Dx 1984, junior year of high school, lost 30 lbs (out of 150 @5'10").  Went to hospital and felt *much* better.  Went of to college, had an interesting time, intense liberal arts education, was in rock bands, strobe lights, fireworks, booze, girls, the whole 9 yards.  Survived.  Did ok diabetes wise by taking lots of insulin and eating a lot.  I continued that trend for the next 17 years then woke up at 37 and 275 lbs.  I realized that was not where I wanted to be and started taking Tae Kwon Do classes a friend of mine (who later ended up w/ type G diabetes…) taught and recommended.  This helped flexibility and strength and provided motivation to change. 

I started taking less R/N and worked out more, signing up for what amounted to a boot camp type of program through our academy which really got me in shape but my A1C suffered, going from 5s/ 6s to 7s as my BG was up and down too much.   At that point, I’d gone down to about 230 lbs and felt better but also felt I needed to change my insulin regimen to be able to keep up the pace of constant workouts.  This was Spring 2008 and a friend’s wife had a pump and told me about her pump experiences and I said ‘what the hell’ and tried it out and it worked GREAT!  TKD kept up through 2009 and I earned a black belt but, unfortunately, right as I hit my stride with that, my job closed and I moved. 

I switched to running both for the sort of hypnotic tranquility and to keep in shape.  I signed up for a ½ marathon w/ some friends in my old town in May of 2010 and set out to run all winter.  Later, my aunt also posted a ½ marathon to support her therapy horse barn and I wanted to do that but they were two weeks apart.  I’d continued running all winter but felt like a CGM would help.  Since pumping, I’d been at 5.8 but still seemed to have some mysteries about working out that would benefit from more data.

I got it the week before the first race.  Shaking it down went great but it tore out 3 miles in to race number one and got blood all over my Norwegian curling team shirt.  Still, the race went ok (2:06) and I felt great at having finished.  The next race was two weeks later and I was nervous I’d still be a mess.  The martial arts and several books helped me gauge my recovery and I had a nice time at the second race, albeit 5 minutes slower, I think because of the thicker traffic? 

Oh yeah, diabetes.  After I got the pump I was back at 5.8 A1Cs every time until recently when I pushed it to 5.4 and, most recently, 5.2.  I am trying to watch it closely. When I was younger and partying a lot, I figured I wouldn't last to 40.  When I was in my 30s, reading the local paper, I'd notice obits for 35 year olds requesting donations in lieu of flowers to the ADA.  That and the pantsometer were big motivations.  I feel good at 44 but still realize that decent control is not a guarantee of remaining complication proof. 

Since then, I've kept running, generally at least 15-20 miles/ week, more like 30+ in the summer as I ran the 2011 Chicago Marathon. I finished. BG was *not* a problem but cramps and overheating from overconfidently starting out too fast were an issue. I'm at it again this summer, we'll see how it goes. BG has stayed pretty good. 5.6 is the highest A1C for the last two years. I'd had a couple of hair-raising hypos (summer 2010, May 2011...) and one suggestion of potential cardiac problems but nothing came of that.

In 2012, I ran Chicago again and was much more pleased with the results, finishing in 4:38, around what I wanted to run! During training, I experimented w/ no coffee the week of a 20 mile run and didn't get cramps so I repeated that for the race and, whether or not it helped, no cramps made for a much more pleasant experience. 2013 will have a new race, as we're having one locally which will be a new experience. I'm not sure how the training will work out but I will keep at it.