When she’s not in school for landscape design, you’ll probably find Steph Brodie out and active. A fitness instructor at Goodlife Fitness, where she leads spinning classes and strength conditioning classes, Steph confesses two of her favourite reasons for being at the gym: the awesome people there, and the workouts that keep her blood glucose levels at their best.
This lesson about activity’s positive effects on blood glucose levels is something that Steph learned early on with diabetes. When diagnosed almost 10 years ago, she spent the first few months of her ‘honeymoon’ phase not needing insulin. She notes that it taught her a lesson about her diabetes management that she’s kept to this day, “I have always been an active person in sports, as I played rep hockey, and outdoors with all kinds of different activities. The good thing about not going on insulin right away was that I saw the positive effect of this activity on blood sugars, and that sparked me to stick with being as active as possible.”
Having partaken in so many sports and activities growing up, I ask if running has always been something she’s been in to. Steph acknowledges, “I am by no means a runner, and admittedly, it is not one of my favourite things to do. However, when I ran that 10k last year with CIM at the Ottawa Race Weekend—between the cheering, the energy, and the support—that run had to be one of the most fun times I have ever had. So of course, I made sure to sign up for it again this year.” But, Stephanie isn’t running the 10k this year. It’s certainly what she signed up to do, but a couple of months back she ditched the 10k… for a new challenge: the half marathon. “As time went on and I saw more and more people signing up for the half and full marathon, my competitive nature got a hold of me,” she explains, “Not that I wanted to beat anybody, but that little voice in my head kept pushing me, ‘You’ve done that before, you can do better.’ And my better would be a half marathon.”
In being ‘by no means a runner’, Steph has found her biggest challenge in this journey trying to find more joy in running long distances. She talks about getting bored after an hour of the same thing, but has tried to find interest in picking different routes and finding those with landscapes to keep her engaged. “I have also struggled a bit with blood sugars,” she notes when contemplating her training challenges, “my levels tend to want to plummet straight down after about 8km.” She’s been fine tuning her insulin pump settings, and experimenting with the best things to eat pre and post run. Though, one benefit of the running has been that it’s acted as a bit of cross training for her other pursuits, having a positive effect on her gym and cycling sessions. “But what really keeps me going,” she says after a pause, “is just remembering the energy of the whole weekend, and it encourages me to do it and makes me excited to get there.”
“CIM has given me a lot of ‘firsts’ in terms of diabetes and living an active lifestyle with diabetes,” Steph adds, “My first Canoe trip, my first run, my first volleyball tournament, and more importantly my first time letting myself become comfortable with my diabetes. The most support in my life comes from CIM and the people I have met through it. This community encourages me and makes me want to do things I never thought I would. There is no one else I would run 21km for! Really….absolutely nothing else.”
In addition to running and cheering at this year’s Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend event, Stephanie is also fundraising in support of Connected in Motion. If you would like to contribute to Steph’s fundraising campaign, please visit her page by clicking here.
And don’t forget to check out all of the amazing people running and cheering with Connected in Motion, by visiting our Team CIM 2014 page!
