I looked at the extended weather forecast for Rotterdam and it looks like I’m in luck. The weather, according to CNN weather is supposed to be great over the entire weekend, and race day should be perfect — mostly sunny and 45°F – 58°F. You can’t ask for better running weather.
This will be – by far – the best weather I’ve had for a race. The TA Marathon I ran last April was hot (72°F and humid) and the Tiberias Marathon was even hotter. The news of the weather has put me in such a good mood that I’m not letting the other events of the day get me down.
I usually buy my international travel health insurance through my travel agent. It costs me a little more than it does a non-diabetic but it’s not a big deal. Until, my friend Yaron, who’s running the marathon with me (probably a little ahead of me actually), informed me, it hadn’t occured to me that I would need special insurance for this trip. Apparently regular travel insurance doesn’t cover extreme sports like marathon running, and special insurance of this sort is not sold by travel agents. Yaron gave me the number of an insurance broker (a marathon runner himself) who sells extreme sport policies and told me to ask for the woman in charge of travel.
So I left myself a note on my computer keyboard to call the insurance broker first thing in the morning, which is exactly what I did.
The woman on the phone told me I was the fifth person to call about insurance for the Rotterdam marathon this morning. She asked for my travel and personal information and credit card number. As I was getting my card I mentioned that I have type 1 diabetes and would probably needed to pay a little bit more than a non-diabetic. She paused for a minute and then told me she needed to talk to someone at the insurance company and that she would call me back soon. She did call back, but I missed it. She left me a message, “I’m sorry but we won’t be able to insure you.”
I didn’t really know what to do (I still don’t) so I called the local JDRF chapter hoping they could help me out. I haven’t gotten an answer yet but I’m not very optimistic. I don’t think they get many requests for marathon insurance. I may try to contact the organizers of the race but I don’t think that will do me much good.
This kind of thing would usually get me very angry but not today. I’m in a good mood. I may be an uninsurable diabetic but I’m a happy one. And I’m going to run with or without insurance.
