Five for Josh

Last Sunday I participated in the Durham Bull City Race Fest in honor of my nephew, Josh, who passed away in June.  My sister, Josh’s Mommy, organized a team of over 80 people to participate in this event – from the one mile fun run to the half marathon!  She is amazing and has raised over $6000 for SIDS research!  It was a great weekend, full of love.

I decided to participate in the 5 mile distance.  Myself and a few others on “Team Josh” were going to walk and I admit, I trained for this event for about 10 minutes.  I think I’ve gone running (shuffling) maaaaybe 3 times since we’ve moved here a year and a half ago?  Boxing is my favorite exercise, but I’ve been a complete bum in that department as well.  Oooops.

Of course since I didn’t train, diabetes decided to be a butthead.  I woke up around 200 and had a bagel for breakfast.  I bolused about 70% of what I’d bolus normally.  I wanted to come down a smidge but I still wanted to stay around 170-200 because I knew this was going to be physically challenging and personally, I like to run a tad high when I exercise to prevent drastic drops.

Before the race started I looked at my CGM and saw the dreaded double down arrows. 

Oy.  I ate two glucose tabs and figured I’d hopefully level out.  I’d be very pleased if I stayed around 160 for the whole 5 miles.

Of course, diabetes rarely plays nice when you want it to.  Throughout the whole race I had at least a southeast arrow.  I was popping glucose tabs every 2 miles or so (along with texting my husband such ladylike things as “My BG is being an asshole”, I am the epitome of class, friends), took Gatorade when it was offered, set my pump to only give me 10% of my insulin, and still finished the race at 78.  I suppose this could be considered a victory because I never really dropped, was just slowly going down.  However, it caused me to panic and I couldn’t really enjoy myself and take in the race.

BUT, I did it, there wasn’t a catastrophe, and it was nice to be a part of Team Josh.  I think about him often and miss him so much.

However, the next time I decide to do 5 miles, I’ll do one of two things: I will either actually train for it so I can remember how my BG reacts and can properly prepare, or I will eat a giant cupcake right before the race.

I made these delicious chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing for the Team Josh potluck. Don’t judge my awesome icing skills.

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