AUSTIN, Texas — It takes a lot of training to prepare for a marathon. For one Austin mother-daughter team, getting ready to run in the New York City Marathon this weekend is a little more complicated.
Zoe and Tina Cook not only have to pack the normal things for a marathon in the cold weather like socks, sleeves and shirts, but they also need to pack extra supplies to keep their insulin in check.
"Lots of glucose. So these are 'transcend' glucose, which are our glucose which is designed to bring your sugar up fast," said Zoe Cook. "We both wear a Dexcom, which is a continuous glucose monitor, and we both wear insulin pumps."
Both suffer from Type 1 diabetes and, because of that, their blood sugar would drop when exercising.
"Exercising just makes you run low all the time, you're just burning up all of your sugar storages," said Zoe.
"I would say it just adds a complication, but with the technology today, I think any Type 1 shouldn't be frightened of anything like this," said Tina.
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"Even just training for a marathon, even getting up to go for a run, it takes four hours to prepare to even go, so we kinda have to get up super early to make sure we're even ready to start running," said Zoe.
So while they finishing getting their bags packed for the trip – their flight leaves on Friday – doing this together is what makes it special.
"It's been a really cool opportunity for us to just do this grand thing and really have a life-long memory," said Zoe.
"Type 1 doesn't stop you from doing what you want to do," added Tina.
The Cooks are raising money here.
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