind of person who does a challenge. As often as possible. Who almost needs a challenge in order to get ANYthing done. Left to my own devices, I’m likely to sit around and watch TV shows on Hulu all day. But given a challenge – and suddenly I am capable of things I would never consider on my own.

I am currently in a ton of challenges, some private ones just with myself, and then others that involve hundreds or more people.

  • The Writing Challenge:  I recently challenged myself to write as many consecutive days as possible on 750words.com. Blog posts do not count. I’m now on Day 3, which means I’ve earned myself a Turkey sticker. Yay me! Writing has been so important to me (so I say) and yet I do not make it as much of a priority as I’d like. So I’m just doing this on my own.
  • A running friend of mine has challenged me to run every day. Any time or distance. I am now on Day 5. Last night it was almost midnight and I hadn’t run. I put on my shoes and ran circles around my little street for 5 minutes. I’m saying that counted. But… no way would that have happened without the Running Challenge.

    on the running trail

  • The Yoga Challenge: I have done one yoga pose a day for the past 15 days. Except for today. Tomorrow I will do two. I admit that I tried today’s pose in the morning and it scared me so I backed off. I will complete it tomorrow, with picture, as well as tomorrow’s pose.
  • Creative Process Challenge: I’ve been reading this bookwhich asserts that for successful writing to occur, you must do three things. Process, product and self-care. I count the running and yoga as self-care. The product is what happens with the Writing Challenge. But now I am also challenging myself to 15 minutes of non-goal oriented creative process per day. So far I have played with pink Play-Dough and done a drawing of a pumpkin. Two days down.

    i love the smell

  • The Big Blue Test: from now until Nov 14th (National Diabetes Day) I am participating in the Big Blue Test. This very test helped me understand the link between diabetic health and exercise, and I will be forever grateful. I encourage everyone, diabetic or not, to participate, because every test done means that $5 will be donated for much-needed medical supplies.

SO those are the things I am doing right now. That’s a minimum of an hour (or more) committed to Challenges per day.  I’m finding the time where it seems there is none. But I can say if I weren’t doing the challenges, that time would be lost.

I think I am the kind of person who NEEDS challenges. Interesting.

Have you ever participated in a challenge to get yourself going? Are you doing one now? Tell me!

 

Race Recap: The Muddy Buddy! October 2, 2012

Filed under: cycling,diabetes,emotions,friendship,good things,healthy challenge,non-scale victory (NSV),race recap,running,struggle — Susan @ 6:00 am
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I really worked hard for this bling.

One of the things I have loved the most in this past year has been bringing people along on their first official race. Mary joined me in her first 5k at See Jane Run; Sofia joined me in the Color Run (and went on to do her first half marathon and is now training for her first full marathon — WOOHOO!) and this past weekend, my friend Ericka threw her fears to the wind and joined me in the wackiest race of all – the Muddy Buddy. I don’t even remember how this happened; but I think it was via a Facebook post when I thought she was joking about joining me. Ericka has been my workout buddy with our beloved trainer DJ for several years now – we have sweated together plenty, but she has always declared herself “not a runner” and she was content to cheer me on from afar.  I actually have no idea what came over her, but I was so psyched!!

DJ really helped us get our butts in gear for this one.

Ericka and I have both had our health battles recently. We celebrated our 50th birthdays, and then I got diabetes and she was hit with Graves disease. Our combined age is 105 (!!!) which put us squarely in the “Women Masters” category for this race. I reminded her that we are in a tiny percentage of 50-year old women with chronic diseases who are participating in athletic events at this level.

I have done a few “fun runs” of 5ks recently, and they truly have been fun for me. But I knew this one was going to be tougher – including off road biking on a mountain bike, likely hills, and those crazy obstacles. If there’s one thing I don’t feel super confident about, it’s my upper arm strength. However, I told Ericka that our aim was to FINISH, and to finish was to win. I really believed that.

We are both writers, and we needed a team name. She came up with “Dirty Wordsters” (haha). I made us matching team shirts (thanks to watching my daughters make dozens of them for their crew team in the past 6 years) and she decorated the bike with dirty words like “filth” and “slime.” We so clever!

pencils on the move!

