After reading my brother's comments on Wide Open, I just had to give him some credit. since he called me a warrior I'll just have to let everyone out there know that he is a true hero. Heros do amazing things like save the same idiot's life over and over and over again. They also see and pull the potential out of people like me when no one would consider it. Nate has been pushing me to take care of myself for years, which had to be hard when I was refusing to listen. Anyway two Novembers ago he signed our friend Skud, himself and me up for an adventure duathlon. It almost killed me. My blood sugar was all over the place and I even cramped and fell off my bike during the race. After being roped into this Triabetes Ironman by Steve Ahn I decided we should try the duathlon again this past November. This year's race started out so much better. Skud gave me a heart rate monitor as a prerace gift. It was a great excuse to slow down. My heart rate seemed a little high, but when you are running and biking up a mountain it seems normal to be working hard, right? So, the first hour was great and the second hour wans't so bad. My blood sugar during the entire 5 and a half hour race was between 89 and 132! But, by the third hour I was hurting. Wait, something besides my diabetes was slowing me down? Sweet. Apparently I have much to learn about how to keep my body going for hours at a time. Loading up on gels and powerbars and gatorade did a fine job on my sugar, but my muscles were trying to cramp from the fourth hour on. And we just kept pushing. I never had a wreck and I told my son Elias that we have to have helmets in case we wreck. Well, as Icrossed the finish line and pulledinto the parking lot both of my quads locked up and Elias got to see me use my helmet. I laid there for at least 5 minutes totally immobilized and hurting, bad. Nate and Skud wandered off to try and find something for me to drink. Finally a racer from another team that had obviously finished much earlier came to my rescue. All I needed was a massage.
