Sweet Victory

First up, thanks to all the comments re: last week's post. Very much appreciated! As mentioned, it appears that the next peak race for me will be the Georgia Marathon on March 20. In between, there will be plenty of other races (including a half marathon in two weeks), but that's where my focus will shift. Once again, I'll be going after my elusive BQ and a 3:20. That said, it's hardly a given. Georgia isn't considered to be a PR course, with a series of rolling hills and 900 foot of climb (though the same descent). Still, I think it's possible it could work out ok. Thus, in a nutshell, the plan: 1) You are what you do. You want to be better hill runner? Run hills. I've already supplanted a lot of my usual routes with hillier ones, and will be trying to avoid the treadmill-like existence I've adopted in recent years. Truth is, I actually am a good hill runner when I train for them. I just haven't in quite a while. 2) Don't peak too soon. I'...

This has been in the works now for a few weeks, but wasn't made official until recently and then I've been too busy to blog about it. And yet, running-wise and diabetes-wise, it's one of the more important things to happen to me, perhaps ever. I recently received word that I've been accepted to join the new running team of TeamType 1 for 2011, the same organization with a professional and amateur cycling team as well as an amateur triathlon team. In a nutshell, it's made up of a lot of fairly fast to scary fast diabetic athletes. I'm not going to go into the cycling team's goals, mainly because I don't know much more than their stated goal of getting a team into the Tour de France, ideally with a diabetic cyclist. I'm also not going to go into the goals of the Running Team, much more than what's available on the website: we're a bunch of amateur runners, some of whom will be running across the country in October (likely not me, but more about...

... And of course, that's a lie. It's 2010, for crying out loud. Diabetics have done the Ironman, been to the Olympics, flown planes, yada, yada, yada... Truth is, it takes more than a failed pancreas to keep a good man down. And still, there are certain things that - until recently - diabetics have been highly discouraged from doing. One of these things is scuba diving . Truth is, I've wanted to scuba dive since I was a kid. But things have a way of getting in the way until one day you realize, "Hey, I'm almost 40 and I'm still not certified." And then you realize that scuba diving is all about the buddy system, so you're going to need a pal. At that point, it's a good idea if your 12 year old son has a long history of being on swim team, because he can sign up without your wife worrying too much about her young boy and her diabetic husband learning to suck air underwater. So I've looked up the DAN standards for diabetic divers , and - like a...

Through most of this week, I was testing the Medtronic CGM side by side w/ my Dexcom. And I mean, literally, side by side. If you'd like, you can see a comparison spreadsheet, here , but these are the bullet points: * The Medtronic & Dexcom systems had virtually identical overall accuracy. There were a few days the Dex was better, a few days the Medtronic was better and a few days where they were often close to identical. * The Dex - no surprise here - is a bit more of an Energizer bunny. I'm writing this seven days after beginning my test and the Dex is still cruising. The Medtronic did fine on the restart after 3 days, but I didn't have a charger for the sensor, and yesterday it stopped being any sort of reliable. I had an extra sensor set, but the battery's dead, so that is that. * That said, like most Dex sensors, I had periods during the week of "???" which is the Dex's way of saying it doesn't know what to tell you. The Medtronic never does t...