Stepped in the mud, stepped back in time.

As many of you know, I did a Rebel Race with some AMAZING friends and loved ones this weekend. I was all like yeah....I am gonna go zipping through this and falalalalaaaaa....No. That isn't what I thought at all, but I refuse to blog about my inner Sybil terrorizing me up until the minute they sent us off running.

I chose to do this race because I felt the need to challenge myself. I have never been terrific at sports, or particularly athletic, but I love the whole idea about being super fit and having a killer sports wardrobe that fits like a glove. Call me shallow.

Ok, the point.....

We arrived in Haverhill Massachusetts on Saturday and got my little *bib*....which isn't like any bib I knew of....it's a paper number thingy which served as a time chip (we can laugh about my time later) so you can see how you fared against the masses of jacked up RR peeps in full costume, ready to get dirty.

We were in the 1 pm wave....which is not like waving at all either....it's like 500 people chomping at the bit to run off screaming like maniacs into the woods! I was right there with them....doing my little southern version of a  happy dance/trot/something-that-resembled-running. 1 pm.....show time.

And we were off! WOOO HOOO! Well, we all ran like champions for about 100 yards, then the course sent us straight up into what I could only assume was the first attempt at Base Camp on Everest.....UP a hill....like you needed a chairlift. Up, up, up.....until you emerge, not on Everest, but onto this vast, sprawling farm like place with clearly marked trails via police tape. I was huffing and puffing along with the back end of the RR-ers when we saw the first of the 26 obstacles that dotted this beautiful farmland. A 12-foot tall wall of hay. Bails of hay....pffffttttt. I am a proper southerner....I can climb onto hay bails. Watch this! And as is so many times the case, I realized I was suffering from bull-dog-mouth/chihuahua-hiney syndrome. OMG....that was HARD, and I couldn't understand why??

Plummeted down  the other side, and carried on to the second obstacle. ANOTHER FREAKING WALL OF HAY....only this one was even taller. Seriously, I already have been nursing a wicked cough and it's not  like I haven't been a life long HAY-FEVER sufferer....this was intended to be cruel. Oh. SO. Cruel.

But, I did it....wobbly legged and breathing like I needed an iron lung, I did it. More running. Awesome.

Third obstacle....a long line of people chatting happily about what gorgeous weather we were gifted and how they were gonna go eat dead animals slathered in BBQ sauce, and guzzle down beer that would surely overfloweth at such an event. But as we learned, the obstacle that lay ahead was a single person use only....and boy was it a doozy. 20 minutes or so passed as we, one by one, inched our way down this trail to see a slide.....about 60 feet straight down, covered in fast running, muddy water....and at the bottom awaited the blackest, muddiest pool of (please don't make the think Shawshank Redemption here) who knows what.

This was when I felt real fear. I am a huge fraidy cat. Like HUGE. I fear all things high, dirty, wooded, or outside of a mall. No choices here.....go time. I tried to navigate the beginning of the slide on foot....and promptly landed flat on my ass with a girl-like squeal and flew like a bullet into the muddy waters that awaited me below. I'm just gonna put it out there...it sucked. Cold, muddy, dirty and wracked with adrenaline, I managed to get to the side and have myself pulled out by the arm. I was laughing nervously at the fact that I had actually just DID that, but was not really prepared for the thoughts entering my mind...flashback to diagnosis day for my kid. THAT is exactly what I felt like just happened...I ran up and down hills getting prepared for the slippery slope that is diagnosis. You simply cannot sit in the muddy water....you MUST get up....you MUST move on....you simply have no choice. This was my Diabetes Rebel Race.

The very next obstacle were these huge logs that you needed to climb over and then under....slosh, step, fall, repeat....THIS was when I was learning to give him NPH, and Levemir....and this obstacle represented the ever so quick need to hurdle the hell out of the months that passed so quickly after my son was diagnosed.

I know, it's long. I just have to say, that I did the entire race. I climbed over 25 feet high plankboard walls, crawled through sewer tunnels, and climbed over rope courses, I fell off the monkey bars. I got bruised, I got filthy, I got no prize or accolades except that I can say I did it. And just like caring for my son, THAT is all that mattered.

I am a D mama....and Rebel Race ain't got nothing on me. It did, however, completely ruin my outfit....so since I survived, I live to shop another day.

Walk a mile in Blue Heels? Nah....Rebel Race in 'em.

Since the inception of Blue Heel Society....almost a year ago ( our baby is getting soooo big!!), I have had the privilege of meeting a compliment of wonderful people who totally get what it is we do here! I see so many of our allies out there raising tons of money and awareness for all the right causes. Makes me well up with tears most days, because it's very personal to me and to know so many people want to see diabetes eradicated means more than words can ever describe.

Most of my days are not spent training in a gym, or cycling through the continent, or blogging or anything not centered around caring for my four kids.....yeah...that's my glamorous life...and I love it....

HOWEVER....I was recently beaten at thumb-rasslin' by *you know who* and agreed to do something called a Rebel Race...I was fairly certain that regardless of that unflattering sounding title...eh, I was in. We were doing it under the Blue Heel Society, recruited some really amazing friends and family to join us, raising awareness for diabetes....yada yada.

Ho. Lee. Chit. NOT what I expected it to be.... This is quite different than scoring the Jessica Simpson wedge from a hoard of teenage girls in Marshall's...this is most certainly like boot camp before death.

For me, anyways.

Let me paint the picture here for you, lambs...the premise is that you run for like 500 miles uphill in Geisha shoes, then you have this obstacle course of most assured manicure ruining little stations like carrying a lion wrapped in barbed wire on your back through a sewer pipe....then, to finish off, you run some more....covered in mud, the kind not found in Serenity Day Spa...and potentially a gaping scrape or blister that will definitely require closed toe shoes for dinner given via a straw by what I can only assume will be a nurse in training....while I am on my death bed.  Sounds awesome right? Everyone is IN!!

This race ain't nuthin compared to what my child with diabetes, my family, my friends, and their loved ones do day in....day out....either with medications, diets, pumps, blood glucose meters, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears....and a whole lotta giggles, while having no other choice.

Rebel Race will be one moment in time for me to say, this sucks, I'm doing it anyways. My child pricks his little finger 15 times a day....changes a pump site every other day.....If I could move the diabetes *mountain* and my only tool was a teaspoonful of dirt at a time..... for him, I would do it every second of every day....and as I really began to think about it....this race ain't no different.

I will most definitely bring a Hello Kitty Band-aid kit. And the overwhelming support from you with me as I embarrass myself proper, in the name that is all too familiar. Diabetes.

Wanna come laugh your hiney off at me? Join our team, volunteer, come cheer Team Blue Heel Society on as we get a little mud on our heels.