So, last post I introduced you all to Rich, my buddy in PA - and he is now runninng (and I’ve started again too, believe it or not)! Go Rich!

With a lot of coaxing, and a little bit of bribery I talked him into getting a Nike+ SportBand, and more importantly to start running. He has fulfilled his end of the bargain thus far (posting his first 1.3 mile run today), and in turn I will fulfill mine when he reaches the agreed upon milestones. 100 Miles earns him a bottle of Scotch (here’s the bribery part), and when he reaches 500 miles, I promise to fly out to Pitt with a FINE bottle of Scotch and will help drink it in celebration. I’m excited to get someone else interested in the sport, and am looking for your comments to help encourage him to stick with it!

So I’ve decided to try something new here at The Diabetic Runner, posts from a guest runner. I created an account for Rich to log in and post articles here on the site, and there will be a new category for all his posts: “RICH RUNS” for you to follow his story as a beginning runner. Please let him know what you think of his journey by commenting on his posts, and with me - talk him into signing up for the “Kick the Couch” 5K Race in Oct.

Welcome Rich!

Running for riches,
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

First the motivation. My buddy Rich (pictured left) and I have a lot in common. We are both mid-westerners at heart, and met scuba diving. We also have tech backgrounds, and in fact my current job is his previous job. We also share a love for the same vices in life… Guitar Hero Wii and Scotch nights online have been known to occur. Recently he visited and his wife’s disapproval of our activities matched that of my wife… so in an attempt to get off her S*LIST and do something healty for both of us, I’ve managed to convince him to start running with me… the trouble is that he’s in PA - so we are going to use Nike+ as our virtual enabler. I have high hopes for it to become habit for both of us - and will be pushing hard for a 2010 Marathon for both of us once he gets hooked…. (It can happen Rich!).

Additionally, there’s some other motivation for healty habits that’s recently entered both of our lives… Wii Fit. I’m just 2 days in, but think it will help motivate me to see my BMI (as artificial as it may be or not) regularly. I find the games and fitness activities pushing me to a sweat, and feel the effects afterwards, so I’m going to give it a shot along with a renewed commitment to running (which I’m sure you’ve all noticed has bee severly lacking as of late - in fact I’m now feeling like I love NOT running… SAD) But alas here we go!

On the Mickey front…. Interesting thing happened when we visited Tokyo Disneyland Resort… Upon entering, our bags were checked, and the security guard wanted me to open my diabetic “kit”. I did, and the questions ensued. It was fine that I was diabetic, and okay that I bring needles into the park (even though I’m on a pump and wouldn’t be needing them). BUT he told me under no terms was I to use a needle where ANYONE could see me! It wasn’t Disney-like to see someone “shooting up.” I agreed, but thought things would be different if Mickey had a bad pancreas and didn’t make all his money selling cotton candy and ice cream. Ah well, I still love Mickey, and all things Disney, even if he is a hater!

Screw Mickey, I just got Rich!
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

So, here’s the update. My kids and wife were in Japan for most of June, and all of July as our daughter attended Preschool there over her summer vacation. She had a great experience, and it was well worth it, but it left me a bachelor for about 6 weeks. During that six weeks, and 10 days following that I visited Japan the following has been accomplished: Gained 6 pounds. Made progress on my CGMS/workout tracking site. Lost total control over my BG. Ran like 1 or 2 times. Begged to get back to my normal life. Now we’re all home and life can resume as normal. WHEW!!!! Easy to fall into the path of self-destruction I guess, what with Costco selling beer by the case and all….

Japan was excellent. I’ve been there many times before but this trip was pretty cool. Busy & HOT though. We took the Shinkansen all over while there since we bought Rail Passes. Nagano/Hakuba to visit some friends. Nagoya to visit my sister/brother in-law and their new baby boy. On to Hiroshima for my first time. Stop in Kobe for a (expensive) Kobe Beef lunch. Tokyo Disneyland for our daughter’s birthday, and then prepping and partying at grandma/grandpa’s house with our daughter’s new classmates for her birhtday and goodbyes. My only complaint was the intense heat and humidity - that was the one thing that made me REALLY glad to be back home.

Finally, when I returned home this week, there was a letter from the running store I frequent, Runner’s Feet. They are closing shop here, and having a big sale, inviting customers first to take advantage of discounts. Doors opened at 10AM this morning, and I was number 18 in line, arriving 20 minutes before 10. Doors opened and chaos ensued. When I left there must have been over 50 people inside the small store. I bought 2 boxes of GU gels, 2 running shirts and a running bra. HMMMM….. I know you’re getting worried about me Charlie, but I swear it was per my sister’s request that I bought this…. Kinda bummed to see them go - now I’ll have to go to a chain like store until I find another mom & pop sort of place that has comparable service. These sort of shops are perfect for dedicated runners as they don’t pretend to be everything to everyone! I’ll miss them.

Good to be back,
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

P.S. Huge shout out to Ed at Ring The Bolus for becoming an Ironman while I was gone. WAY TO GO ED!

