The COVID-19 pandemic meant "a inexperienced normal" for so many of U.S. worldwide, but for Kate Hall-Harnden in Maine who lives with typecast 1 diabetes (T1D), it LED to dashed dreams of reaching the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. That might be a heartbreaking account, if not for how this wiz aware jumper upturned an misfortunate accidental injury into inspiration to start a new nonprofit to helper multitude with diabetes (PWDs) in need.

With the Olympic Games in Japan pickings place July 23 to Aug. 8, 2021, Manse-Harnden spoke with DiabetesMine by phone newly about how she'll constitute observance from home, after having mangled a ligament in her left knee in January. It's tough, simply the 24-class-old has her eye on the future. She's still hoping to one day reach that highest level of athletic competition, just as she pours her heat into diabetes empowerment.

She and her husband have formed the DiaStrong Initiation, with the mission of providing financial assistance to individuals and research organizations, and seaworthiness and athletic breeding programs for PWDs looking to improve in their sport and their diabetes management.

Interestingly for Hall-Harnden, both running and field and T1D came into her life at jolly much the same time: when she was 10 geezerhood old in 2007.

"I think that if I hadn't been diagnosed with diabetes at that young age and hadn't had to work harder and undergo care of my body, I don't love if I would own been as successful in my cover career," she told DiabetesMine. "I attribute some of my work ethical code and success to being diagnosed with type 1 at age 10."

She had been involved in organized sports since she was 6 years old, only discovered running a hardly a years later.

"From that very foremost practice solar day, I just brutal in love with the sport and knew that was going to be my rollick," she recalls. "From there, I got better and better every year and met the goals I'd set in my personal notebook that I'd been keeping with my goals and records since I was 10 years old."

Her T1D diagnosis came just few months after she'd started the new sport.

At kickoff, the family doctor wrote Hall's health concerns up to a development spurt. But her sept Googled the symptoms and the top search termination was "type 1 diabetes." They bought a meter at the store and got a "very in high spirits" result. In that respect was no family history, but they knew something more was wrong. They went to the local anesthetic infirmary, where Hall-Harnden clocked in with high glucose levels in the 500s and received the T1D diagnosis.

Anteroom remembers she took the syringe from the suck to give herself her first insulin injection. Her mom was trouble, but the 10-year-senile reassured her mammy. "I knew everything was going to be all right, and told her to stop crying. She matte up ameliorate, and it reassured her that I knew it'd be OK."

At starting time, she was scared this condition would stop her from doing the things she loves, particularly sports. The doctor initially told her she'd have to pose exterior of soccer games until she got wont to managing her status.

"That was very conniving for me. I remember sitting on the sidelines and inquisitive, 'Wherefore do I have to practise this?'" she said. "But finished time, it motivated me to not be on the sidelines. IT was a pivotal moment that motivated me, so that diabetes wouldn't get ahead in the way of anything."

Now, she believes that the combo of T1D and her love for sports set the stage for success throughout her life.

Her attitude paid off.

She went on to set the national high school record in the long jump as a spiky school senior in 2015, leaping an sensational 22 feet, 5 inches outdoors and crushing the high school record for that event in track and field. She became a two-clock NCAA Division I wiz, and at in one case was the No. 6 ranked American language female long jumper.

In her early competitive years, Hall-Harnden says she started off using an insulin pen. Then, between ages 11 and 15, she used a tubed insulin heart. But she constitute it difficult to stay connected to her tubed pump and would often disconnection information technology for an smooth outcome. That led to problems competing, because her blood sugars would skyrocket and by the close she'd be in the 300 operating theatre 400s with ketones (which can lead to dangerous polygenic disease ketoacidosis).

"Fear set in," she aforesaid. "I wasn't certainly what to answer, and I sentiment this could stop me from doing tag along."

After lecture her diabetes care team, she discovered the tubeless Omnipod patch pump that could take into account her to better cope her diabetes while competing.

Information technology was about that same meter she started competitory at a high level, moving toward a goal of reach the Olmypics.

Her parents didn't needs think it was realistic at that time, but she pushed forward and they encouraged and supported her.

During college, she continued making track and field headlines at the University of Beaver State and Texas A&M University, and she made it to the U.S. Olympic Trials finals in 2016, where she came in 10th shoes. By 2017, she was ranked the 18th top women's long jumper in the humans.

Share on Pinterest

Her uncomparable year came in 2019, after she returned to Maine for school and to train with a longtime trainer World Health Organization was her coach when she was younger. Not only was she reaching a end of jump 22 feet systematically, Hall-Harnden says her diabetes management was "spot on."

All seemed to get on tag for her to condition for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo; she was ranked secondment in the United States for the long rise based on her indoor mark.

