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.

Ragnar natural environment

 So let me tell you about Arizona and this being my first time there.  Everything is shades of brown, there are few trees and lots of rock yards.  So what pictures do you take in this arid climate?  Of course you take pictures of yourself with the local cactus plants.  Above I am trying to do one of those fake photos where it looks like I am putting my arms around the cactus.

 This cactus was tall and had finger like extensions.  Not sure why there are so many different forms of one plant in the dessert.

 Here I am standing in front of one of those huge protected cactus plants you see in the Wile -E- Coyote cartoons.

 This guy was more of the shrub form of cactus with more finger like extensions and probably reached 3 feet or so.

 

 Here is a better shot of me standing in front of the Wile-E-Coyote style cactus.  You can see the bird nest hole thing above my right ear.

This is like a famous cactus that when you walk buy it too closely something about the earth vibration and a persons gravitational pull makes the little balls jump off the cactus and onto you.  My friend Steve here had the wonderful experience with one.  You could tell he was not familiar with the cactus being from Philly and he did not know the propper way of removing a cactus from your shoe.  I tried to help but he already had others willing to get the thorns stuck into his shoe and toes.  Lucky for him he had already finished his three runs for the event and also there was not much damage done to his gentle diabetes feet.

The Happiest places at Ragnar!

 When I say that the running is like the most minor part of Ragnar let me just share with you how you go "number 1 and number 2" for two whole days.  The Port-a-pottie is where you go at all thirty some odd exchanges and it does get cumbersome to clean the seat, check for TP, and of course lock the door.

 More port-a-potties, and I would say that these were pretty nice port-a-potties.  You are asking the Diabetic Camper how I know?  Trust me I have spent much of my time doing business in these things.  When you camp as much as I have you just get used to alot of parks with these things.

 Yes, more port-a-potties, and most of them were so nice they had the "hand sanitizer" in the stall so I did not have to worry about bringing that with me.

 I thought this picture was of the same port-a-pottie as the one above but a closer look I noticed the trash cans had the logo in different spots and the dessert brush was further in the bottom one than the top one.  I guess once you have gone so many times in these things they all start to look the same.

Wait, maybe this one is the same as the one above?  Who knows because at alot of these places you are standing in line with the same people, kind of like cycle potty sisters or something.  We were like a band of gypsies along the same road dropping loads as we go!