Great Weekend - A Lot of Thoughts

I am sitting in my hotel room getting ready to present to a class of 80 IBMers before flying on to Atlanta tomorrow. I had a long flight to reflect on the weekend and all of the lessons and memories that came from it. The summary is that it was great but it was also confusing and often frantic and not as planned.

First, let me start by rewinding. For some reason, I played a minor part in living through my friends the death of their loved ones. The first was through my friend Mark. He had planned to travel to San Antonio one week ago Thursday to visit his family and basically say, "goodbye", before moving to Africa this summer after he retires from the military. He received a call 5 days or so before his flight with the news that his sister (in San Antonio) died unexpectedly. Through this loss, he regained a brother. He was able to reconnect in a real and meaningful way with his brother, who he had lost contact with for a variety of reasons. Sometimes when God takes something away, we need to see what he might be bringing for us. The second was with a swimming friend that I see a few times each year in Masters swimming. He is a younger guy (around 30) and wanted to go ice fishing and I took him. What I didn't know was that his grandmother, who lived a few hours away, was on her death bed and he decided to fish because that is what his grandmother would have wanted him to do. He texted me while I was at dinner with my wife that his grandmother died while he was fishing and thanked me for one of the best days of his life. I didn't really know how to process that comment. It was a short afternoon (2 hrs) of fishing for me, except that I got skunked for the first time in 3 years and enjoyed getting a chance to start a new streak. My lesson here is to not underestimate your importance to others especially when you invite them into your world.

Ok, on to the weekend.  The weekend started out Friday with a swim workout with Zyler and Jen. That was followed by memories that were made at the race banquet Friday evening where Zyler and Ashlee were presented as Heros of the Carlsbad Marathon and Peter was presented the highest honor with the Spirit of Joshua award.

Me with Zyler in front of his award poster

Zyler with Peter in front of his award poster

Peter had a very meaningful point in his acceptance speech. He told of the time in the Spring of 2008 when his was scheduled to do an ocean swim with his triathlon club. He slept through 3 alarms and didn't make it to the swim. Out of the 9 that did show up, 8 came out of the water alive and Dave Martins was killed by a Great White shark. 24 hours later, Dave's son was swimming in the exact spot where his Dad was killed to prove that the shark was not going to beat him also. To this day, Peter is terrified of sharks but refusing to quit swimming and surfing in that same water. The lesson here is that there are no guarantees in life and that you must face your fears in order to live.

Friday after the banquet, I drove back to San Diego about 45 minutes to pick up my friend Mark who joined us for the weekend and left right after work. He still came even though his sister had died just 2 weeks earlier. That means a lot to me. He made me pay for it though. We ended up going to bed at 12:30am and then getting up at 4:30am (4 hrs later) so I could drive him back to San Diego to see a fishing boat come in that had been out for 16 days. He made me promise that I would go on a 10 day fishing trip with him in October of 2012 when he visits back from Africa.

Mark with a few of the smaller Yellowfin Tuna that were caught on the 16 day boat

After dropping off Mark, I drove back 45 minutes to run with Zyler in the Kids Mile at Legoland. After the race, I took everyone to the beach to join our group for surfing and coffee. After that, I went back to San Diego to pick up Mark and join everyone on the beach. I didn't surf, but I enjoyed swimming and taking photos of our diabetic surfers.

Blair surfing off the beach in Carlsbad

I think that I was doing a little too much because at this point on Saturday my brain was gone, gone, gone. Pam and Mark were really watching me closely because I was not myself and couldn't think (at all). We dropped Zyler and his Mom off at Legoland and Pam, Mark and I went back to the beach where Mark ran, I worked on my speech for that night and Pam enjoyed the warmth and sunshine. We then went to the Insulindependence banquet where I was also looking forward to seeing my brother for the first time in quite awhile. Zyler and I gave a speech to the crowd of about 150 diabetics/family/friends before they raced and volunteered the next morning in the Carlsbad half and full marathon. I have to give presentations all the time including tomorrow morning. I was nervous for this one though. It mixed my life with my family with my faith, with my friends and with my training. This was almost too much for me to process. That might be why my blood sugar crashed as soon as I arrived at the event. Zyler enjoyed watching me shove an entire tube of glucotabs into my mouth at once. I would like you to listen to the speech on YouTube and I have included a link to it here. I think it is about 10 minutes in length.


Zyler & Me Giving a Speech to Diabetic Runners

That evening was really amazing because I got to meet people that I have been "friends" with on Facebook. I also was very happy to see my brother arrive. We went to bed around 10:30pm that night but needed to get up a little while later to help a bit when Zyler had a persistent low that neither he nor his Mom could turn. We got it turned but the next morning I found out that it came back and that it was a very long night for Zyler and his Mom.

Sunday Morning was Race Morning: My brother drove the volunteers to their station and that left me and Mark in the room to prep for the race. I celebrated the day reading out of the Daily Bread for me and Mark and I really enjoyed that time. We had a VIP Parking Pass - THANK YOU Hero Zyler! We had no traffic and parked right by the start line where we relaxed in the car with the heater on for 45 minutes before getting out and joining the crowd. I am proud to announce a very successful PRP (as opposed to Mark's 12 mile MRP incident). I had a good and uneventful race. The weather was perfect and the course was beautiful. My blood sugars started high, around 230, because I could not calm my nerves and my liver was dumping sugar into me. This was the first race, ever, that I carried insulin with me. I ended the race at 65 and level. One less unit of insulin at the turnaround and I think that I would have measured it perfectly. The rise at the end was after I had eaten quite a bit after the race.

Dexcom CGM showing race blood sugars. Started at 230 and ended level at 65.

My time was 2hrs 15min. Nothing record breaking but it was steady and it felt good. My feet loved the orthodics and the Newton running shoes.

Me between mile 9 and mile 10 of the race showing insulin needle and CGM

Sunday afternoon I took Zyler and his Mom to the airport to fly home. After that, I really enjoyed going to the home of one of my 1st cousins, Dean and his wife, Trish. Roger, Pam and Mark also went. Roger and Dean were good friends as kids and I probably hadn't seen Dean in 37 years because I was pretty young the last time that Dean had seen me. Sunday night was an excellent night of sleep.

Monday was a big day for my brother because it wasn't just his 64th birthday but his daughter, Marisa, also gave birth this morning to his grandson, Jedidiah, who will now share his birthday with him.

Jedidiah born today

 
Roger, Pam and Mark went to the beach one last time while I went to the pool to get a workout in. It was then off to the airport where everyone went home except me. That is why I am now in Dallas ready to start a short work week. I really enjoyed the sunset on the flight from San Diego to Dallas.

Thanks and sorry for the longest blog entry ever

Brian