WILD 70.3 Team Blog Follow the WILD 70.3 Ironman Team on their journey to complete Branson 70.3

April 20, 2010





This is the new national slogan for the American Diabetes Association. I like it, though I don’t tend to like words like stop, but that’s another story. I have been asked by the American Diabetes Association to be the 2010 National Tour de Cure spokesperson, so I’m thinking quite a bit about what Stop Diabetes means to me. Being the National Tour de Cure spokesperson means that I will be interviewed by about 15 or 20 radio stations next week, and I am featured in a press release that goes out nationwide all summer, promoting the various Tour de Cure rides around the country. Thus, I need to have on the tip of my tongue what Stop Diabetes means for me.


I was swimming with Yoli’s Training Team (Yoli is the Team WILD Head Coach) here in Denver yesterday and I was sharing a lane with a gal I had not met previously. While we were doing kick board work, we had the chance to chat and get to know each other. Her name was Jenna and as it turns out, her brother has type 1 diabetes and in the past few years he has started to have vision problems and he’s going blind. He’s in his mid 30’s and he’s had diabetes since he was a child. She said he didn’t exercise that much and that he didn’t because he was afraid of low blood sugars. She was excited to learn about Team WILD and about the Tour de Cure Red Riders. She was going to encourage him to learn about safe ways to add exercise into his self care plan.

This story is part of why I work to Stop Diabetes. I want people like Jenna’s brother to not be a victim of diabetes, to not be going blind in his early 30’s. I want him to have the tools to be able to exercise and not be afraid. Now that Team WILD is growing, more and more I hear stories of people who are afraid to exercise “too much.” Because they don’t know how to eat, manage insulin, manage the medications, while they do it. These stories break my heart. They alternately make me sad and make me angry. What do I do with that anger? I use it to fuel me as I work with the WILD staff and the team to build WILD into a wide reaching, stable, successful organization.

I will think of Jenna’s brother, my father, my brother, my sister’s fiancé, and all of my many WILD sisters and my fellow Red Riders all around the United States and the world as I run my first marathon this Sunday. I still remember when I was in my early 30’s and I was incredibly afraid of endurance exercise, because I was terrified of low blood sugars. And now, here I am, a few weeks before turning 45, and I am finally confident in my ability to manage my insulin, handle my nutrition and trust in the training I have done. Something I never thought I could do, I am doing. This marathon, Big Sur on April 25, that’s how I will Stop Diabetes this week.