Diabetes Training Camp

Diabetes Training Camp was one of the most amazining experiences of my life. That's a huge statement considering some of the situations I've ended up in either on purpose or by divine appointment. Well no matter how I look back at camp it was a God thing. It is going to be one of those weeks that revolutionizes how I live the rest of my life. I don't even know where to start.

I learned so much about handling diabetes and myself. Revelation number 1. I am not terrible at being diabetic. Everyone else deals with all my issues like keeping track of their meters and numbers and carbs and just having days where you don't feel like dealing with doctors or diabetes or anyone else telling you how to deal with the one thing in your life you have a better handle on than anyone else. Your diabetes. So I don't suck. That's good. By the way I'm harder on myself than anyone else ever has been.

Revelation #2. Continuous Glucose Monitors are the best diabetes technology out there. I was hooked up to a CGM most of the week. It read my blood sugar every 5 minutes. That's the equivilent of like a billion tests a day. I don't teach math. This thing would let me know if my sugar was headed up or down and let me know if I got high or low. I took it off to go swimming and that was the only bad low of the week. Josh, one of the swim coaches had to drag Lowboy out of the pool and make him test. blah blah blah... Anyway, I started to get low in the middle of the night one night and it woke me and em up to let us know. Great Googley Moogley- CGM's are probably worth their weight in gold. I'm still going to see how cheap I can get one.

Revelation #3. There is an athlete deep inside. I'm still not sure why God nudged me into signing up for the Ironman, but he is showing me tons of cool stuff along this road. Apparently when he put me together, he made me an athlete. I wasn't a college athlete and I didn't do so much in high school, but there is some honest potential in here somewhere. It's not just that I feel different after going to camp. They actually hooked me up to some crazy contraption of a machine and tested something called VO2 Max. I did real good. I just need to put everything else I learned at camp into practice so I can start unlocking the potential.

By far the coolest revelation of the week. There are people out there that understand how to deal with diabetes. They care. And they are willing to help. Dr. Matt and his team were all on the same page all week. Everyone knew what they were doing and they all tied it together so well. It made me feel like diabetes wasn't that big a deal as long as I just pay attention and take care of myself-with help from other diabetics, real doctors, coaches psychologists, diaticians and the family members and friends back home who will actually be there when I need them. The part that is still messing me up is the fact that many of the people on staff at DTC said we could call or email anytime if we were running into problems we couldn't figure out on our own.

Did I mention all this went down in Santa Barbara California? You should go there sometime. DTC has made me believe again. It has caused a total paradigm shift.

By the way it's all about base training.