Yesterday was an interesting day on the Diabetes Outside Facebook page.  If you haven’t checked it out, please do!  www.facebook.com/diabetesoutside

I wrote yesterday about sharing management of my disease by asking for someone else’s help when I am low.  Even if I don’t need the help, it’s nice to know someone else is going to get me juice!  But through the day different topics came up: (1) is it a responsibility you share if you ask someone to bring you juice and (2) would you ask anyone for help or just certain family members and (3) how do you handle telling others you have diabetes and you are low and you need sugar.

I don’t have answers for any of these questions, only responses that change with every situation and every person.  But before I could start in with thinking about writing about those answers, something came up for me that you may identify with in some way.

I am going on a long run tomorrow (20 miles, my longest before the marathon on 10/31).  I have been absolutely dreading this run.  I tried it two weeks ago, went out barely 2 miles and turned around and went home.  I even walked the 2 miles home.  I repeated this process every morning for three days in a row before I realized there was no physical problem—I was sick of running and needed a break.  So, I took a break for the rest of the week and did not let myself run. 

I felt better last week and running felt good and fun again, but I didn’t have the time to run 20 so I cut it to 14.  Let me tell you, 14 miles is completely different than the 26 miles I need to get through at the end of the month.

So when I got an email from a man I know from bootcamp yesterday asking me how my training was going and offering to run with me, I jumped at the chance.  He is a very fast and experienced runner and marathoner and is signed up for the same event; he is a bootcamper at a different location but he knows me from the weeks I’ve been at his spot.  He is a great guy and I’m looking forward to our conversations through tomorrow’s miles.

I’m really excited to run with him and to go on a route I’ve never seen.

But it brings up a question for me: what do I do if I’m low or need to check during our run together.  I already feel badly that I’m a slower runner than he is, and I don’t think he is as likely to stop and walk as I am.  I think he knows I’m diabetic but he isn’t a normal bootcamper of mine so he probably hasn’t seen me eat or check during class very often. 

If I am low or need to check I will absolutely stop and do so—it is never worth trying to make it through a run of any length without admitting I need to deal with some aspect of my disease.

Now, I have friends I run with who I have run with for years and who know that when we run together, I may need to stop and walk.  We’ve talked about it and I am comfortable that they are comfortable with that plan.  I know that if I run with someone else, I really really truly do not care that they may naturally run slower than I run.  (Most of the time, I’m perfectly okay with that!)

Yet I still am a little nervous for tomorrow.  I don’t want to disappoint him when we run together. 

I’m sure I won’t, and I have to remember that I will run 12 miles to his house before he even starts running in the morning so he will likely have realistic expectations of my abilities at that point.

And still.  I know in my head he will be PERFECTLY FINE if I need to walk and check or walk and eat.  I know that.  And I’m still a bit nervous that I will disappoint him.

See, I told you I don’t have any answers.

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