“dirty words” – hahaha

Mr. McBody and I picked up Ericka at 5:30am and we drove down to San Jose to this park. Lily’s husband, who grew up there, had already warned me it was “pretty hilly.” Since he was a varsity triathlete at Cal, this was something I took very seriously. Ack. HILLS. Not my favorite.

We got there, jumped around to warm up, visited the PortaPotty, and tried to relax. But I was hecka nervous. I heard the race announcer say that the first mile was “straight uphill.” NICE!

We were in the last wave to start, the “Women Masters.” (ie, the old ladies) I was relieved to see other women our age. It’s not often you go up to other women and ask, “How old are you?” but I did just that and when the other women said “53″ I jumped up and gave them high-fives. Yeah baby, we rock. I was feeling pretty fierce and ready.

Rawr!! Dirty Wordsters!

We moved on up and saw the other waves taking off. We saw some people walking their bikes right from the Start line. I kept saying, I’m gonna walk, I’m gonna walk, but then when I was at the Start and I saw everyone on their bikes, shame took hold of me and I was like, well, I’ll ride, until I can’t. I’m actually glad I did.

At the starting line: pretty nervous

The starting horn went off and I got on the bike. I was glad to make it up a few hundred yards before it just got TOO steep. At that point I’d say 90% of the participants were walking, pushing their bikes. Damn that bike was HEAVY. Pretty soon the “runners” were overtaking us (bike members went first, then runners). But they weren’t really running either. Like I said, it was hecka steep. And it went on. And on. I felt like I was eating dust, just heaving for every breath. It went on for a full mile. Just up. And up. And up. It felt pretty darn grim.

At the top of the hill was our first obstacle, and time for me to leave the bike in the “Bike Drop” for my buddy. Of course she had passed me by, walking! We climbed on this spiderwebby thing, up and over. I got a tad bit freaked at the very top, but managed it OK.

Then it was more rolling hills, run, bike, obstacle. Each of us had 3 bike parts and 3 running parts. I was jealous that her first bike was this gorgeous downhill section! But then I got to run that as well.

What can I say? It felt long. It felt really, really hot. We were out in open fields with NOTHING out there but for a dirt trail. But it was okay. There were lots of other people around us – ie, we weren’t being left in the dust – including what seemed to be many younger people (what???). We kept passing the same folks off and on.

The obstacles, which I had been nervous about, weren’t too bad at all. There was a mud tunnel, which I have to say we were very prepared for. We do a lot of low crawling and walking in our trainer workouts. The high things were not so bad. Until the very end (I’ll get to that).

The entire course took us about an hour and a half (OK, exactly an hour and a half)! Which had been my optimistic estimate. I’d looked at other race results and saw that many women our age were coming in between 1:30 and 2:00. So I was hoping for 1:30 at best, and well, whatever it took, as long as we finished.

For the final leg, Ericka was on bike and I was on foot. She had to wait for me for a while because we were supposed to do the final 3 obstacles, including the Mud Pit, together.

waiting on the road for her buddy

Eventually I showed up. We were both pretty tired, but stoked that it was almost over. The first obstacle was a some sort of giant ladder climbing thing. (I think) Not bad. The second one was a rope climb over this blue wooden wall. It didn’t LOOK that bad. I grabbed the rope. Then started to walk up. Hahahaha. The wall was covered in something very slippery — lard? butter? soap?? In any case, we tried and tried and after a few minutes just looked at each other and said, “Uh-uh.” We walked around it.

thwarted by the soapy, slippery wall! This picture makes me laugh and laugh.

Then it was time for the infamous MUD PIT. Ooooh boy!! I will say that the cold wet mud felt REALLY GOOD after all that dry dusty heat. We crawled under the flag ropes like a couple of mud puppies. Laughing.

Then we had a little female mud-wrestling moment.

Then clambered out. I don’t think I’ve ever truly understood the word “clamber” until then.

It helps to get a helping hand from one’s buddy.

Then we ran through the finish holding hands. Then we got our medals. We were PSYCHED!

I thought they were cups of water, and was very excited to find Oreos inside

Then it was shower (aka garden hose) time. Boy did we need that.