But then, the COVID-19 epidemic reach and that LED to the Summer Games beingness postponed until July 2021.

Her section training facilities were closed because of COVID-19 restrictions, simply Hall-Harnden says she ill-used the time to train differently and move toward her dreams. Yet a pandemic wouldn't stop her from reaching that competitive level, she told herself.

Then another even many annihilative spoil occurred.

In early 2021, clean a calendar week before she'd expected to begin Olympic qualifying competition, the unthinkable happened. It was the final practice before passing, and a routine training exercise at her epidemic-adapted gym (because her normal gym was still shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions) led to a serious injury. She was running at high speed and jumping onto a box for a box-jump recitation, but went too far-off and landed on the far adjoin of that box; IT tipped complete and she braced herself for the fall by extending her left leg. She hyperextended it and fell to the base, with sharp afflict in her knee.

Exams and an MRI showed IT was a complete left ACL tear, substance her dreams of competing in the 2020-21 Olympics would not embody possible.

"I was so devastated," she said. "There are moral days and bad years in processing everything, and I don't think I will ever be over it. Just I'm taking things one 24-hour interval at a time, trying to grow from it and crop challenging. It's a hard time, and I know I will be back from this."

Her surgery in early February went smoothly and she expects to glucinium back in stentorian shape for competition away January, though she's setting her sights on 2022 to get rachis to the selected athletic competitive level.

Her short-term goal: being with the U.S. team when it heads to the 3-day 2022 Interior World Championships in Serbia.

After that, the Summer Olympic Games in 2024 is the long-terminus finish.

Hall-Harnden says she watched the Olympic trials and plans to watch the long jump off, level if she's not predictable she should for her mental wellness. But she just can't stay away.

"Watching it mightiness motivate me to keep impermanent hard to come back as soon as I possibly throne," she aforementioned. "Information technology's going to make up rough watching it, but it will motivate me flatbottom more."

Along top of recovery and competing, Hall-Harnden has also used the 2020 and 2021 circumstances to pee-pee deuce other positive changes in her life.

First, she got marital! She and her hubby Tyler had initially planned to get married in May 2021 later on the Olympic qualifying events, but with the COVID-19 pandemic postponement, they decided to tie the knot in October 2020.

Radclyffe Hall-Harnden and her new husband also launched a diabetes nonprofit called the DiaStrong Foundation.

Aft her injury, Hall-Harnden began talking with her breeding better hal Kendall Spencer, an attorney and former NCAA broad jump defend World Health Organization had moved to Portland, ME. Atomic number 2 recommended thinking beyond her track career, and after talking with her husband, she came up with an idea.

"I'd always been asked: 'What will you do afterward your track career is over?' But I ne'er really had an answer, aside from vague 'coaching or counseling' in track and subject area. I knew I also wanted to do something in diabetes advocacy, and now this is a way to pull it all together."

Ontogeny sprouted, she'd done psychological feature speaking at diabetes events for Omnipod-producer Insulet and also testified at a U.S. Senat committee as part of the JDRF Children's Congress. Now, she's channeling that passion for advocacy into the DiaStrong Foundation, which obtained 501(c)(3) non-profit-making status in April 2021 and kicked forth in premature summer.

The high-altitude goal is empowering else PWDs to achieve their dreams even with diabetes, and that happens in the mannequin of providing business assistance where needed, as well arsenic oblation a diabetes camp and grammatical category training focused on junior athletes with diabetes.

First, Hall-Harnden wants to make the DiaStrong Foundation garment a resourcefulness for people to go for more information about flourishing with diabetes and help affording needed supplies. They've planned to launch grants for financial assistance in July 2021, and those details are organism finalized. You can learn more about their grants and scholarships here.

The org will host two Maine-based camps in mid-2021 — an athletic-agility camp specifically for athletes with diabetes between 12 and 25 geezerhood old, and another more general campy for PWDs of whatsoever geezerhoo World Health Organization just want to be in better human body.

Her training partner Spencer, who besides has a personal diabetes connection through his brother, is allowing them to wont the field behind his gym in Portland, ME. Hall-Harnden runs the diabetes direction and athletic training sides of the camps.

Eventually, the desire is for Sir Thomas More age-specific camps and combined for younger children, as intimately As online practical training — something else that has become more possible cod to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Extraordinary of their first clients is a 50-year-old T1D who wants to compete and lives outside ME, soh they are counseling and training him in a virtual feed.

Student residence-Harnden says her nonprofit work fills up most of her days, and IT's providing her a more formal mind-set as she continues recovery and rehabilitation.

"Everything happens for a reason, and this is where I'm supposed to be, doing what I am doing," she said.