Sweet Victory

Today was my second time at the track this week. Fundamentally, I struggle with the concept of the hamster wheel known as the track - finishing where you started and all. I prefer to do speedwork on the roads whenever possible but neither Tuesday's workout nor today's were conducive to that. Today called for 10x300, at 62-63 per 300, which is approximately 5:32-5:36 pace. In the end, the workout went fine , though intervals this short and fast are always kind of strange for me, as I don't feel I have a gear that's much faster than this. On one hand, you'd think that would make the workout harder, but it almost doesn't. It's like I'm putting it on redline and hoping I can hold it for a minute. On the other hand, it wasn't lost on me that the pace I was doing these 300s at was right around my high school 2 mile PR pace twenty-three years ago. (I'm fairly certain I might hold the Pennsylvania high school record of most 11:01 two milers while n...

Yesterday was a Tuesday so well-disguised as a Monday I'm surprised nobody asked me how my weekend was. I've found that the beauty of horrible days is that they help you appreciate the good ones. Of course, that assumes you survive them and I did. The "highlight" of the day was arguably my hardest workout of my Boston build. While I've done workouts that looked more daunting on paper, this one snuck up on me and gave me a beating I wasn't expecting. Sandwiched in between a warm-up and a cool-down was this: 4 x 400 @ 88-90 seconds with 1 minute recovery after each 1 x 1600 @ 6:20 3 minute recovery Repeat The first 400 was the slowest... a 91. That's not uncommon for me as shaking off the rust is part and parcel of the process these days. The weather yesterday was about 65 and humid... it felt like we were pushing away thick clouds all the way around the track. After the 3rd 400, Mallory said, "I thought I was feeling fast today, but I thin...

Lancaster's Run 4 Luck is a unique distance - 4 miles through a flat suburb of the city. Since the first time I ran this race, it has swelled from about 200 runners to more than 800 at this year's race! In my case, I was using the race as a tune-up for the upcoming Boston Marathon. My previous PR at this distance was 25:13, but I was hopeful a good race could get me under 25. Because it was my season opener, I was a bit nervous and kept a close eye on my blood sugar to make certain the adrenaline wouldn't push me too high prior to the start. Thirty minutes prior to the race I was 124, but not wanting to chance things decided to take about 12 grams of carbs. One of my training partners and I had planned to go for 6:15 miles, together, but I had predicted this would be the race she finally beat me. If my Boston Marathon build could be called excellent, Mallory's could only be called amazing, and I expected this race to show that. Despite my plan to run 6:15 miles...

Disclosure #1: This post is rife with speculation. I have no evidence of my conclusion; only what I've learned in (gulp) nearly 20 years of professional marketing. Disclosure #2: I have a horse in this race and so my opinion likely isn't objective. Then again, I'm of the opinion that few opinions are. So the news this week is that the Team Type 1 professional cycling team has NOT been invited to this year's Tour de California, despite an impressive showing at that race and bigger races over the past several years. Here's a news article about that . Why do these things happen? Nobody knows, because races aren't required to say why they don't invite you. That said, one of the logical reasons being offered (and one I agree with) is that the news isn't really that Team Type 1 didn't get invited to the Tour de California, but that Team Type 1 - SANOFI did not get invited to the AMGEN Tour de California. You see, AMGEN and SANOFI happen to be majo...

I think the most common question I get from diabetics looking to get more serious about sports is how to manage blood sugars during workouts, particularly long workouts. The simple answer is: practice. Lots of practice with repetition. Doing the same things and tracking the results. Last week I did a 20 mile run, using a 50% basal rate and 15g of carbs (Team Type 1 Sponsor Chocolate #9 ) every 4 miles. I finished with a blood sugar of a perfect 100. So this week, I decided to do almost the same thing; the same fueling strategy though I hoped to push the distance to 22 miles. Though I'd hoped to be a bit faster this week, I pretty much ran the same splits on a windier day. How'd the blood sugars do? Watch the video to see. 21 Mile Run Before from marcus grimm on Vimeo . You can see the full splits from this week's workout here , and last week's workout here . With only 1 more very long run before Boston, this shows that I should be in good shape to go for a P...