Ayeeeee!

To say that we were filthy was an understatement. But that was the point, right? It was darn hard. It was challenging. We really, really pushed. But in the end I am proud to say that we came in with 43 other teams behind us, most of them younger than we are. That made me feel really good. Not bad for 52 and 53, huh?

So many people asked me, “WHY on earth would you voluntarily sign up for something like that?” And looked even more incredulous when I answered, “Because I’d never done one.” Ha ha, I know, most people haven’t, and have no desire to. But for me, it’s about changing it up, finding new things to do to stay active and most importantly to have fun.

Special shout-out to Mr McBody, star medic, bike tech support and paparazzi. Love!

What’s the wackiest, craziest or most fun race you’ve ever done?

 

Diabetes: the Snooze Button September 28, 2012

Filed under: diabetes,diet,Fitbloggin',health,lessons learned,weight — Susan @ 12:18 pm

blood test

Yesterday I went to visit my new endocrinologist. My original, best doctor I’ve ever had left the practice last year and I was pretty bereft about it. I have some major Abandonment Issues, and yeah, I felt abandoned. So I acted out. I stopped testing my blood sugars and I neglected to call the office and get reassigned to a new doctor. I was mad and sad.

But leading up to Fitbloggin’ (that recap post WILL come, I promise!) I was practicing my show, which opens with me sitting in the doctor’s office. Doing this repeatedly reminded me about NOT going to the doctor’s office. I knew I had to stop putting it off. So I made an appointment and yesterday, I went.

The doctor was fine. I didn’t love her, but I didn’t dislike her either. She’s another young, female doc like my other one was. And I think I appreciated that she told it like it was.

“You’re not doing too bad… In fact, many people would kill to have your numbers. BUT…”

“Yes?”
“But, things are worse than they were. I don’t like the trend.”

I knew that was going to happen. Which is why I had been avoiding this visit. But by the time it actually came around, I was ready to hear it. I wouldn’t call it a wakeup call exactly. Because I was already awake. It’s like, you’re already awake, and you’ve already hit the snooze button so you can lie there, but you don’t want to get up yet.

That’s been me the last six months or so. Awake, but not ready to get up.

Now I’m ready to get up.

The doctor also said, “Also, your weight. You know that extra fat (pointing at my stomach. OW.) can increase insulin resistance.”

Yeah. Yeah I know. I know! I’m on it, doc. So she gave me a challenge. I need to improve things (weight and blood glucose A1C) by January. Or else. Or else what? She will increase my meds.

She also said, “You know, you probably could get off your meds altogether. If you work at it.” Sting.

So. This is my challenge. January or bust, baby. I know I can do this. I KNOW I CAN. And now post-Fitbloggin and post-everything, I feel ready to do it.

 

Race Recap: My first Duathlon! Mermaid Duathlon, Alameda June 9, 2012

Filed under: cycling,diabetes,duathlon,emotions,exercise,Fitbloggin',friendship,good things,non-scale victory (NSV),race recap,running — Susan @ 8:07 pm
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they had such a cute photobooth there!

Well, it’s been quite a time for spontaneity around here. I had such a good time at See Jane Run last weekend that I was all excited to do See Jane Tri in the fall. But lo and behold, it’s the same weekend as Fitbloggin’ 2012. BIG conflict! No way I am missing Fitbloggin’ so I was all bummed out about that. Then Pubsgal told me about the Mermaid Tri/Du that was happening – in like 4 days. GULP.

I went through SO many mental contortions this week leading up to the race. First, I thought I’d like to do the duathlon (my first) because I just didn’t have time to get a practice swim in. It was in the Bay, and could be sort of choppy and salty, and who knows how that would go, especially given my not-stellar swim performance at Wildflower. So I was thinking, cool, I’ll just bike and swim.

I have never done a duathlon before. I think I was pretty unclear on the concept. The website had course descriptions for “Duathlon First Run” and “Duathlon Second Run.” I thought… we got to choose which one to do. Hahahahahha! But no. The first run is in place of the swim. Then you bike and run again. OOHHHHH.