Well, the past week and a half of running again has been going well! I probably came out of the gate a little fast, as I’m feeling some laziness in my legs these days, but happy to be running again. Now the heat! It is DAMN hot here in California this week. Even staying inside for the treadmill is hot. Like others have noticed, you sometimes forget how nice you have it until something changes - for me it’s the heat… It’s usually so perfect heat/humidity wise here that I forget what it’s like to SWEAT LIKE A PIG… Man, all you Florida runners… you have my respect now for sure… if you train in the weather we are having now you are hard-core!

Been running without any devices the last few runs (on a treadmill for mileage recording) and it is LIBERATING, though I noticed something funny. I created XML files for Nike+ (since it’s kind of my all-encompassing repository of run data), and uploaded them to track the runs… My total mileage then had an asterisk after it (*). Man I felt so “Barry Bonds” that I decided to delete the runs from there since they weren’t actually recorded with the device. I suppose they do this to keep people from cheating in challenges, but it made me feel like a cheater even though I HAD done the runs. Haven’t gone back to see if my * disappeared after deleting the runs yet - or to see if I’m branded for life. Aw, like I always say - “if you cheat running, you’re only cheating yourself.” So life goes on.

SENSOR AND BG UPDATE: anyone that actually looks at my BG data will notice a recent absence of data…. I have been without sensors for a while, and am hoping that UPS showed up today with another batch. I feel naked without them.

Naked and still sweating,

Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

Seems that these days, owning the domain name diabeticrunner.com is unfair. But then again, diabetic.com is already taken, even though that’s all I’ve been lately.

Charlie, my online friend left a comment on my last post, and I thought to leave a comment back, but opted to post a new entry here instead… here’s what I wrote:

YIKES…. I guess taking the summer off in a off-the-running kind of way… BUT I SHOULD BE RUNNING….

I’ve lost my mojo and then some - need to get back in the swing of things. Life seems to have gotten in the way, and I can’t seem to remember how to do the running/blogging thing.

Need some motivation - and since Charlie has my respect, and dropped a line today, I’m going to make a point to lace ‘em up tonight!

Thanks!

Any other ideas for motivation? What drives you all?,
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

P.S. Emily, I got your email (inspiring), and am planning to respond when I have a second or two. Thanks for writing!

BADR = Born Again Diabetic Runner
GOODER = BADR English

So many ways I’ve thought of to present my lack of running the past few weeks…. I couldn’t decide which to post….

1). Keeping with the 10% rule, I was right on track…. see the goal is to never increase your weelky mileage more than 10%, or never increase your long run by more than 10%… Why was I on track? because after the first week off (for ITBS injury), the following week, I increased both weekly mileage and long run by 10% 0 * 1.1 = 0 (exactly what I ran week 2) and long run of 0 * 1.1 = 0 (again, exactly what I ran). Ah, you could even say I was conservative too…. because I really only increased by 5 % see: 0 * 1.05 = 0 (in both cases, again exactly what I ran). BUT - you will clearly see that I also overdid it a bit… How’s this possible having not run at all? 0 * 2 = 0 : again what I ran, but you see I doubled my weekly distance and long run…. Okay, that was lame - never trust a “mathmagician.” Any way you slice it, I am coming up short for my 1000 mile challenge….

2). I’ve done an experiment… I’ve successfully mastered being a diabetic-non-runner… that was the easy part, now on to the hard part, becoming a non-diabetic-runner. Just move the words around a bit, and all my problems would be solved.

3). Treating ITBS can lead to unwanted side effect, PRS (AKA: Illiotibial Band Syndrome —-> Procratinating Runner Syndrome)

4). After looking at my BG’s for the 6 weeks I haven’t run, I simply couldn’t NOT run any more… the numbers have gone up without my routine exercise.

Anyway, the bottom line is, I’ve overcome both my ITBS and PRS and have run twice in the last 3 days - so I think I’m gearing up to continue being Jamie, The Diabetic Runner.

Thanks for your patience and support!

Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

Just an update since it’s been so long….

I have taken the past month off of running to let my ITBand issue clear up, and anticipate running again soon… and OUCH! does this put me behind in my 1000 mile challenge. ( I did however make an exception for the Bay to Breakers - and ran it )

I have been working on my new web service for merging workout data and CGMS - I’ve got some really cool things going, but am not quite finished… use Nike+ and Carelink (Minimed CGMS)? Want to help test, let me know.

I hit a wall, and felt burned out with everything Diabetes related, so while I stopped running, I also took a break from posting here, and at D365. Back to posting here now, and will have to catch up by uploading all the photos I’ve been taking for D365 - all in good time.

Also been a bit sidetracked with writing a personal site for displaying our home videos - rebuilding a YouTube like site for just us.

On top of this, we WENT GREEN and bought a Prius, so you can imagine that I’ve been tinkering with all the new gadgetry in the car too. Last tank we pulled 52 MPG over 500 miles! Woo Hoo!