Yesterday's post brought with it a variety of responses, both here and through social media, twitter, etc. I expected it; heck, I asked for it! I also will be upfront and say there is no right answer; the people who can automatically name something awesome about diabetes are no more correct and incorrect than those that say there is nothing. In the end, this isn't a question of right or wrong. However, I do think it's a question of framing. And, in my opinion, those who can find something "awesome" in the disease have the ability to use it to their advantage. For me, finding awesome things in this disease IS the ultimate survival weapon. After all, it's here forever. It's a life sentence with no possibility of parole. Once you accept that point, now you have a choice: one that involves embracing the situation or fighting it. I've chosen to embrace it and I think I'm a better man for it. Scott Strumello was kind enough to comment on yesterda...

So I'm excited to be a keynote speaker next month at a joint event by the JDRF and the Childrens' Hospital of Philadelphia . I got a small taste of what CHOP is about when I spoke at a parent support group last month and am very much looking forward to going back. But if you're a diabetic, I could use your help: In my presentation, I'm going to talk about aspects of diabetes that are awesome. At first blush, that's an odd topic, I know. It's counter-intuitive to how most people think. Terms have a way of defining themselves. When you hear about a lottery winner, you automatically fixate on the positives. And when you hear about a disease, the mind usually races to the negatives. But I've often said if I could register to vote as a contrarian, I would, and that's what I'm doing for this presentation: speaking about the positive aspects of diabetes. And you can help! I've posted the question, "What's the most awesome thing about being...

Whenever I travel for work, I usually do a cursory glance at the Internet to see if there might be a race I can fit in. It's not that I have a big desire to do them on these trips that are always slight on sleep and heavy on work and food, but it seems a shame if I would miss one. Though I've been fortunate enough to travel to Europe many times in the past few years, I'd never been able to find a race when I was there that was close enough to my hotel to do. In addition, flying over on a Saturday nights means I land in the UK with about 3 hours of sleep, so I'm already a bit exhausted when I get there. This time around, though, I got lucky. A 10k that had originally been scheduled for February 5 had been rescheduled (due to snow) at 11am the day I arrived in London. Of course, that didn't mean I was ready to race it well. Saturday had been a 20 mile run. Saturday night had been an overnight flight, where my best guess is I got 2.5 - 3 hours of sleep. We arrived ...

I had the pleasure to speak at the Diabetic Parent Support Group at the Childrens' Hospital of Pennsylvania last weekend. If I didn't know it was only their third meeting, ever, I wouldn't have guessed. The event was well attended and while there were new faces in the room, it was obvious that many of the people had met each other before. For me, it was a chance to speak about some of the basics of managing diabetes and exercise and to share a bit about Team Type 1. I'd say the group was fairly typical in that regard; most in the audience knew a little about us, but few knew about all of the teams and what some of our amazing athletes have accomplished. That in and of itself is valuable, I think, because it sends a message that diabetes isn't a limiting factor in your life. At events like this, I'm always struck by the awesomeness of the people; how connected, engaged and interesting they are. But truth be told, it is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who...

Of all the reasons I don't enjoy Winter (and truth be told, there are many), one of the trickiest is trying to plan key workouts around finicky weather. Take last weekend, for instance. Please. The plan called for me to do the Squirrely Tail Twail Wun, a half marathon trail race on Sunday. To prepare for this race, I'd foregone my regular Thursday tempo run. While not a big deal, it's also not easy decision. We're about 9 weeks from the Boston Marathon, which means there are approximately 25 key workouts left. A decision to skip one shouldn't be taken lightly, and I didn't. And then Saturday turned out to be mini snow squall after mini snow squall, and there I was deciding whether or not I was going to do this race on Sunday. On the plus side was the fact that Sunday's forecast was for 30mph wind gusts and morning temps around 15-20 degrees; in other words crappy for running a workout. Far better to be distracted by a race. But there were two big m...

