Ginny Eaton
April 18, 2010
My name is Ginny Eaton, and I am 31 years old. I live in Austin, Texas, and have had Type 1 diabetes for 23 years. I was vaguely athletic growing up; I was always active played sports, but never very competitive.
I re-started running about 2 ½ years ago, but really felt like I lacked information about dealing with exercise and diabetes, and just how to train for longer distances. Last October while driving home from a course at the Wildland Fire Academy I heard a piece on NPR about Team WILD. I had really been feeling isolated lately and desiring to meet others active people with diabetes, so hearing this was a breath of fresh air! I emailed Mari and was super excited about learning more. When the time came to sign up, I admit I was nervous about committing since my schedule can be kind of crazy. After talking to the coaches and educators, and listening in on some of the conference calls, I realized how much information I was going to be getting, and how much I could learn by joining the team, not to mention the physical challenge of participating in triathlon training, something I had never done before.
This past week was my first official training week with Team WILD. My running session went well, I was training with my usual running partner and I have to admit I think I laughed more during the drills than execute them well, though laughing is good exercise right? I also had my first swimming session this past Wednesday, living in Texas I thought I could just do this portion of the training in some of the many outdoor pools in Austin. Well, I got down there, and after putting my feet in the pool, realized how cold it felt, it didn’t help that it was kind of chilly (for Texas) and threatening to rain. It totally reminded me of my swimming lessons as a kid up in Massachusetts. I remembered walking with my mom to the beach with a sweatshirt on and getting in the seemingly freezing cold sound to have my swim lessons. If only I knew how that experience would return in adulthood! Once I got going, I didn’t feel the cold, and it felt good to be swimming with a goal in mind.
Incorporating diabetes management into training is something I am really interested in learning more about. I get really frustrated with fluctuating blood sugars when I am trying to exercise, for instance before running a 10K last Sunday morning, my continuous glucose monitor (CGM) just kept saying my blood sugar was dropping, and dropping and dropping, not what I wanted to see before running 6 miles! I ate 2 kid cliff bars, and some glucose tablets, and then realized I needed to just not look at my CGM for a little bit while my blood sugars stabilized. Once the run started I felt a little rough and nervous the first mile and a half, but then saw my blood sugar was rising (kinda fast too). I decided to wait it out more, since I was running, I figured I should see where it was going before acting too hastily. Once I really got going, it mellowed out. Around mile 3, I was just losing motivation, but saw someone cheering on their friend who also had diabetes. This really inspired me and lifted my spirits (if only they new they inadvertently cheered for someone else too!) and I felt awesome for the rest of the run. This made me realize how important it is to be part of a group like Team WILD that understood what dealing with diabetes is like.
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