Monday, April 11, 2011

New Bike, and other news

After doing a sprint triathlon in 2009 with a hybrid bike - not recommended - I promised myself I wouldn't try another tri without one of those skinny wheeled, curved handlebar machines. The search for my first road bike started a few months ago, when I registered for an Olympic-distance triathlon called Mooseman. The race is on June 4th, and the cycling course is supposed to be quite hilly. Today I bought the bike that will carry me up those hills! My muscles will pry do some work, too... just not nearly as much as they would on a heavier frame. I took this thing out for a mild ride this evening, about ten miles, and no slope was too steep for it. 
Here "she" is... I think I should name her. Suggestions welcome!
Before this Saturday, I had never been on a road bike. So while this 2010 Specialized Dolce is by all means "entry level," and isn't the lightest or the most expensive or whatever, it is a HUGE step up from everything I've ridden before. Here's hoping it will be a trusty companion for many miles in the years to come. I told my mom, who pitched in to help me pay for it, that I wouldn't upgrade to a new one until I started training for an Ironman. She said, "Ironman?! Svati, hold on a second..." 

Last night I sent out my first batch of fundraising emails to potential donors for Testing Limits/Insulindependence. What a great response I received! It was really awesome to see that some people opened the email right away and then - bam! - donated 10 bucks, like it was a no-brainer. I'm still a bit behind as far as hitting certain fundraising benchmarks, but it's been such a confidence booster to see the number of contributions slowly creeping up over just the past day, since sending the email. 

In other news, spring has finally sprung here in Hanover! Today the green ("both the physical and emotional center of campus," as I say on my campus tours) was full of students and townies playing frisbee, eating, studying, lounging, babysitting, you name it. People are running around in shorts and tank tops. We joke that the college president has a deal with some higher power to bring the sun out just for the prospies, or prospective students, who are visiting campus this week to decide whether this is the right school for them. My roommates and I celebrated the warm weather by getting froyo at foco (college speak for frozen yogurt at the cafeteria) and enjoying it - where else? - out on the green. 

Friday, April 8, 2011

Skipping Sophomore Summer

  Today I received notice from the college registrar that I officially have permission to not take classes this summer. Sounds strange, right? Not if you go to Dartmouth, where it is a long-standing tradition and requirement for all students to be on campus for the Summer term (June-August) between their sophomore and junior years.
   Dartmouth's academic calendar is based on the quarter system. Each quarter, or term, students can be on campus taking classes, off campus taking classes (study abroad, an exchange program at another school), or off campus doing something else (internship, research, fun). It's all VERY flexible, and that's usually a good thing, unless your best friend is studying abroad in Barcelona during Fall term and then you're off doing anthropological field research in Brazil during the Winter, when she's on campus, and then you go back to campus for spring term but she is off again for an internship in NYC. Whew! It's overwhelming, to be honest. We call this crazy system "The D-Plan." Everyone is encouraged to create his or her own D-Plan, but the sophomore summer term is supposed to be non-negotiable. Sophomore summer is for bbqs, swimming in the river, living in your frat/sorority house, and bonding with your class while taking courses to make up for that off-term in Brazil. 
   I decided to arrange my D-Plan so that I was taking academic courses during Fall/Winter/Spring of both this year and the next, and I didn't see an opportunity for a strictly non-academic term at any time other than the summer.  Will I miss out on some fun Dartmouth-y things this summer? Sure. But I will be plenty busy with other stuff (traveling, working, volunteering for Insulindependence, just living life). And I don't subscribe to the belief that there is one single "Dartmouth experience" that's incomplete if you don't do this or that.  
    Probably 95% of my peers create D-Plans that include this traditional summer term on campus, and it works well for them. One of my friends has an internship in D.C. this term, then will be back on campus in the summer, then will study abroad in London in the fall. Another was off this winter, volunteering at an HIV/AIDS clinic in Tanzania, and so this term (spring) is like the beginning of a new academic year for her. She won't be burnt out come summertime! It would be, I think, more socially acceptable to be on campus this summer, like all the other sophomores, and then take the next fall term "off" to go do research on medical anthropology in the Himalayas (something I seriously considered doing at one point). But I've been here at school all fall, all winter, and all spring, and in the summer I will need a break, and I actually am not as interested in medical anthropology as I thought I was, and that's okay
   After lots of consideration, I decided to submit a petition asking for a waiver for this summer term, and since it was approved this afternoon, I feel like a load's been lifted off my shoulders. First of all, it feels great to have this squared away. Also, having the petition approved by the registrar makes me stand a little taller when I sheepishly tell my peers that I'm not going to be here this summer.
   But, again, I really need to stop worrying about what other people think and just do my own thing. Fear of disapproval can totally paralyze me sometimes!
  (This post is decidedly not related to diabetes or exercise. Hope that's okay :) )

