The glass is half full
The first article of the series about triathlon training with diabetes, a disease that as with many things in life can be viewed as half empty glass of wine -- or one half-full: Its up to you!
I was a junior triathlete, who was willing to step it up to the pro ranks, my coach at the time, asked me for a total health check up, as according to him, training was going to get harder and we needed a healthy body to handle that. But the blood glucose levels came back at 226mg/dl and for a moment, it ruined all my dreams to become a professional triathlete.
At first I didn’t know much about diabetes, only the fact that there is no sugar at all in any meals (What I found out later to be a wrong fact!), but I was smart enough to know that its by far what you don't want for the rest of your life – and apart from the most advanced insulin, testing and treatments devices, there is no cure for this chronic disease, so I had two options, deal with it in the best possible way, or "ignore" and handle the consequences (which goes from blindness, kidney failure, amputation of arms and legs due to gangrene, and others in the same level) so the decision was prety easy to make.
Gary Hall Jr. – Have you heard about him? I've never met this guy, but he had a huge influence on how I handled the news. He had several gold medals in the olympics as a swimmer, AND he had diabetes too, so the dream was still alive, it could be done, but...
How?
That's what I'm going to write about here. I will post a series or articles on my journey from being an average age grouper (with diabetes mellitus type 1) in the year of 2000 when I was diagnosed, to October 2007, when I was the yougest professional Triathlete at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.
Stay tuned, it should be interesting to write about all I’ve learned and experienced over those years. Diabetes is somewhat a very special chronic condition, it sticks with you 24/7 no matter what, it’s the first thing I consider when I wake up, and it goes into my thinking all the way before going to bed, I might even be a diabetic in my dreams sometimes.
Sounds terrible doesn’t it?Well, only if you see the glass half empty, but I will prove how we can live better lives when the glass is half full.
Vinnie