The Running Saga Continues

So, remember yesterday, when I said I would have to do the Christmas Virtual 5K in two parts, since yesterday's Christmas Eve Frostbite Series short course race was only 2M.

Well, who could have asked for a more perfect Christmas Day to run in?  My computer said 48 degrees when we left, but my car said 52, and my body definitely said it was 60s.

I had spied this route driving in and out of Fenton, and I decided that it would be a perfect day to try it, although, when I went to Fleet Feet in Fenton to get Boy #2 (PITA) a jacket to go with his tights and gloves, I discussed this route with the sales guy there, and my husband thought it was Simpson Park, but the sales guy said no, but couldn't remember it.

Even though, the route was a little different than I had planned it in my mind, as I thought that there would be trails the entire route on the river side of the road, if I just parked my car under the Route 30 bridge over the Meramec and then ran all the way up past under the Hwy 44 bridge over the Meramec and into this "park."

A lot of the route, we had to run the side of the road, but it being Christmas Day, traffic was light and people were merry.  No running anyone off the side of the road like in other routes I've experienced (my usual up Summit Road route).

When I say we, I mean the PITA boy.  For Christmas, Santa brought him a new MacBook Pro laptop, mostly out of his commiseration for PITA's parents, who are driven crazy nightly by the Skyping late-night hours of PITA and his server-running-entrepreneurial shenanigans that are conducted on the family Mac Mini on the kitchen desk.

Yes, before you say something, I realize that we should not allow our young freshman to entertain online guests in his room, but he is our last, and we made that fateful mistake with our other two.  What the heck - why not pay for therapy for all three - even it out and make it fair playing field for all of them.

Most of all, it will really keep my husband's sanity on production late nights for the publications, and we actually might get to reclaim the 60" big screen television that is now host to trashy television and Lord knows what late night sessions go on there, since we often find PITA, and sometimes his Jack Sprat-wife big brother, asleep on the sectional we had to buy so there was an appropriate amount of lounging-around space for all the big people in the family.

Anyway....I digress.  But the genius thing I did as a parent this Christmas morning was to tell him he could not set up this computer until he came out and ran 6 miles with me on this route.  I tried to tell him that Dad did not want me running this route alone, and that it would be good for him, and that we had quality Mom-Son outdoors time, but I really didn't have to twist his arm much.

That is until we got 2 miles out past the 44 bridge, and he said, "How much longer?"  I, having my headphones in and blasting my customarily loud 70s and 80s music, thought he said, "I need to pee on a log."  And I told him to go right ahead.  He looked at me like I was whack, and of course, he continued ahead of me all the way through. When we first started, he was poking me, poking me, poking me (not in the Facebook sense of the word either - like literally and physically).  And this is where I started to question my genius parenting skills.

We went behind the Soccer Park and up to Unger Park, the name of which we had all forgotten, which turned out to be a real treasure of a tucked away nature preserve.  It was me and PITA, and some dude, who told PITA it was the only place he could be alone, and appeared to Mom to be imbibing on some adult beverage out of a steel Thermal water bottle.  But he left us alone, to our own devices, and I made a mental note to come back and explore this park.  At that point, we were 3 miles out, and I needed to honestly tell PITA it was time to turn back or he'd really start to hate me, but that place was cool, and if it's nice, I'm actually thinking of going back tomorrow to run just a mile farther than we did today.

At about 3.5 miles, PITA stops to say he's dehydrated and that we both should take a break.  I give him some water and electrolyte stuff I always carry on an hour long run or more.  He guzzles it, and says, "Well, if you're not stopping, I'm going."  He mutters something about me training for this and him not.

We finally make it back to civilization, and now we're joined by another female runner, who is way bundled up inappropriately, and a couple couples walking big dogs.  He walks slowly over the footbridge to the car, stretches, and notes that he has blisters on his toes.

And then says, "Now are ya happy?  Can I just go home and use my computer now?"

Still got in a recovery paced long-ish run on Christmas, with my son, and completed the Virtual 5K, maybe not with the fastest time, but the certainly with the best partner.

Yes, PITA, Mom's happy!

