I’m so thrilled to tell you about our latest Champion Ahtletes With Diabetes.
One of these winners you probably don’t know at all (though you’ll recognize who sent us the request). The other winner you know quite well. What you’ll recognize about these stories though is that it’s the stories that matter in this medal quest.
Sue Rericha of RFamHere’s Ramblings sent me a request for a young person in Illinois. This athlete wanted to play 7th grade volleyball. Sue wrote:
My co-worker’s 7th grade daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 a week before school started at her sport physical. Tonight she found out she made the volleyball team (the whole reason for the physical that may have saved her life).
How can I not want to send a medal for that? So inspiring! Twelve days later, I received another e-mail:
It arrived yesterday! I gave the medal to Katie’s mom and she asked the volleyball coaches to give it to her at tonight’s practice. Perfect timing as tonight they were doing team building and motivation.
A story like that just melts me right down to butter. Congratulations Katie!
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Our other medal winner this time is Mike Hoskins of Indianapolis. Mike writes at DiabetesMine, when he’s not writing at The Diabetic’s Corner Booth.
Mike has dealt with a lot of the issues we all face as People With Diabetes who strive for athletic achievements. It’s hard, and while the motivation to succeed is great, the motivation to give up is great too. Sometimes, perseverance is what gets you through, no matter how hard the road may be. That, and remembering people who inspire you, like I’m sure Mike inspires others. His road was literally a road, during the ADA’s Indiana Tour de Cure. Mike e-mail from early December says:
It was my first-ever Tour de Cure on June 8, 2013 (I’m just inside the six month mark!). Here in Indy, at the Indy Motor Speedway and around that central part of Indianapolis.
I’d signed up for a 50k because for some reason that was the shortest you could sign up for aside from the “family recreational” stretch just going around the 2.5-mile speedway track. I trained at least a few times a week in the couple months leading up to this event, around my neighborhood and the city on streets and bike paths. On the day of the tour, I made it a little more than 15 miles — about 25k which is half of the registered route. That was my limit, and at times it was very challenging for me, especially when it came to the non-level highways and streets around Indy that were very different from the smooth flat downtown streets and paths I’d been training on.
But I pressed on, in large part because of the people who were there cheering me on as they rode by and saw me struggling to just keep pedaling and offered a “Go Red Rider!” in support. At some of the toughest times, it was that support that kept me going. (support and empowerment… that’s what this is all about!)
This was the most I’ve ridden my bike as an adult, and I am very proud of pushing myself and going the distance that I did. It was never about making it to the very end or being first, because that just wasn’t me. But I wanted to prove that I could do it, that I could push myself to my limit and not stop when it seemed impossible, and that no matter what that diabetes wasn’t going to stop me from doing this.
Before the ride, and even during that time and afterward, it’s people like Scott Johnson, Mari Ruddy and George Simmons who I’ve seen accomplish their own athletic achievements that have really served as my biggest motivations and inspiration in believing I could do this, and pushing myself to make it happen.
Mike also took the time to write about his achievement at DiabetesMine last week. You can read it here. Congratulations Mike!
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Okay, it’s your turn. Time to write in and request the medal you deserve for accomplishing athletic goals. Time to nominate someone who inspires you. For more information on the Champion Athletes With Diabetes initiative, click here or send me an e-mail at happymedium[dot]net[at]gmail[dot]com. And don’t forget to follow @ChampsWithD on Twitter and like our Facebook page too!
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