Diabetes Zen Running

 Now I am not one to know much about diabetes, zen, or running but, I would say what no one tells you about the Ragnar thing is the cool feeling you get by basically running alone.  Now you are not alone, alone but more of just alone in a sense.  Do you understand?  Since this is a 200 and something mile run, and an individual sport of twelve people that you run alone but with your support vehicle in the general several miles of safety vicinity.

 The Phoenix area had hills like the photo above that were long and gentle'ish.  I really liked the feeling of doing something crazy like running on the side of a two lane highway.  Think about that, how many times in your life do you get the chance to safely go out along a random highway and run feeling safe and knowing you are not far from a random port-a-potty.  I think that is the feeling of zen.

 Then once you get lost in your diabetes mind, trying to remember your recent bolus and carb intake you forget you are in a race and then come around a corner and there is the end of your leg and the beginning of the next leg.  When you are done, you have this feeling of just wanting to hang out and chill for a moment but the race goes on and you get just enough time to pee, catch your breath and grab a bite to eat before the van has to take off and watch over the current runner.

 Most of my runs were like this with one road that looked like it went on forever, not that I am saying that was bad.  Recently my winter running has been on a treadmill listening to my headphones while watching random NBA basketball games so a long straight road was right up my alley.  The thing that would freak you out were the people that passed you (I am slow and passed often by other teams) and the on coming cyclists.  What are the road rules for a runner going against traffic and a cyclist going with traffic?  I figured the runner took the closest to dirt side and the cyclist took the road side.

The night running was the same but colder and with the funny crime scene investigator vests we had to wear along with headlamps and tail lights.

So I think if you get negative on doing stuff like this because of cost and things (I do this alot because paying to run slow just seems like a double negative) I would say to think about the things that might be different than your normal treadmill/NBA runs, the Zen feeling and also the coolness knowing you got to feel like Forrest Gump or something.