Saturday, May 31, 2008

I'm ready for my wetsuit, Mr. Deville


I hate "cold". Hate it. I'm the world's biggest baby about getting in the pool. TOTAL toe-dipper. To be honest, I once got to the pool, dipped the toe and actually LEFT without getting in. Yep, I'm Ironman tough. haha



Today all I managed to do was go to the theatre and see Sex In The City (excellent by the way). But tomorrow.... tomorrow..... I'm dipping my toe into my favorite swimming hole, the Verona Quarry. It's quiet, wooded, and I don't want anyone seeing me try to squish my untrained body into the seal suit. Yikes. I hope it still fits.

So let's get it straight. Today Anne biked 124 miles, and I made an omelet at 11 p.m. Obviously two very well-trained machines. :)

But seriously, I AM excited to put the wetsuit back on. I am looking forward to open water swimming and getting into my full training mode.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Road ID - Can't Wait to Wear It!

Besides Lifescan, I don't think I've taken much blog time to thank our sponsors of the fabulous triabetes project. Today I got a great email from Road ID (http://www.roadid.com/) telling me to go spend some money on my Triabetes sponsored gadgetry. Now, if you know me, you know I'm not like this:


But I will tell you this...I spent 15 wonderful minutes shopping at Road ID. What GREAT stuff! I bought a firefly to wear while I am out running and biking. I really try pretty hard not to be biking at night but there are times these bad boys would be perfect when you are caught in the rain. I ordered a blue one... :)

Then, I had to pick a Road ID. What to do...what to do... I decided I wanted something I would wear a lot, so I went with the "Fixx ID"...

I got this cool little "shell" to go around it - I chose orange (Nate, are you SOOOOO proud of me going with the Triabetes orange???). It will be proudly worn and nicely matched with my already well-known adornment:



Thanks to Road ID for their sponsorship of this project! Now go get yours!





Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Team Type 1 Coming Out My Ears


Last night I had the pleasure of meeting yet another tt1'er, Bob Schrank out of the Chicago area. I was invited to a dinner hosted by Sanofi Aventis to listen to Bob speak about his diabetes management, etc. The room was filled with diabetes educators.

Memorable phrases from the evening:

Michelle: "My son wears a CGM"
Three educators: "What's a CGM"
Michelle: "???????? Really???????"

Bob, when asked about other pro racers saying it's an unfair advantage that they use insulin: "my pancreas red-lined, what's your excuse?"

My favorite quote from Bob that instantly became my tagline was when he said: "I didn't join Team Type 1 for cycling. I was already a cyclist."

I love what he said because it reminds me of so much of what we all do, those of us invested in the "d" world. We use the amazing skills we already have to spread the message and do good things, to get us closer to a cure.

I'm not sure what my amazing skill is but I'm pretty sure it involves pot pies or something.

PS Check out Bob's new blog as he embarks on RAAM 2008:
http://gobobgobobgo.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Back in Step....I can't win, but I can finish


I started a vacation today. My first since I started working at JDRF almost 3 years ago. I can't help it - I feel like when I go to a conference or a ride or whatever...it's FUN. It FEELS like a vacation when I'm with people who share my mission in life, you know?



So today, I get up (late, happily) and go for a swim. Ok, it was a short swim, but so what? I swam.

I bike downtown to meet Brian Cholewa for lunch at a happy little Mexican cart (sans donkey) on the capitol square in my sweet sassy tt1 gear (I couldn't help myself I look GOOD in it dang it). I then bike into a horrible head wind smiling my head off.

It's my day off. I run into no less than 6 people affiliated with diabetes.

I stop for coffee and invite Bob Gorsuch to coffee but alas, he is actually out being a "CEO" or something...sheesh! I finish my biking, lace up and run 5ish miles to see if my butt still jiggles when I run. Yep. It does. But at least I DID IT. Game on.

The photo is my 06 Ironman finish. My friend sent it to me today. I love it. Forgot it. But it came back quickly. 1 mile to go. It's cold, raining, and my friend is wearing a flippin' winter coat! I know I look hot in my survival gear and scream, "get this stuff off me!" I want to look hot for my finish line moment. LOL

Wow. What a moment. And everyone is going to experience it soon....

