Medical/Training Update

Since my last post I've had tons of people call me, email me, talk about me in the pool when you didn't know I was there. Yep, I was swimming yesterday morning and stopped at the end of the pool and heard someone say, "have you heard from dave?" Noticing a guy with a shaved head talking to a skinny dude in a purple speedo, I just figured it was John and Steve. So I replied, "No." They were surprised to see me since we hadn't planned on meeting. Thanks for asking about me. Here's the update I gave. My ITband is feeling much better. I've been stretching like crazy. I can now not only bend over and touch my toes, I can bend over and touch the ground. Along with the stretching I've been taking some Advil, icing my legs, and doing some strength training to keep all this from happening again. The strength training is supposed to balance the power between the inside and outside of my legs and make my butt stronger. Great- all I need is a bigger butt.
This weekend I am going to put my bike together and try to start easing back into that. I've ordered some new shoes, which are way overdue, and when they show up I will start doing a few short flat runs per week while I keep focusing on the strenth training and swimming. It was rough taking such a devastating blow after Diabetes Training Camp, but I am going to come out of this even stronger. This week when I really needed a boost, I got some test results in from my doctor. My A1c dropped from 7.1 to 6.5 in 2 and a half months. That would make any diabetic feel good.
Just one more thing- One of the exercises I have to do is that girly machine in the weight room where you spread your legs out-sweet. Hopefully I won't end up looking like this.

Lowboy isn't my only Enemy

It's been a rough- disappointing week. I drove down to my brother's house in my old jeep on Thursday. It was supposed to be a 4 hour drive but due to traffic it took 7, which meant I was driving in the dark which is extremely sketchy in el jeepo. What was worse was Emily's drive in the new minivan with all three kids. Well I got rid of el jeepo for $750 which helped me pay off my Ironman entry fee and plane ticket money to Wisconsin I had borrowed. It's still sad to see it go.
I expected everything to get better from there and it did for a while. Me and Nate drove to the race site and spent the night in the back of the van. We watched Rocky on the way down and then we passed out.
Saturday we woke up for our first marathon to the smell of pancakes at the Ellerbe Springs Inn. I checked my sugar 177 and cut down my basal. This is where everything went wrong. I ate a couple pancakes and drank some gatorade. By the prerace meeting my sugar was 280. A couple miles into the race my legs were exhausted, heavy and I was severely dehydrated. My bloodsugar was 330. I have a feeling this is one of the many reasons for what happened next.
At about mile 5 my knees started hurting. I knew this was not a good sign. I have been having some knee pain on my longer runs around mile 17 or 18 but never as early as 5 miles. I didn't come all this way to quit so I just kept pushing but by mile 7 I was walking. By mile 8 it was even hurting to walk and eventually I was having pain just standing. At one point I even slipped on some gravel and said hey to the ground. When a race volunteer offered me a ride to the finish line I couldn't say no.
I'm sure it crushed Nate as I got into the car and left him standing there with noone else in sight.
He ran alone without seeing anyone for the next 5 miles, the hilliest of the course. I eventually came back and found him in the van. When he caught up to someone so he could at least have a conversation I left them to run and met him only at aid stations and then the finish line. Nate had a strong finish as someone came creeping up to catch him. The last little hill went all the way to the finish and Nate sprinted the last .2 It was impressive.
It took me a couple days to get over the defeat. I figure I better learn from this and be thankful that I still have months to rehab my injury and prepare for Ironman. Apparently I have upset the Illiotibial Band in both of my legs. It's going to take a ton of streching and rest at first then some strength training before I should even start running on it again. I need to stay off my new bike for at least a week too. This stinks because it is sitting in a box asking to be reassembled and ridden. For now it looks like to stay in shape I will have to do tons of swimming. I need practice there anyway.
Lessons Learned

1. Don't Ignore what seem to be minor injuries- They get worse.
2. Strength Training is extremely important.
3. Stretching is even more important.
4. Follow the advice of people who have done this stuff for years.