Thanks to surprisingly good January weather, the month wrapped up really well workout-wise. To sum: * Missed workouts - 0. I've found that work, weather and health issues usually knock me out at least 1-2 days per month, but January was flawless. I had 4 planned rest days and took 4. One workout had to get moved due to weather, but that was it. * Total mileage was 204. That's my third highest total of the past 12 months. Perhaps more important, it's a very nice volume for me so far before the Boston Marathon. It bodes well for a good build. * Re-introduction of speedwork. The best surprise of all was 4 successful tempo runs, culminating with an 8 miler that included 7 miles @ 6:52 pace. I also did 4 hill workouts that will now turn into interval workouts. * Diabetes-wise, things were pretty good, though not as well as I'd like. According to my numbers, I spent 3% of the time higher than 170 and .6% of the time lower than 60. Both of those figures are a bit h...

The plan wasn't to run 60 miles last week. The schedule had me planning for 53 or so, just a notch up from the previous week's 50. But Saturday's scheduled long day got snowed out, which pushed the long day to Sunday. And rather than take a rest day on Saturday, I hopped on the dreadmill for about 6.5, because I knew that I wouldn't be able to get out today (Monday). The result? Exactly 60 miles, and the first I'd ran that far in a week since last September and only my 6th in the previous year. Everything feels good right now, I think mostly because I'm doing the right things. I'm following up hard days, with very easy days - trying to slow those down to 9:00 miles. It makes a huge difference. I neglected to do that last Wednesday, zipping through a bunch of 8:20 miles and the result was that I got through Thursday's tempo, but it was an effort. Hard - easy, Hard - easy - it makes a difference. Not just in days, but in weeks, which is why last week...

I love the funny video series making its way around the Net. It started with Shit Girls Say, and has spawned many funny sequels. But none for diabetics, until now! If you like the camera work, that's my 15 year old daughter at the helm. My son was home sick from school and my daughter felt she needed a "mental health day," too. I said, "Sure... I can use your help with something, anyway!"

Hard to believe it's been a month since my last post, but as usual, that's generally a good sign. When things are going good, that's usually when the blogging takes a back seat. Diabetes-wise, all is status quo. In fact, I just got back an A1c of 5.9, which I'm pretty sure is my lowest ever, if not, certainly in years. Ironically, though my CGM is certainly partly responsible for that great number, I've been sensor-less for about 3 weeks now as I miscalculated my reorder and then had to wait for new insurance info. to get sorted out. But even so, things have been excellent blood-sugar wise and the good news is that a big shipment of supplies is on its way to me, so very soon I'll be CGMing again. Running-wise, things are also going well. After an injured November leading to a lackluster December marathon, December ending up being nearly a 200 mile month, injury-free. In addition, I started adding in tempo work and this past week awesome coach Missy had me a...

Last weekend was my third marathon of the year, in addition to one ultra, and I owe readers a race report on it. But first I'm going to spend time discussing several things that happended at the Team Type 1 Training Camp, which happened in Tucson at the same time as the Tucson Marathon. There were a lot of reasons for the Camp to take place. For the Pro Cycling Team, it's a ten day long series of workouts in the desert and the mountains. In addition, it was a rare opportunity for us amatuer athletes to interact with one of the finest professional cycling squads, certainly in the US, and more every day, in the world. In addition to seeing some of my best friends on the team, the Camp gives us the ability to meet "in real life" people we may have only met online. Generally speaking, Team Type 1 folks follow each other on Twitter and friend each other on Facebook, but this was the chance to actually meet. Anne Findlay, Laura Eli, Patricia Brownell, Mike Hebe, etc....

