Adjusting your game plan

 So last Sunday I ran the Cowtown Marathon in crazy Fort Worth.  The week before I did my last long run to prepare for the marathon and it was a horrible, slow, and bad 20 miles.  I couldn't keep my heart rate down and I was sweating crazy and my stomach kept turning.  My post run recap made me thing that I had some sort of cold or sinus issue that was keeping me under the weather.  So I just worked out on Monday and decided to rest the last of the week to hopefully feel as close to 100% as possible for the marathon.

The morning of the run I woke up in my hotel room in a pool of sweat.  With diabetes we all know what the pool of sweat means, I must be low.  I checked my numbers but I was a constant 140 something the entire night.  That made me realize either I just sweated out my bug or it was blowing up into something big.  So with that in mind the game plan for the marathon was to run slow, don't push myself too early and listen to what my body was telling me to and act at that moment to it.  The pace I started at was about a tick slower than a slug going through salt but I was feeling OK.  Then at mile 22 it hit me like a rock.  When I tried to run I got extremely dizzy and my heart rate would jump to 159 which causes me to waste energy.  So I changed the game plan one more time and decided to just walk the final four miles to the finish line.  I could have pushed it and came in with a respectable Dave time but I have a thing about issues like this.  I would rather have a bad time and finish the event than to wake up with blood all over my body in a hospital room.  Then the final blow to my pride was when I crossed the finish line and they give you your finisher medal.  they put this little ribbon over my head with a piece of paper attached to it.  I looked at it and thought it was like some sort of participation ribbon for doing a 1k fun run.  Then the guy explained to me that they ran out of finisher medals and everyone else past a certain point got these lovely IOU pictures of a finisher medal on a ribbon.  So to say it was a disappointment on many levels could be made but I look at it as a success that I was willing to not let pride almost kill me and I changed my game plan to wrap up another marathon.  The next day I felt so amazing that maybe it was the marathon with all that sun, sweating, and running that finally got this bug out of my system and in three weeks I should be getting my finisher medal in the mail.  Diabetes is exactly like this, we have a game plan for something but life always throws us for a loop and you have to put your pride to the side and do the right thing to live and enjoy another awesome day with diabetes.

Friends with benefits!

So a couple of weeks ago I had Peter and Blair with www.insulindependence.org stop by Dallas to hang out with me and my diabetes for a few days.  They are on a cross-country adventure to visit members and also to recruit new members.  So if you are not a member of www.insulindependence.org you need to log on right now and sign up.  Then Peter and Blair were on a mission to find out what diabetics are looking for in an inter-web page that can work with the exercising diabetics.  I gave them the few things I would like to see such as a calendar of events and daily discussion items.

So one day while they hung out at my house while I was at work they decided to treat me to a home cooked diabetes meal.  I was expecting some sort of salad, baked chicken breast, steamed veggies, and a nice glass of water to wash it all down.  Instead they made me this awesome stir-fry chicken with vegetables and couscous all mixed together.  I for the life of me can't ever remember having couscous and with a single bite I was hooked.  I made them show me exactly how they did it and also to leave the box so I could get the right kind and everything.  The other great thing was how flippin easy it was to make this meal.  The couscous takes about five minutes at the most to make and the rest is just stir frying up some veggies.  I think this is the best way to learn new things to prepare that are out of your normal meal routine.  This is why I am a big person on saying "yes" to any invitation that I am invited for, you get the benefit of trying something new or a twist on something from a friend.  To keep an open mind about life and foods you can occasionally find something that is easy and tastes great.  I have now made this couscous meal two more times and have several more boxes ready for me to experiment with different veggies and heck even throwing an egg or two in it and make it like stir fry rice.  I am not sure if couscous is healthy or not but for right now it is good stuff.

 



What my friend Vic must have been going through.

My good friend Vic lives in Atlanta and recently they had the ice storm to end all ice storms.  Now Vic is a type 1 diabetic like many other people that peruse through this blog every now and then and like most type 1 diabetics he has a plan of attack for anything and is prepared for any emergency.  So with this in mind during the Atlanta ice storm to end all ice storms I didn't worry one bit about Vic, because I knew he was good.  The thing I did worry about Vic and also what I was tired of hearing about were the other 99% of this country that thinks they are not responsible for themselves and the government is their backup.  I watch the national news every night with Brian Williams, and during the ice storm that was to end all ice storms they interviewed all sorts of people that were stuck on the roads for several hours and I kept hearing the same theme over and over.  They kept saying how they had to survive with like only a single bottle of water, or how they only had a quarter tank of gas, and the best was how the government didn't know and couldn't come out and de-ice the roads for them or bring them a cup of coffee and donut.  This is so annoying for people like you and I that plan, prepare, and protect ourselves by keeping snacks on us or plenty of water.  I can't believe that all these people can't throw two cans of tuna in their trunk, a couple of old blankets, and a gallon of water in their trunk.  Not to say a first aid kit, fire starter, and some rope doesn't go along way as well.  Think about it, like twenty bucks worth of random rations in your vehicle can turn this sitting on the highway stuck in the ice from a near death experience to a funny story about doing some quality white trash camping on the highway or something.  I felt so sorry for Vic because I am sure the random people of Atlanta are still blaming the city for not packing their cars for them in the morning or forcing them to stay home and stuff.  What I have is a winter kit for my truck and a summer kit for my truck.  The winter kit has sleeping bag, hand warmers, spare clothes, and other stuff I can't exactly remember now.  Then the summer kit has sunscreen, bug spray, and other things in it.  Then I keep standard in the car water, flashlights, batteries, fire starter, backup medical gear (not insulin), candy, tool kit, MRE's and much more.  So go out tonight and check your cars trunk and if you are low on any supplies just toss them in and be ready for the next ice storm to end all ice storms.