I didn’t figure this out until Thursday night, when I proceeded to have some kind of weird tantrum meltdown. I didn’t wannnnt to run twice! Even if it was only 1.5 and 2.5 miles!  So then I started contemplating changing my registration to the tri. I went to race packet pickup on Friday afternoon and they told me I could change even at the Very Last Minute on Saturday morning. I decided to go over and check out the swim course. I saw a bunch of VERY gnarly looking waves and I decided right there, NO WAY.

I was very happy to get up this morning (at 5:00am) and know I was only going to bike and swim. Mr. McBody was feeling kind of low because of a recent bug he’d had, so I told him to stay home and rest. (famous last words) Last night I had packed my little gym bag with all my stuff, but then this morning I thought, I have a tri bag. Maybe I should bring my tri bag. (“But you’re not doing a tri, isn’t that overkill?”) and on and on. I transferred the stuff into the tri bag, put the bike in the car and took off.

I was about halfway to the course when some synapses smashed together and I remembered the little tiny manila envelope with my RACE CHIP in it. Which I did not remember putting into my tri bag. AGHH. I pulled over to the side of the road and frantically pawed through my bag. NO ENVELOPE. I called Mr McBody who was enjoying his rest, and started caterwauling about not having my race chip and that he HAD TO BRING IT TO ME RIGHT AWAY. My friend Christine happened to be working as a registration volunteer at Mermaid, so I also frantically called her and she said they would not give me a replacement chip, that it was coded to me, and I needed mine. So poor Mr McBody got in the car after locating the little envelope in the gym bag.

I was a bit of a basket case when I got to the course. The parking lot was filled up at that point, so I had to park several blocks away. This was ALSO one of the first local races I was doing all by myself with no support crew or person to drop me off. Of course at that point I was infinitely grateful that 1) I had a tri bag; and 2) I had practiced biking with it on at Wildflower. Yay! I very comfortably strapped it on and rode the few blocks to the transition area. I racked my bike and got my stuff all set up and then went to the intersection to wait for Mr. McBody. He got there about 15 minutes before the start and then went back home to rest for real.

This was a smallish race, so things were not one hundred percent clear. I wasn’t quite sure where the Du run was supposed to start, but I followed what looked like a semi crowd and got to the inflatable start thing. I was a little concerned that there was no timing mat underneath it. I still don’t quite get how that works. A bunch of women all crowded together under the thing on a very narrow path that fit about 4 across. I was in the “over 40″ start. Then they counted down and the air horn went off, and… there we went.

The first run was actually pretty pleasant. I was going at a nice pace and nothing hurt. It wasn’t bad at all. Sometimes I have a lot of pain in the first mile and I was worried that might be the case, but it was pretty comfortable. I got back to transition and got ready to get on the bike. I knew that my transition was going to be longer than some peoples’ because I was changing from running shoes to bike shoes. Now that I’m used to wearing clips, I’m pretty attached to them (no pun) and didn’t want to risk getting my dumb shoelaces caught, which has happened to me more times than I can count. So I sat on the ground and changed shoes. Changed headgear. Found my gloves. ARGH. They were inside out from the last time (Mt. Diablo?) and all knotted up and I probably wasted two minutes untangling them and getting them on my hands. (NOTE TO SELF!!!!!! Put the gloves right side out before the race!!!!!!!!!!!) I saw Christine cheering for me as I ran toward the bike mount area.

Got on the bike. The route was two loops of absolutely flat road. Which sounds lovely on one hand (it kind of was) but also, flat courses means no downhill and less chance to rest. (my butt) I remembered doing this EXACT course when I was training for the first tri, and it was really, really hard. I remember having the hardest time stopping, starting and turning. I got really tired. It was super hard. I may have almost cried. And I almost cried again this time because I could see how very far I’ve come in less than a year. That was pretty awesome.

The bike ride was good. I enjoyed it. AND I got to utter three words that I have NEVER ONCE SPOKEN during a bike race, ever: “On your left.” Yeah, I passed people! Sure, a ton of people (more than I can count) passed me, too, but people, I have NEVER passed a SINGLE PERSON on a bike. Ever. Until today. So imagine my shock and thrill when I realized I was going to actually do so, maybe a dozen times. It was exhilarating! Woo hoo!