My Triumphant Return

So many of you might have noticed that I haven't blogged in several years. There were two factors that kept me from returning here, mostly the fact that Google kept telling me something was malicious with my page.

I migrated all my content over to Word Press, and then I didn't know how to work Word Press, until I started having to teach my students how to use Word Press for our online news site, and then I read over my previous entries, and thought to myself, "I'm not half-bad as a writer; why did I stop blogging?" And thus, I decided to make 2012 the year I start back on my blog.

I'm starting my first and kind of my last (because I intend on making some more blog posts before the 31st) entry about my reentry into the running world.  I promise you I'll try to update here more often and give everyone a chance to reflect on his or her own personal motivation and inspiration.

Some of you know that diabetes really kicked my overly developed luscious booty the past several years, including giving me the gift of diabetic neuropathy, which disabled feeling in my feet the past three years. That's when I decided to get off that so-called booty (which I truly am thinking about getting in shape with some sort of Brazilian Butt Lift program, an informercial for which I watched continuously one night that I couldn't sleep), get back into running, and lose some weight.

I successfully lost around 70 lbs with the HCG diet in two rounds (and believe me, I couldn't do another single round) and started back running. I gained 20 lbs back over the summer, with traveling and eating processed foods, but quickly just lost all that since October 30 with Medi-fast and a dietician. I'm 15 lbs over my lowest weight, my goal, of 150. And I'm trying to make it there again by April, when I run my SECOND (yes, you heard me) half-marathon at the Christie Clinic University of Illinois Marathon the last weekend in April.

I ran the Rock N Roll St. Louis Marathon in 2:51:13 on October 23, 2011, to add that accomplishment to the list of crazy arse goals I set for myself before 50 (and the time is a ticking away, believe me - I still am upset I never reached my first goal before 40 - skiing the bikini slalom - yes, seriously - and at that time, I was in shape to do it!).

Yes, I completed 13.1. And I can now wear proudly those obnoxious stickers you see on runners' cars (and you bet your sweet bippee I got one immediately after the race!).

I was certainly undertrained for this race, only having run 6 miles, and not even straight, but on a dare, I did it, and I finished. I even lost my first toenail, christening me as a real runner.

And so, not letting anything get the best of me, I decided, much like after childbirth, that yes, indeed I would do this again, but this time, do it even better. So I finished the C25K program and signed up for a bunch of 5Ks with my son. I vowed to feel better than I did before after running a half marathon, and to that extent, I signed up for the Fleet Feet Training Team this winter and will start January 21 at the kickoff meeting.

So in an effort to force myself to keep running in the winter, I've spent beau coup money on cute running clothes and all kinds of gear to keep myself running in the winter. I even teamed up with several journalism teacher friends to keep track of our runs online (#runningondeadline). So far, so good. I've seen so many neat (and pretty weird) things on my weekend runs, which usually take place at several locations: Katy Trail, Grant's Trail, Creve Coeur Lake Park, Meramec Greenway by the river, you name it.

#runningondeadline friends at the JEA conference in Minneapolis

The best part of this is competing against myself for better times. I have improved, even if I can only run a little over a 9 minute mile (7:25 is my PR for a mile - how the heck I did that, I do not know).  These guys and gals, some of them marathoners, helped pace me to a 5K PR of 27:37 that cold day at 6 am outside the Hilton.




But as a side, I actually like running with my sidekick resident PITA, even if he does poke me the whole way through races (yes, he literally pokes me and sacrifices his time). It's been the one thing he and I can do in common that unites Mother and Son (even if he'll always finish with a time that beats the pants off me). And today was no exception. We've raced every single Saturday now since Thanksgiving Day, and we intend on doing it all the way through the Saturday I have my first training team. Most likely, he'll be on the sidelines helping me run a race effort at that training team expo, but it really has helped me to know he wants me to do better, even, as I've said before, he talks non-stop during the entire race. (I believe his favorite phrase is "Open up, Mom, c'mon, open up." Like I'm some sort of race car.

