How Did I Get Here?

The original title of this blog post was, "The New Upside of Diabetes Emergencies." But it's more than an upside, and I had a very clear picture of the state of this journey on my run today. The "new upside," which was me digging my heels in and not letting the Thanksgiving Blood Sugar Massacre get the best of me, is just how I seem handle things now. I just kept thinking about how HARD I have worked to get here, and what a waste it would be if I just threw my hands up now. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to. I said WTF several times over the course of the 5 or so days I was dealing with my serter/site issues. And once resolved, I was relieved to resume my "normal." I was relieved to go back to the regular exercise. Relieved to test and see such better numbers, numbers that have now become workable, do-able.

Even with my exercise, I have realized that if I become complacent with it and don't push myself, I get bored and unmotivated, and it seeps into everything else. Over the weekend, Steve encouraged me to go for a longer run, because it was taking me less and less time to do my normal route. So I mapped out a run in my head that I thought would take me a little longer, and as I made my way up the hill home, realized I could easily keep going. The mapped out route was not all that much longer as it turned out, so I took a turn down the street that was my original training route for the C25K. All I kept thinking was, "How did I get here?" There were many, many days when I could not run the entire length of this route, and now it was an addendum, an afterthought to a 3 mile run. Coming up that last hill, I felt like a RUNNER. At the risk of sounding totally cheesy, I felt hardcore. It was cold, but I had my cold weather gear (thanks babe!), and I was running the entire 4.5 miles. Afterwards, I was sore, but so proud of myself. That empowering feeling has transcended into my diabetes. It isn't always pretty, and sometimes it hurts, but I am finally reaping the benefits because I'm NOT GIVING UP.

I thought my ability to do 4.5 miles yesterday might have been a fluke, adrenaline perhaps. But I went out to the track today and ran about 4.25. And sometimes the simplest things reveal themselves to me while I'm exercising. There is no magic formula, epiphany, code to decipher. It's working because I just keep going. When things suck and diabetes is my sworn enemy, I just keep going. When I wan't to give up, take a break, slack, become complacent, get bored--I just keep going. I have realized that I don't really hit my stride with the elliptical, bike, or my runs until I'm about 30 minutes in. After the initial grunt work, and my muscles adjust to the activity, I feel like I could keep going forever. That's how I made it to the 4.5 mark. Once I hit that stride, it seems like sky's the limit. I'm not sure what I wouldn't be able to do. It's an amazing feeling. It is also what has happened with my diabetes. Once I hit my stride, I can just keep going. As my longer run was not a fluke, neither is my approach to my health. It is not temporary, it is not a period of time I only experienced when pregnant. It is now, and sky's the limit.