A year ago, I was nearly through my first month of almost 200 miles/month of running. November 2010 was the first of many high mileage injury-free months. This year, I'm dealing with some tendonitis in my foot that won't allow me to run on back-to-back days. It's my first injury in over a year and like all injuries, it's annoying. But even so, I come into this holiday (my favorite holiday, actually) thankful for the year of running I've had. * This year I ran races of distances I never did before: my first 10 miler, my first 16.3 trail mile race and my first 50 miler. * This year I PR'd at both the 5k and marathon distance. * This year I enjoyed AG awards in 10 of my 12 races, plus 2 races where I was top 3 overall. This included my first 2 trail race awards and my first ultra award. The only 2 races I didn't win an AG award at were both of my marathons, which gives me a nice goal to continue to chase. * This year I qualified for the Boston Marathon....

Night Shift by Marcus Grimm “We saw what you wrote about us,” Team Type 1 SANOFI runner Eric Tozer said to me, in a way that made it clear that he and his night-shift teammates, Jon Obst and Ryan Jones, were not entirely pleased with one of my earlier dispatches. The fact that Tozer would voice his displeasure at all meant something in and of itself. If you were to make a list of the most easy-going members of the team, you’d be hard pressed to top the youngster from Sacramento. Tozer’s complaint was in regards to my first story about the team’s new strategy nearly a week ago. I had written then that the plan for the night-time crew was to run slower and to cover fifty miles per night. In my defense, that was the plan. But as we all have come to learn, many things in the Run Across America didn’t go according to plan and one of those was the success of the night crew, which somehow managed to run similar paces as the day crew, despite limited visibility and fewer than ha...

The Importance of Team by Marcus Grimm Run across the country for two weeks and you figure, a man could change. Things that maybe seemed impossible before might be entirely possible now. In conversations I’d had with Matt Patrick, who won a 100k (62.5 mile) race earlier this year, he’d often told me that he thought guys like Jon Obst and Ryan Jones, who compete regularly at 100 miles, were crazy. That there was “no way” he’d do something like that. And so it seemed like a logical question to ask him how he felt about such races now; now that he alone has traveled nearly 300 miles in two weeks, on slight sleep, through mountains, snow, ice and rain. Truth be told, the writer in me was looking for a story about a man being transformed. “After a couple days of doing this, I was sore,” reflected Patrick. “But strangely, the soreness went away. Your body adapts and things don’t always get worse. So, physically, I think, ‘Yeah, probably my body could do that.’” ...

Whatever it Takes by Marcus Grimm As Team Type 1 SANOFI heads into less than one thousand miles to go in their amazing run across America, the excitement of their new strategy coupled with some solid sleep has the runners moving at a more rapid pace than on any stretch of their journey so far. Utilizing their new plan of seven men running fast pulls during the day, and three men running slower miles through the night, spectators in Illinois were surely to be disappointed if they weren’t paying attention, as the team crossed the entire state in a mere twenty-four hours. “We’re in a totally different place now,” said Kevin Powell, “There’s chatter in the van, again, and all kinds of excitement.” But recent calculations determined the team still was behind their goal of the East Coast by Sunday, so the men have ratcheted up the logistics of the journey. Now, the van drops a single runner off, moves another mile and then does the same and repeats the process unt...

Happy Birthday, Ingrid written and edited by Tom Grossman & Marcus Grimm Tom Grossman had felt many things since the start of the Run Across America a week ago; highs and lows, both in spirit and in blood sugar, as well as fatigue and energy. But what he hadn't felt until today was the realization that he was simultaneously exactly where he should be at the same time it seemed he was precisely furthest away from where he wished he was. Grossman, like all on Team Type 1 SANOFI, understand the importance of what they're attempting here, to revise the public understanding of diabetes, so that they can better encourage those that live with it it. As someone whom has lived with diabetes for nearly three decades, Grossman is particularly qualified to understand the misconceptions diabetics are prone to receiving from those around them. But there on Highway 56 in Kansas, Grossman felt his mind drifting, as it did often, to his home and family in Midland, Michigan. He...