Today, we wore our Santa shirts from our St. Charles Santa Dash race on December 10, where there were 1K Santas racing through Historic Main Street in St. Charles. That was a fun race, but the beards kinda cramped our style. And last weekend, we ran the Reindeer Run 5K in Tower Grove Park just to keep up the spirit. Today's race, even though it was only 2M, was no exception to time. I plugged along at a 9:15 mile to finish just under 19 minutes. Son #2 (affectionately hereafter called PITA), of course, finished before me. He's tired of sacrificing his milage and time to me.

Because I'm competing in a Christmas Virtual 5K (and, of course, her NYE Virtual 5K), I have on an extra bib, and I'm linking this post to one of the running blogs I read - Daily Vitamin F (here on Blogger as well). Because I'm short 1.1M, tomorrow morning, in the still of the morning, I'm going to attempt to wake PITA up and run a short pre-Christmas run of 4-5 miles by the river, in order to make sure I get the milage in for the contest. On New Year's Day next week, we'll be running the streets of University City in the Snowball Classic New Year's Day Run, where the race is capped at 150 because the UCity police want the day off - can you believe that? :-)

So - why don't you come run with us? I started running years ago to find a place my children could not bother me, and years later, I'm finding a place where my children like to run with me. Even the older college bitter child and the middle asthmatic ran the Reindeer Run 5K last weekend. Now to work on the patriarch who says his knees hurt when he uses the elliptical at the gym.

I guarantee - Linda Brady - my old PE teacher at Crystal Lake Central - is turning over in her grave right about now. Who would have thunk it - Jill Miesen, the girl who walked and came in last so the other girls who couldn't run wouldn't feel bad - would take up running? There are many reasons I run. I need to start blogging to list them here, and when I have a shin split, like I do today, or it's freezing out there, and I don't feel like freezing my fanny off (like the past week), or I just ate too much, I can look back on posts like these and remember why I run. And why I can't stop.

Join me in the St. Louis Diabetes Leadership Institute

I need my friends to help me out on this one. This would be a perfect opportunity for all the St. Louis area diabetics or PWD to get involved personally in advocacy and diabetes awareness.

Thanks to Kaycee Connell, the St. Louis diabetes Examiner, I found out about this free program. It just so happens that my endo, Dr. Garry Tobin, also promoted this program to me in May when I went for my twice a year check up.

What Eric and Garry want to do is create a community of PWD's who will volunteer their time to be educated (ha - like we aren't already) and lead sessions of 6 awareness and education topics in their community. It could be at your church, your synagogue, your school, your sorority, anywhere you can muster up a small group of people. Eric and Garry don't care whether it is 2 people or 20.

This effort is lead by the St. Louis Diabetes Coalition, but is also supported by Wash U's Endocrinology Dept., of which Garry is the head.

I was able to get my husband, Joe, to attend with me - only because I think he felt guilty that he didn't meet me for a happy hour the evening before [:-)], and he tested his sugar on the free Accu-Check Aviva meter Roche was handing out at the event - YAY! He was 106 before eating, and 114 after eating some fruit (1 hour post-prandial). This is the first time Joe has ever tested himself, and he's lived with a diabetic for some 15 years!

With the event of his father's diabetes coming so close to him, I was able to finally get him to get a closer look at his health. And boy, did he ever. He was able to see the connection between his dad's possible loss of his leg and his cardiovascular disease to a less than aggressive treatment plan for his diabetes of 28 years.

Not surprisingly, all the attendees were T2's, with the exception of a couple of caregivers of and one CDE who were T1. We were the youngest in the room by 10 years.

My husband was educated on proper foot care, kidney disease, and nutrition. It was a wealthy bounty of information that was very helpful, sometimes the first time some of these diabetics had ever heard.

Of course, they were able to give us a free lunch, and there will be a free dinner at our next meeting.

Eric, the PhD side of the team, presented to us a nice slide show regarding the growing statistics of diabetes in the Metro area. We, of course, discussed the sensational statistics that T2 diabetes is becoming an epidemic of obese proportions.

Garry echoed that by far his practice was filled with more T2 diabetics than T1's. It was cited that there are over 150,000 people with diabetes in St. Louis - that's Busch Stadium filled during a triple-header.