I rode into transition and saw my buddy Lily with her sweetie and sweetie dog, jumping up and down and screaming my name. That was so awesome. Then I changed shoes and headgear AGAIN and went to do the second run. OMG. I had to pee so bad! SO BAD. I knew I wasn’t going to make it but a few hundred yards. Thank goodness for portapotties. But that was a minute or two. Then I got on the path and started running for real. OH the pain! I mean pain! My feet and calves were cramping up and just felt like they were saying “oh hell no you don’t!”

The 1.25 mile out before the turnaround were really, really uncomfortable. I was hobbling, walking, running like a penguin, just trying to find any kind of comfortable position. I just knew I had to run it out and let things loosen up. I stopped and stretched out my Achilles against a light pole. I took more walk breaks than I wanted to. But damn. Then I got to the turnaround and I was like, Come ON, just a mile more, you can DO this. I fiddled around with my iPhone and tried to find the most uplifting, motivating music I could find.  Found the song “Safe and Sound” that had been the soundtrack to the video I did with Big Blue Test last year. I think of this as my “Lily” music. I knew she would be at the finish line with Ed and Mosely.

It wasn’t until I was almost at the finish chute that I started feeling good, I mean without pain. I felt like I was going to be able to bring it in strong. So when I got to the last 100 yards I just poured it out. I finished under 2 hours, which seemed like a good thing. Better under than over, right?

Instead of a medal, they gave out cute little necklaces. I like! Very much!

adorable finishers’ necklace

So that was it, my first duathlon. I’d say it was pretty good! It was definitely a heck of a lot more challenging than last week’s 5k. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t killer. And it made me think about what people have said, that there are truly no “easy” races. The faster you get, the more challenging it is because then you’re wanting to place (I do not see this in my future). But no matter what, you’re always pushing yourself to do your own personal best. I put my best out there today, I had fun for the most part (except for a few unfun moments) and I was really glad I’d done it. Another first, done!

Have you had any recent firsts lately? Tell me all about it!

 

Week Four Workout Blitz August 20, 2011

Filed under: cycling,diabetes,exercise,swimming,Team in Training,triathlon — Susan @ 9:29 pm

This weekend I thought I would be missing out on the big coached team workout (held on Saturday instead of Sunday). But plans changed at the last minute and I was able to make it. Yesterday I spent much of the day traveling and arrived back home really tired at 8pm. It was the first day that I skipped a TNT workout. :-( I chose not to beat myself up over it, but I don’t want to make it too easy on myself to allow that to happen very often. It’s so easy to come up with excuses!

So I was happy to be able to get to the coached workout this morning. We had a big swim. We are now officially in the “Fitness” level of swimmers, for better or worse. I got up at 6 and picked up Lily at 7 and we headed up to Novato for the workout. The exciting thing for today is that they set up these underwater cameras so that everyone got video’ed so we can have our strokes analyzed. How cool is that? This is what makes Team in Training so world class. There is this GIANT team of coaches, mentors, captains and overall Helpful People to support you in every way, and they really work hard to help you improve. It’s really so awesome.

Amanda setting up the pool camera

The swim went pretty well but it was long. First we had a warmup of 200 yards. Then we did a set of 25 x 8 (25 = one length) during which we were supposed to start out slow and progressively speed up or exert more and more each successive time. I have a very hard time controlling or gauging my swimming speed so I did #1 glacially slow (ahhh), the middle ones at sort of “regular” and then the last one I tried to imagine that I was swimming away from a shark. That got my heartrate going all right, but I am also sure I was thrashing around like an octopus.

Then we did several uninterrupted sets of 300, 400 and 500 yards (500 = 20 lengths!). At the end of the 400 I felt like I was getting sort of delirious underwater, swimming crooked and having trouble with my breathing. In the middle of the 500 we were told to go get our video recorded. We only had to do 2 lengths for that, and it gave me a much needed break in the 500 or I feel like I might’ve just melted my brain into the pool. Then we did a 200 “cooldown.” I wish I could really do any other stroke – I’m not very good at backstroke or breaststroke so I could really recover more. But all I know is freestyle so that’s what I did.

