A Weekend of Falling in Love, Again

The sun shone this entire weekend in Geneva which makes me happy to say that we have finally turned the corner into beautiful, hot summer weather. On Saturday, a new (intern) friend and I went to see the Geneva Sailboat Regatta, but were a bit late heading out the door and ended up by Baby-Plage instead, enjoying the sun and watching some young kids really kill it water skiing on the lake. Seeing everyone out in bathing suits and summer dresses made me incredibly happy- finally, some summer weather! My friend, who is from Nigeria and has lived in Rome the past five years, found my enthusiasm about the heat rather amusing. I suppose that’s what happens when you live in a climate where you get only two, maybe three months of summer heat every year. Your excitement when you can finally wear that new sundress you bought at the end of last season, so many months before, becomes a bit overwhelming. And having spent the last three weeks in rainy, cold Geneva weather, I had lost the energy and excitement that comes from living in a new place for a summer. But this weekend, amid the sand and sweat and sun, I found it once again and fell in love with the city all over again.

Carousel by the lake, and so many people enjoying the sun!

Today I went for a run, mid-day, in the wonderful, sunny, heat. The heat doesn’t make for an easy run, but it definitely makes for a rewarding one, and I’ve always preferred running in the heat to running in the cold (sorry Canadian winters, but you just don't cut it for good runs). Over the years I’ve fallen in and out of love with running too many times to count, but running along Lac Leman today reminded me of all the reasons I love to run. I even enjoyed the hill at the ¾ mark of my run, though painful and sweaty, because I’ve always felt it is in the most uncomfortable moments on runs by myself that I am reminded of my own independence and power.

What will you fall in love with this week?

New Year's Resolutions

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves, we must die to one life before we can enter another.” –Anatole France

‘Tis the season for resolutions and new beginnings. I love beginnings. I love the excitement of starting fresh, of new ideas, daydreams, hopes and wishes. I have a lot of expectations for 2012, all of which I hope will come to fruition, but only a few of which I would like to list as my official New Year’s Resolutions.

As a diabetic, of course the first resolution I would like to make is regarding my blood sugar control. My HAICs have been consistently around 7 mmol/g in recent years, and my goal this year is to have an A1C of 5.8mmol/g before the end of 2012. But as any good diabetic knows, blood sugar control cannot be measured simply with an average, as an average can never truly tell the full story.  If I achieve that average through a rollercoaster of blood sugars that’s as crazy as this:

than it is not a fair representation of my blood sugar control. I’d like my blood sugar control to be quite a bit more boring and a lot flatter, probably something like this:

My second resolution is to prevent myself from taking on too many committments (work, volunteering, schooling), and by doing so, allowing myself the opportunity to truly give myself 100% to the commitments that I do make. I have the tendency to take on more than is healthy- in terms of levels of stress- (ahem the 4 jobs I was working plus full time school last semester) and I’ve found this to be not only unhealthy, but unsatisfying too.  I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist, but I do take a lot of pride in what I do, and I get very frustrated whenever I’m time crunched and forced to do a mediocre job. So this resolution is designed to hopefully allow me the opportunity to excel at and enjoy everything I do this year.

A third resolution I would like to make for myself, and one which is quite easily measurable by the public at large, is to truly keep up with blogging once a week. There are so many benefits of weekly blogs, from developing a stronger online community to expressing myself in times of excitement and frustration, and I do believe that the act of blogging itself helps me maintain better blood sugar control, simply by being a constant reminder of my diabetes. 

My fourth resolution is simple yet difficult all in one, and it is to smile more. Cheesy? Yes. Difficult to measure? Certainly. Important? Immeasurably.  Many people describe me as a very upbeat, smiley person, but I want every smile to be from the inside out. I remember a quote I once read in a running magazine, “Wellness is the key to a long and healthy life. Many people have the wrong perception of it. Wellness is from the neck up, and fitness from the neck down. Too many people work out every day, but go around with the worst attitudes, which just wastes all their physical efforts.” I think that statement captures the importance of attitude and happiness, and I would like to be a more smiley, positive person this year.

My final resolution fits in nicely with these ideas of wellness and fitness. I’d like to run in more races this year. So far I’ve signed up for the Warrior Dash in July, which I’m extremely excited about, and as the warmer months near I’d like to sign up for some more 5 and 10ks, possibly even a half marathon.

Here’s to hoping the new year brings all sorts of good, and fewer sorts of bad.

Study, study, study, RUN, study...

It’s the time of year when taking a University summer course seems like a big mistake.  When I signed up for the class, at the end of April when the weather was still cold and wet, it seemed like a great idea to take a tough course during the summer when I had more time to focus on the material.  But now, with the weather so sunny and hot, there’s nothing I’d love more than to chuck the text books and spend all day outside.  The only thing keeping me going on days that I spend inside studying, like yesterday, is knowing that the course is short (only 6 weeks long!) and that taking a break to go for a run doesn’t technically count as procrastinating, because it is necessary exercise so it has to be done, right?  And if it gives me a chance to spend some time outside, all the better. 

I love running in what other people would call unfavourable conditions.  Extreme heat? Terrific, there’s nothing better than a real good sweat every once in awhile.  Snowing out? A little slip-sliding can be fun on a run, especially when you can appreciate the beauty and silence of a snowfall.  Torrential downpour? Runs in the rain are the most refreshing, energizing runs. 

My wonderful yellow running shoes I purchased in Iceland and my Organic Chem textbooks

Yesterday I had a lot of pent up energy for running in the heat (30 degrees plus the humid X) from spending all day inside studying.  Yesterday’s run had challenging windy conditions that made part of the run seem more like a wind resistant workout than a tempo run.  Before starting the run, my blood sugars were dropping so I had to drink a bit of juice and eat some bread and honey.  I opted for honey on toast instead of peanut butter because I knew I was going to do a quick (-30min), tempo run and would need the quick sugar more than the lasting protein.  Luckily, half a piece of bread with honey or peanut butter never seems to give me a cramp.  The run itself was wonderfully sweaty and hard, with quite a few hills, but very rewarding.

Taking the time to go for a quick run, even when bogged down with studying, helps me keep control of my blood sugars, and has the added benefit of keeping me healthy, strong and in good spirit.  I know from experience that it is easy to get busy with school, work, or life in general, and how quickly one missed workout can turn into a week of missed workouts, but it really is important to make exercise a priority.