Of those diabetics, 48% are of healthy weight, 21% are obese, and 31% are overweight. From a public health perspective, the better we manage diabetes, the less expensive the condition can be.

The St. Louis Diabetes Coalition's goal is to bring control up in order to lessen the cost and the burden on the system, as well as improve the quality of life for diabetics.

Only 49% of diabetics here in the area have a controlled bgs Hb A1c less than 7.0, 51% check the bgs at least once a day, and 44% have even taken a self-management class.

One thing Garry said that really rung true to me was the answer to many of the folks' questions about T2 guilt, blame placing and fault at our lifestyles. "I'm a lumper, not a splitter," he said while pointing out that all of us, T1's and T2's and Others face the same symptoms and consequences. "It's NOT which drugs define you," he said - pointing out that NONE of us deserve this diagnosis.

Won't you come with me to the next meeting and help facilitate more education and awareness to some of the hardest to reach people? I challenge you!

Come enjoy a free dinner and some great conversation!

Twitter me @MomsL8 0r leave a comment here, and I'll meet up with you before the meeting!

Click on the link of this blog title to learn more about the St. Louis Diabetes Leadership Institute.

Our next meeting will be in Eric Armprecht's office on the 1st floor of the Salus Center at 3545 Lafayette, (the old Incarnate Word Hospital), St. Louis, MO 63104, on Monday, July 27th, at 6 p.m.

Here's to our health!

Do You Test or Shoot Up When You're Out and About?

So, Mike asked in this week's episode of the SweetTalk podcast if we've ever tested in a funny or odd place. Since I am not on insulin, and only need to test or shoot up before or after a meal, I haven't had too many of those experiences yet.

But I recently contributed to a discussion over at tudiabetes.com saying I wish we weren't relegated to going to the bathroom to test or shoot up, which I often do, depending on where I'm at or with whom I'm with. People really got upset and told me how dirty bathrooms are. But I have had 1) stares, and 2) people tell me it grosses them out, and 3) people tell me I'm obsessed with diabetes, and 4) do I have to do that here?

So...again, depending on the circumstances, just to avoid the hassle, I find myself spreading my junk on top of the toilet paper dispensers, ever so carefully, so I don't touch anything, and doing it there.

Sometimes, it ticks me off, sometimes, I don't care. Sometimes, I'm too lazy to get my meter out and do it at a time when I really should (like this instance - where I really should have tested during the play, but lack of light, and um, sitting on top of others really discouraged me from doing it right then and there).

I'm sure you all know how I feel. Sometimes, I'm proud to test and/or shoot up, and either advocate for myself, and educate others, and sometimes, I just wanna get off this merri-go-round that day.

In any case, I am sharing with you testing tonight during my Valentine's Day Dinner and date with my husband, who does a great impression of the Diabetes Police during this vlog.

Exercise is the key!

So...I lost two lbs. this week in the Biggest Loser D Style competition, even though I ate out a lot this week, and because I was frustrated that the lab I go to on the weekends was backed up and messed up my standing order, I ate a Cinnabon cinnamon roll afterward when I went to Apple training and to attend the Women's Heart Healthy Fair.

It appears that if I'm going to see "onederland," as my good friend, Jaimie Hernandez, says, I'm going to have to step it up. Exericse helped me lose that. Becoming sedentary after being very active in my younger days is probably what put on the weight in the first place, as much as my poor diet. What does that say for us T2'ers? To know that we have that much in control is good, but it is still like living a prison sentence. It would be nice to know others who don't have T2 who struggle with lifestyle issues as much as we do. But unfortunately, all we're seeing is that we're the only ones who have to watch what we put in our mouths and watch what we do to keep fit.

Frustrating! At least to me it is.

Anyway, I did get one walk in this week. I'm going to try to maintain that, and add some kettlebells to the mix, once I get them.

I'm also getting the HUGO water jug out - I'll post a pic of that later this week. And maybe another vlog showing me getting into some strength training.