We got changed into our bike stuff. I was feeling kind of shaky and wobbly and just WEAK after the swim. I’m sure I didn’t drink enough (DUH). I had a KIND bar and tried to drink water. But I was not feeling at my physical or emotional best.

Last week I had an official fitting which was supposed to make things all perfectly aligned and awesome, but: I think the seat is too high because when I get up on my toes, I can barely get my padded bottom onto the seat. Often it gets stuck, which is awkward and… unsmooth. Then, my new bike shoes are too thick for the toe cages I bought. The toe cages officially make me REALLY NERVOUS and I noted that my start-stop is MUCH more anxiety-provoking than last week. I think I might take them off. I am not sure. I got all tangled in stuff and have claw marks up and down my legs just because I was nervous and not doing things right.

There were two bike groups: the Olympic group, which is supposedly me, but they were going for either a 70 or 50 minute ride. The Sprint group was doing allegedly a 30 minute. I wanted to do more than that but I was kind of disoriented and the Olympic group took off and I was not with them. I tried to follow them and catchup but to no avail. For about 15 minutes I was riding completely by myself which I did NOT LIKE. So I stopped and waited for the S group to catch me (that didn’t take long). But then we were going on the wrong route and ended up at the freeway entrance (which I also did NOT LIKE) and had to turn around. Finally we found the street we were supposed to turn on in the first place. This street had the biggest hill I have ever ridden on in my entire life. In every other instance of my life, I would have taken one look at that hill and just walked the bike. But our group leader, Art, urged us to STAY ON THE BIKE and use our gears and our legs and what-all to do the hill. Going up it was pretty hard, but OK. Then we went down. And down and down and down. And I realized that the OTHER side of the hill was even steeper and we’d have to return up it. OH SHIT.

After a while we turned around and started heading uphill — first it was gradual, then it got more and more intense. Then REALLY intense. I desperately put my gears at the very lowest setting and just tried to stay on and stay alive. My breath was totally ragged and I was gasping, gulping and praying for air. AND I felt like I was going to puke my guts out. It was like the most all-out running sprint ever. I knew that if I stopped or got off, I would just collapse into a heap of jelly and there would be no getting up. So I kept going and finally got to the top. At the top, it was not this big relief. I felt like I’d died a little inside. I didn’t really start breathing normally for about half an hour, and I was sort of veering and swerving like a drunk.

I was sort of proud of myself, but also sort of shell-shocked and miserable. It was about 10x harder than last week’s ride had been. I got into the car and sort of wondered again what I had gotten myself into.

blech. unhappy camper

Eventually, people from the Olympic group started coming back in. I had some Gatorade and a little bit of power ball something that someone gave me. I was pretty wacked out for a while. I talked a bit with Katherine, who had been the “sweep” (tail end) of our group and who had been a huge moral support to me when I had a little mid-intersection meltdown over my toe cages and felt too paralyzed to get up and go. She gave me a little pep talk about hills and such and cheered me up somewhat. She is one of maybe two people on the team who might be my age or older, and she has already done triathlons so I have the utmost respect for her. She inspires me. Whereas some of the uber-young people who leapt off their bikes to take an optional RUN after it all, just made me want to weep.

Katherine the Awesome

I started feeling just a tad bit better as people started finishing the other ride. For the record, the Sprint group did a 50 minute ride (not 30!) and the Olympic group did like an 80 minute ride (not 50 or 70).  So it’s always longer than they say it’s going to be. (word to the wise) Today was a day when I was once again feeling very Grinchy about the bike. I hated the toe cages, and hated the height of my seat. Bah, biking!

This is what my mentor Annika and her husband do for fun: she leaps on his back in the “Superwoman” position and then he does squats with her on his back. Fun, huh! These crazy kids!

What fun! Right?

I got home and yes, I was tired. I lay around and read and did stuff on the computer for several hours. Then I took a long nap. Now it’s almost dinner time. I have to come to grips that these big workout days pretty much ruin me for anything else (ie don’t try and do a solo performance or anything dumb like that).

Today’s mood: determined but sober.

 

 
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