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.

1st things 1st

Diabetes Training Camp was amazing and life changing. More on that to come.

The trip out to California was .....

I can't remember how little I slept but the night before the trip I got to bed at 11 and woke up at 2 so we could drive down to the airport. I didn't get much rest on the plane but I did beat Steve on the trivia game. Hours later and almost exhausted we finally got to meet Peter and Nate in LA. It was exciting. I got to see my new bike. It looked like it was a little close to the ceiling in the parking deck. We all flinched every time there was a noise from above. No there was a foot to spare. Until Peter took a turn and tried to exit. The ceiling dropped a foot and the bike didn't duck. Hey let's spend some time on the side of the road trying to assess the situation and extend the duration of the trip. Good call. The pictures were all dark. The damage to the bike was mostly to the seat. And the bike rack on top of Peter's car. Well at least I don't have to be nervous about falling over and scratching it.

50 hours later we made it to camp and immediately got to work fixing all issues diabetic.

More to come. It was a great week and I'm taking it easy most of this week.

Getting Serious

Training is getting intense. Last Sunday I ran about 15 miles. Today I ran 17.5 and then walked the final mile back to the car. I was hurting. It took 3 and a half hours. I actually was hurt up most of the week which took several days. Well my blood sugar was up. Today was great. My friend Kevin ran as slow as he possibly could to keep up with me and I just plodded along. There was at least a one hour stretch that was all uphill. The best thing about that was turning around and running back down.
Em, Penelope, and I are all packed up and ready to drive to the airport. Diabetes Training Camp in Santa Barbara is on the list of things to kick my tail this week. The week after that it's a marathon with my brother. I never would have considered this possible until I just decided to do it.
Good stories from this week to come.

My Bike!

I have so many people to thank it's amazing. Mostly the people at trisports and Steve Ahn. I would have thanked Peter but I think I'm supposed to be upset with him. I mean really, He's kissing my bike. Isn't that like kissing someone's girlfriend? Back up dude! OK it's more like kissing someone else's first girlfriend because that is a picture of my first road bike. Seriously though, Thanks Peter. After all you've done to get me that bike I will forgive you. The one thing that makes it a little worse is I have to wait a couple of weeks to get out to California before I get to ride it. I am looking forward to Diabetes Training Camp where I am sure I am going to learn something about myself and get to meet all the new friends I've made and maybe fight Peter- no wait I forgave him.

Training isn't quite as intense this week as last week. I even missed my swim on Monday because of a masked gunman on campus, but I have a long run scheduled for Sunday and I'm going snowboarding again on Saturday. Maybe I'll get some pictures this time.

What a Week

This has been an intense week. I worked out for more than 12 hours. I ran over 20 miles swam about 2 and a half and sat on my bike riding nowhere for more than five hours. I realize that except for the swimming I will have to do this week's entire workout in just one long day, but for now I feel like this week was a real accomplishment.

I am also starting to get a better hold on managing my blood sugar while doing all this. I have been getting high after many of my workouts which I need to work on, but I'm not having the crazy lows while I am out running. I had one day this past week when my blood sugar stayed between 90 and 122 all day. That was the same day I swam a mile and a half and ran 6 miles.

Friday was supposed to be an off day so I went snowboarding for the first time this season. I didn't get any pictures but it was a beautiful day. I put a video up on the main page to show off my ridiculous snowboarding skills. Yes, that was me that got totally buried in the snow. If I remember correctly I got low-very low- on the hike up the mountain. On the same trip a few of us spent the night in a snow cave and tried to avoid getting avalanched.

I am also getting extremely close to getting my first road bike. Just working out the details. Sometimes this whole Ironman thing seems doable and sometimes I feel like all I do is train and it will still be impossible. Anyway, I stopped my run yesterday short to work on ordering my bike, and instead of continuing when I was finished I played on the trampoline with my kids. It was a great decision.