Welcome to "J" & WILD

First off- a little bit about myself:  My name is “J” and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes July 1, 2005 at 19 years old.  It was the summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, quite the shock to me and my family.  At the time I was running collegiate cross country and track, and didn’t know if I would be able to continue.  Thankfully I got hooked up with an awesome endocrinologist who told me “ this is not going to stop you from doing whatever you want”. He didn’t even flinch when I told him I was a distance runner.  With his guidance and my new animas pump, I headed back to school and completed 3 more years of competitive running and college classes. Currently I am a graduate student and almost finished with my doctorate in physical therapy. 

I was super excited to hear about the college diabetes network, I think that the positive and pro-active attitude that the organization is portraying is critical to successful life with diabetes. My vision for this blog is to open discussion about living a healthy and active life with diabetes.  To start this off we will be highlighting people who are out in the world doing amazing things either because of or in spite of their ‘D’.  Tune in every week for a new interview or guest blog of someone out there doing their thing. Also we will try and introduce some awesome opportunities out there especially for people with diabetes.  If you have any ideas or requests of who to talk to, please let us know!!

For this first week I interviewed (via email, not sure if there is a name for that) Mari Ruddy, founder of team WILD.  This is a super cool organization that I have just joined. They train women with diabetes online for a variety of sports endeavors.  They have coaches, nutritionists and CDEs (certified diabetes educators) on staff to help you out!!  I managed to convince my parents to sponsor me as my Christmas gift (the gift of health ya know…). If you are interested, follow the link.  Training starts April 1!!

CDN and Mari Ruddy:

1.       Tell me a little bit about team WILD. Team WILD is Women Inspiring Life with Diabetes and we are a wellness, fitness and endurance athletics resource for women living with diabetes. We combine expert coaching in fitness, expert diabetes nutrition education and peer support for women to reach their wellness and fitness goals. For 2011, we have 4 teams, something for every fitness level, from the very basics of fitness up to a team of women all with diabetes, doing Ironman Wisconsin in September 2011!

2.       What inspired the formation of this team? I started the Red Rider Recognition program now used by the
American Diabetes Tour de Cure, all 83 rides they host every year, and I realized that most (80%) of the riders with diabetes in the Tour were men. I wondered, “where are the women?” So I started Team WILD. Women with diabetes need this extra resource. 

3.       Do you need experience to join? No! You just need a pair of walking shoes, a computer with internet access and a desire to be fit & well. We do the education and motivation component by webinar. Gals just need to be willing to get out and actually do the exercise!

4.       How many people have participated thus far? The first year 20 of us did the Ironman 70.3 in Austin, Texas, we were just one team. In the second year, we had about 30 women on the three teams we had plus another 15 came to our first Camp WILD. This is our third year and I expect we’ll have about 60 or 70 women enrolled on one of the teams and coming to Camp WILD, which will be in June 2011.

5.       What is the age range of people who participate? The youngest gal we’ve had on the team so far was 20 and the oldest was in her 60’s.

6.       What is your vision for team WILD in the future? We will continue to grow in providing services to women and people with diabetes. We are developing some fitness products and resources that will greatly benefit people striving for fitness and diabetes wellness. In addition, we will continue to offer the full team experience in a growing number of endurance sports. In 2012, we will add a running team, for example.

7.       How can people find out more about team WILD? The best place is our website: http://teamwild.org. We have informational webinars scheduled for April 6, 13 and 20. These are great opportunities for women to ask questions and get an overview of all the programs and teams we offer. We have WILDfit, WILD Cycling and WILD Multisport open for women to sign up now.

8.       What is your favorite college memory? I lived in Colombia, South America for 6 months my Sophomore year of college. It was amazing. I learned to love coffee and salsa dancing!

9.       Do you have any advice for people in college with diabetes? I was diagnosed with type 1 when I was 16 and thus I went through college and graduate school with diabetes. My advice: embrace living with diabetes. See it as an opportunity to begin a lifelong quest to be as healthy as possible. Eat well. Get enough sleep. Party a reasonable amount, don’t go overboard. And find support.