That about sums it up - thanks for being patient with me, and hopefully you can look forward to regular posts again, as I’m getting over my burnout! Thanks for the poke, Charlie - I needed someone to remind me to get back to blogging!

Re-entering the D-Scene,
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

Following up the last post, I have GOOD news!!!

1). This time when I popped the USB device in the computer, it remembered my login info, and put the runs right into my nike+ account… GOOD!!!!!

2). This time calibrating, I ran .3 actual miles and stopped the SportBand at that point (.28) and calibrated to .3 in the software. (last time I ran .3 on the SportBand and wanted to set it to the .32 actual and couldn’t). This looks promising, and we’ll see when I go for a 5 miler or so tonight… GOOD, I think.

3). The jitter effect… well it looks like it shows because of the limited amount of data present for such a short walk… I walked with the iPod for .3 miles and saw the same thing… so I suppose with longer runs there is more data and this gets smoothed out. GOOD.

4). BONUS TEST - it seems you can use iPod and SportBand AT THE SAME TIME WITH ONE SHOE TRANSMITTER…… Crap, now we have to worry about people cheating the Nike+ challenges one more way, getting double mileage for each actual run…. Guess this again goes back to honesty… after all, we all know you are only cheating yourself! Now, off to delete all my LAB RUNS…. Surely don’t want all these short crappy runs in my log…

Hope this clears things up, and sets your mind at ease… (Charlie).

Giving the SportBand a (lancet-thrashed) thumbs up,
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

So, the SportBand arrived, and I’ve run with it one time (pushing my Daughter in a running stroller, so that may have affected the accuracy) for real, and done a walk and run for calibration. Here’s what I’ve noticed. The band is slim, and the bump where the USB device is, is not that bad… WAYYYY better than the Garmin 305 for sure, and actually (size-wise) wearable as a watch. It was SO much easier to prepare for my run without worrying about running headphone cable, wrapping iPod in baggie to waterproof, and get the armband attached… Snapped on the SportBand, and was ready to go. Pairing it with my old Nike+ transmitter was cake, starting stopping runs was the same. Downloading/installing software was easy - everything was pretty straight forward, but there are 3 concerns I have.

1. Annoyingly, when I plug it in, click the (i) button to set up prefs, and then log in, the software doesn’t remember my login information, it just sits in a “Pending….” state. So, each time I plug it in to sync, it uploads my data like in some Guest mode, and then in the browser, I have to sign in to get it added to my N+ account. Minor annoyance - but with iTunes, it always sent it right to my account. Plus, and I haven’t tried this yet, but what if I close the window to the web browser.. do I lose my run? Unlike the iPod, the device can’t be viewed in disk mode, so I’m not sure the data is still on the band at that point… It seems like it’s erased when uploaded… so then where is my run? (I’ll try this tonight to see what happens and report back) Here’s the photo of the software causing headache #1.

2. Calibration… after my first run, I noticed that the Nike+ was reporting my mileage a bit short compared to the GPS I was also wearing. Ah, so I need to calibrate… I figured I would anyway, but here’s the second bummer I ran into. The calibration page uses you last run or walk (provided it was a steady pace), and lets you adjust the distance to calibrate… but only in .1 mile increments…. I needed to adjust by .02 for a .3 mile calibration run, and couldn’t…. SO I’ll have to run a 1.5 mile run to get it calibrated accurately. Good thing that kind of mileage is easy for me, but damn… I guess I could just run .28 miles and set it as .3 miles in the calibration page and see if that helps… (will test that as well….)

3. My calibration run & walk appear quite “jittery” despite running very consistently, almost like their software is creating the little bumps every so often… maybe this is normal, and longer runs don’t show this effect and thus I’ve not seen it before… I’ll have to test that too with the iPod to see what happens, but in the mean time check out the image below of what I’m talking about.

Otherwise it’s good… I hope my tests resolve some of these issues for me, and I can report back good news, because I’d really like to start using this rather than the iPod because it’s so easy to strap on and get going.

Technology, supposed to make our lives easier, yet I find it creating more work for me today,
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

Wow, and the gadgets just keep coming… From the minimed site:

Great news! U.S. customers who currently own a MiniMed Paradigm® REAL-Time System (522 or 722 insulin pump models) or a Guardian® REAL-Time Continuous Glucose Monitoring System can expect to automatically receive a OneTouch® UltraLink™ Meter at no charge before June 30, 2008.

So here it is, the new meter option for Paradigm Pump users:

So cool that it’s going to be free to existing users - these guys are really getting it right with their Carelink USB, and now meter. Plus, I already use the OneTouch UltraSmart, so the strips I already have will work with this new meter…. Two great companies here doing something really great for us - now if they could just stop treating the disease and CURE IT!

Still no automatic UPS notification, but can’t wait,
Jamie, The Diabetic Runner

P.S. I got the Nike+ SportBand on Friday and have tried it out…. still saving my opinion - but looks okay so far…