Meet Caroline: Marathon Wonder Woman

Caroline is an active ACT1 member in our support groups and recently joined our Advocacy committee.  We all enjoy her fabulous story-telling skills in groups, and now we are excited to welcome her to the ACT1 blog!

Bio: Caroline joined ACT1 in January 2010 and has never looked back! Diagnosed in 2003 at the age of 17, she initially suffered multiple complications but has experienced relatively smooth sailing since 04. However, she had no idea how valuable a supportive community of people who truly understand diabetes’ daily ups and downs until she went to her first young women’s support group meeting…so she is delighted to get more involved with the organization! Caroline lives a rockin’ life outside of (or in addition to) diabetes. She moved to NYC in September 2009 to serve in Americorps, and now works as a cancer prevention outreach worker. She also runs her own business as a laughter yoga leader….and runs a lot on her feet, too. Besides laughing and running, Caroline is a fierce devotee of Jesus, Brooklyn, U2, Bruce Springsteen, silliness, and peanut butter.

Marathon Wonder Woman

If you are a typical young American woman, this is probably what you’ll be doing for Halloween this year. You’ll go out the day before Halloween (a Saturday), sporting a slutty nurse/devil/Dorothy/Rainbow Brite/whatever costume, get ridiculously smashed with jungle juice that’s being ladled out of a cauldron, and go home with some dude dressed as Green Lantern. You’d wake up on October 31 at noon, totally hungover and cringing at Green Lantern guy now that you see his six-pack was definitely just a part of the suit. You’ll drink a liter of water to try to shake off the hangover, and then spend the evening heckling the geeks in the Halloween parade and tossing lollipops to the kids out trick-or-treating.

On the other hand, this is what I’m doing for Halloween. The day before, I will eat a big bowl of pasta and let no alcohol pass my lips. I’ll get up at 5 AM and check my blood sugar incessantly. The only costume I’ll be wearing is running shorts, a t-shirt, Asics and a race number. Oh, and a massive fanny pack for my meter/lancet/CGM receiver/glucose gels/cell phone/etc. And before the aforementioned average chick stumbles out of bed, I will put my body under extreme stress and run 26.2 miles.

“A marathon? you might say. “That’s totally crazy. Even crazier than sleeping with Green Lantern.”

Well, yes. Running a marathon is indeed a pretty astounding feat, no matter how you slice it. And it’s even harder with diabetes. Type 1, for me, has been a double-edged sword when it comes to exercise. On one hand, it has been one of the greatest motivators to get my butt moving. I still remember the doctors frowning at me in the hospital and saying, “Exercise is one of the most important things you can do, now that you have diabetes!” (Especially now that I’ll apparently be gaining 20 pounds, I thought with an even bigger frown.) I remember those sullen post-diagnosis walks through my neighborhood in the summer of 2003. I tried a slow jog a few times, before neuropathy made me cut back on anything that could lead to tripping and falling. Thankfully, I was able to get back into it….and like most people, I progressed: from walking to jogging, from an occasional trot around the block up to regular runs around campus when I hit college. (Okay, for me there was a lateral step after walking to “dancing around the basement in my underwear when no one was home,” but that’s another story.) I was exhilarated by my power, my lower blood sugars, and the genuine love I was developing for running. Once I ran my first 5K in 2006, I set a goal: run a marathon before I turned 30! And that marathon is coming on October 31st, in Washington DC: the Marine Corps Marathon.

(I’ll be 24. I’d like to think I’m way ahead of the curve…..even if it’s my own.)

But despite all the good things that exercise has done for my diabetes and my overall well-being, it also has been a frustrating obstacle. As I write this, I’m sitting out today’s run because my sugar is lodged around 250 and hasn’t budged in 3 hours. And this is in spite of waking up low every other morning, the result of my increasing mileage during marathon training. Workouts are plagued with worry: Should I keep pushing through my exhaustion because I’m just tired, or should I stop because my sugar has skyrocketed? Am I low, or is this lightheadedness just from the heat? Do I even bother testing my BG when my hands are covered in sweat and will give me a wildly inaccurate reading? Is my sugar going to drop during the run, or six hours after while I’m fast asleep? The New York Road Runners promised they would have Gatorade at the race, but I only see water– what do I do if I’m low?

And dammit, I’m supposed to worry about running 10 miles the whole time this is happening?!

I wonder about why I voluntarily put myself through all of this, when training often makes me want to slam my head against a wall. Don’t doctors tell diabetics to get 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day and leave it at that? But I am determined to see all four months of focused, intense running through to the end. Pushing through all of the bad stuff– burning quads, rollicking blood sugars, skipped parties to go home and sleep, 8 lows in 6 days, three-hour runs, failed experiments with Gatorade and blood sugar, puking in the grass, feeling miserable and defeated (I could go on for a while here, people)– only proves how strong I can be. And by running a marathon, I am surmounting an enormous challenge with my own strength and power. Crossing the finish line at the Marine Corps Marathon will be one of the greatest achievements of my life. It will represent all of the running, blood sugar monitoring, meal planning, sweat, anxiety, and plain hard work I have put into reaching that moment. It will be…..well, it’ll be me kicking extreme, massive butt.

Hmm. Maybe I SHOULD wear a costume. Wonder Woman, anyone?