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Intro: Diabetes and Exercise (or, why I started this blog)

You could say that diabetes and running have been my main extracurricular activities for the past several years. Succeeding in both of these areas demands a lot of hard work, with great rewards as well as disappointments. Sports and chronic illnesses can, on their own, teach individuals about discipline, dedication, and persistence. For me, trying to make distance running and diabetes mix has been the biggest lesson of all. 

Type 1 Diabetes is primarily a problem with balance – the balance of food, exercise, and insulin in the body, which is easily maintained in most people with healthy pancreases.  It’s sort of like an equation. Actually, having to think about everything I eat, test my blood sugar constantly and fine-tune my insulin doses might not be so bad if only there was some perfect mathematical formula. Unlike equations from algebra class, though, diabetes cannot be solved or balanced. There are tons of variables to throw into this one, and anytime I factor in running, my favorite activity, I end up with an inequality. Different types of workouts require different amounts of insulin; the number of carbs I eat before a workout depends on how many miles I plan to run; for hours after exercise my body might be more or less sensitive to insulin than it usually is. 

I will always believe that joining the cross country team as a high school freshman was the best decision I’ve ever made; distance running, while not always easy, is incredibly rewarding. There were many times when I thought that diabetes was a good reason for me to abandon the sport, though. One of my favorite phrases throughout high school was “diabetes and distance running don’t mix!” It’s true that balancing blood sugars and insulin, hard enough on its own, seems to become exponentially more difficult when sports are added to the equation. But finally I have decided that the extra work required to train and race safely with diabetes is worth it. There will be no more questioning or wavering on this issue for me, mainly because of the many amateur and professional diabetic athletes I have come to know and admire over the past few years.  

I’ve met diabetics who’ve climbed Mount Everest and diabetics who’ve completed Ironman triathlons. I’ve met a whole community of people with Type 1 who not only refuse to let this disease stop them from being active, but actually encourage regular exercise and outdoor adventuring as a way to make life with diabetes better. This is where Insulindependence comes in. Insulindependence, or "iD," facilitates and strengthens this community of athletes with diabetes, and this community inspires me in a way that my high school running coach never could: it acknowledges my everyday struggles with diabetes but insists that it is possible to achieve peak performance as an athlete if I just struggle a little harder sometimes. Insulindependence has pioneered the concept of “experiential diabetes education,” which is learning and practicing diabetes management skills through sport. The idea that sport can actually improve the quality of life with diabetes, and can be an important educational tool for individuals with diabetes, is truly revolutionary. 

Insulindependence is, I guess, the reason I started this blog. Being selected as a 2011-2012 Captain for iD's Testing Limits program has given me a year-long task through which I will have the opportunity to help others in a meaningful way and learn more about myself at the same time. Seeing how many other iD Captains maintain blogs made me realize that this experience is something worth chronicling. This blog may only last until next summer, when my formal assignment as a TL Captain ends, but we'll see... maybe I'll enjoy blogging so much that I'll stick with it long afterward. 

Thanks for reading!