Why I Run Marathons

When I tell my friends they should run marathons, besides it being one of the most fun things you can ever do, I say that its because it is one of the best ways to prove to yourself that you can accomplish hard things. In life, we go through so many difficult moments, times where we doubt ourselves or are unsure with what to do. There is no roadmap, rules, or perfect playbook telling you how to win or how to get through each and every day.

Marathons are different though, you sign up for a race, spend months training for it, and the Raceday comes around and you grit it out and run 26.2 miles. Crossing the finish line is one of the best feelings in the world. An incredible sense of happiness, pride, relief, and the fact that you accomplished your goal, you did the hard thing. No one can debate or take that away from you. That becomes proof to yourself that you can do hard things. When your legs felt like they would fall off and you still had 6 miles to go, you kept going. That is something that I always remind myself of when I am doing something hard. I have done hard things before, why not do it again and now.

Diabetes is one of those hard things with no true goal and no medal at the finish line. In fact, there is no finish line and there may never be one. We don’t even get to sign up for diabetes it just comes one day and then that is your life forever. It’s hard, it’s there in every second of every day and it never takes a break or goes away. Have an important meeting coming up: What’s my blood sugar? Going for a walk: how much insulin is on board? Trying something new: how will my blood sugar respond to this? Leaving the house: where are my low snacks? There is not really any way to put into words all of the effort and feelings that go along with diabetes. They are there when I do not even know or want to admit they are there.

A goal of mine my whole adult life has been to “cure” my diabetes. I wanted my a1c (three month average blood sugar) to be the same as someone who doesn’t have diabetes. For the last 3 years, my a1c has been in pre diabetes range, which I am pretty proud of. This year, I finally crossed the threshold and my bloodwork no longer shows that I have type 1 diabetes. For most of the time I have lived with diabetes, the a1c goal has been to be under 7, then that went away and they said have 70% time in range. That has been easy for me for years and years now and did not feel like enough. At 70% time in range and a1c in the high 6s you are having multiple bad diabetes episodes a week from high or low blood sugars. Now at mid 80s time in range and 5.3 a1c its still a few bad diabetes moments every month. How I get this to 0 is the next bridge to cross, its not exactly clear how to get there now, but I know I will get there because I know I can do hard things, like run 3 marathons with diabetes.