On a random note, I so wish I had an iPhone. I'd be posting pictures of the great lunches and breakfasts I've been preparing myself - I'm darn proud, if I must say so, that I am following a great diet !

Enjoy walking with me!

My First Vlog

I linked this to the actual YouTube video also, but here it is....it's goofy, but heck, I got it done! Landileigh says I sound like Bonnie Hunt, but I'm thinking a little Sarah Palin-ish?? I guess I never dropped the Chicago accent! :-) And it's reallll short!

Top of the Morning to Y'All

Well, after two days of respite due to weather (as one of my colleagues and friends, Paige Hereford, says: Snow Days are like powdered donuts - you have one, but then you want one more... - ha, can't we all relate!), I'm back at school working.

Yesterday, my sugars rebounded quite well after the pizza episode. I waited until 2:30 when my sugar was at 101 to eat lunch, and then I watched my carbs pretty well.

This morning, I had a great appointment with Barb, my CDE. She's always so helpful, loves that I'm such a self-advocate, and asks me questions she knows I might lie about, but then helps me to feel good about telling the truth. My numbers were excellent, and I am down 10 lbs. from December 23 when I last saw her when my equally wonderful endo put me on Byetta. She's good at evading my questions, when I ask her since my BS has been down closer to 100 if I could get off the BP meds and statins, and not yelling at me when I don't adopt everything right away that maybe Doc wants me to. She also totally understands when I get frustrated at the internist who still insists that I can do this without meds.

So I talked with her about my charlie horses, my short of breath while walking, my edema in my hands, some female issues, and the urination deal. She thinks some of that is due to perimenopause (I've been waiting for this for A LONG TIME). She chuckled when she suggested I go see the perinatologist I went to in order to deliver my kids when I was last down at the Center for Advanced Medicine (a couple of them argued as to who was going to tell me that I shouldn't have any more kids).

And even though I'm doing well, they're still going to up the Byetta to the 10mcg because they said I'll probably plateau and then not be able to maintain the good sugars as this rate.

Uggh - another roller coaster ride of nausea and dizziness. But...hey...I lost 10 lbs when they did this the first time. I guess I'll try it again.

She questioned why I wasn't on more Metformin, and I told her about my infamous GI issues. So, we'll see - I'll keep in close contact with her to see if I tolerate more Byetta or see if they want to do more Met, which I would not relish.

I have bloodwork this Saturday - Vitamin D and Lipids again. Hopefully, those lovely oily Vitamin D's I've been mainstreaming (I feel like that - it's such a high dose) will help. She pointed out some research that might be confirming that Vitamin D may help diabetics get off BP meds.

I'm pretty satisfied. I'm glad I got aggressive and begged my internist to go down there.

I owe some people a vlog about me exercising, most especially my brave friend, Jaimie, plus I want to show you all the snow before it leaves (especially for my friend, Gaelyne, down under).

I'll try to get on that later this afternoon. I have to get in a walk tonight, too...so I'll take you all to the gym with me perhaps.

Next step: water....ugh......

OMG - My Nemesis

Okay - this is a corner cafe by my house, started by a former student in the Rockwood Schools. Love Russell, love his mom, Kate, and I used to eat there like every week. Of course, I had to partake of his patisseries - he's a pastry chef, for crying out loud.

Well, last year, I started only coming in on the weekends. It really doesn't help that at the end of the day, Kate usually marks the breakfast muffins and such as buy one get one so they can make a fresh batch the next morning. Kate noticed...and now?

I ate one of their decadent chocolate covered marshmallows before I saw the endo...and I haven't been in since.

This ad is a lure to the devil for me! I refuse to NOT eat a chocolate covered strawberry for Valentine's Day - my hubby has known since he has met me that these delicious treats are the key to my heart...and probably anything else he wants that day.

I am going to make a mini-challenge for me to eat ONLY one or two...notice I did NOT qualify myself to eat only one. There's no way I can do that. Two at the most - ok???

Biggest Loser - "D" Style

I'm participating in a weight loss/lifestyle management contest with Landileigh and other fellow diabetics.

Wanna join?

Click on the title of this entry or the graphic to go to Landileigh's page for more information!