Have a great night!

Michelle

Monday, May 5, 2008

Gala Success - What a Night!






Ok, so Friday, May 2nd, the "When You Wish Upon A Star Gala took place in Madison, Wisconsin. Lots of committee members made it happen. I know there are amazing photos yet to come that I will blog about, but for now, here are a few.... I'm starting with my favorite.





Phil Southerland of Team Type 1 and I were joking about him flying in to be my date. Phil and I have been friends since what I call the "old" days (a.k.a. he wasn't even out of college, Team Type 1 was something still in his imagination, and I was just fresh out of my chubby PTA mom days in Carmel, California). What started off as a joke, became reality with Phil flying in as my honorable date. We are lucky that he does a class-act job as being a key-note speaker as well! Lucky us!



I was a little shy about his documentary company holding a camera to us as we were both frantically trying to get dresses and tuxes on (I do not know how to tie a bow tie - thank you you tube!). I raced to the VIP reception, he watched the bow-tie video 7 times, and the evening was on. Could I ask for a better date? Nah.


Enter the reception and skip past Triabetes athlete and wife extraordinaire, John and Maureen Moore. Ok, so John picks on me that I don't recognize him, but hey! I've never seen him dressed up like that! All is forgiven and we have an amazing ballroom-filled evening.


SOLD OUT.


GORGEOUS.


I stood at the door briefly just to listen to people as they entered the ballroom. I giggled everytime I heard a gasp.



The evening is filled with silent and live auction. Phil tells the story of growing up with diabetes. He takes the time to speak to lots of the kids of the evening. My inbox has proven that Mr. Southerland made quite an impression in Madison, Wisconsin.
I'm proud to say our evening raised a whopping $360K at last count - a good $90K over our goal! Good company, good friends. I will post a photo album once our professional photographer puts the photos together.
Enjoy!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

I finally have a tshirt for Bill Carlson


Ok, I've got a BIG message I want to send out about the JDRF gala on Friday that ROCKED THE HOUSE thanks to so many people. I'll talk endlessly about having my Triabetes athletes here (John Moore, Brian Foster, Joe Brady, Aaron Perry...) and how fun it was to have Phil Southerland here along with his Team Manager of Team Type 1, Tom Schuler.

BUT...as we finished up the gala, Brian Foster was in town and wanted to do this little 5K for the physicial therapy department of the UW-Madison, to give Ray and Nella a little footage for the documentary. Now, this girl has NOT been running. Running her @ss off to get the gala going, sure, but not training. SO.... Brian is at my house, we are just chilling out, talking about the documentary...and I think, "well, Michelle, giddy up. Time to lace up the shoes officially."

Training season. Late start.

So we go to the race, it's a beautiful sunny morning, 52 degrees. Brian and I have on our Triabetes shirts (of course), Ray, Nella and Elisa show up to film. I'm feelin' good. Brian goes to the front, I meander to the back as to not embarrass myself. Phil had given me this awesome Team Type 1 jacket that I was going to wear, but realized if I wore it, people would think I was actually an athlete. Not wise. Went for some quieter fashion thanks.

Started off the race with a bad stich in the right side. Tried to push through it, felt a little whiny. But I felt ok as I finally passed some 90 year old guy (seriously, how bad am I????) and got a little stride.

I knew Brian would finish at like 15 minutes (of course he did, finishing like 6th overall) and jogged back to find me, thank GOD I was not walking, then I see Ray pull out his video camera. Girl tries to lay it on hard for the camera. As I finished, the timing crew stopped me to get my #. I have this thing where I have to keep moving, or I feel breakfast coming up (in this case, breakfast was merely coffee, but it still felt bad). It subsided and I felt good.

I'm sad to say it took me 28 minutes to finish that bad boy, but hey, I think I won my age group. Ok, ok, there weren't a lot of old people like me there! But I'll take it.

BILL CARLSON: I love my LA Marathon shirt you gave me. I have a "UW Wisconsin Rehab Run" shirt for you. Time to trade up, baby.