gayathri

Sunday morning, woke up to almost perfect blood sugars. I was in shock. but so so joyful. Almost called my doctor to let him know, but didnt want to wake him. I could do the ride!!

Stayed out of @byronium's way while he got ready for the ride: skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx

Took a lot of deep breaths - I was really still nervous about doing this ride. I wasnt sure I could finish it. My 'training' hadnt been very much, and last weekends ride was painful. @byronium reiterated to me that he sincerely thought I could do it, and I took his and @llamaeyes comments from the Chris Carmichael talk to heart, and decided to do what I usually do - warm up, pedal thru, rest when I needed it, drink LOTS.

I got to the start fairly quickly - 1.5 miles just isnt very far, even if the last bit is all in the tiniest of gears... leaving around 7, I wondered if I'd see @byronium, but I didnt. The roads and the town of Yountville were COMPLETELY empty as I left the hotel. Not a soul on the road, it was pretty eerie.

"I'm so alone," I thought. And then came into the craziness that was the start. And still felt very alone in the big crowd. I made sure I was all ready, that my bike was all set, water bottles were full, inhalers and other drugs were available and waited for 8 am. A nice lady came over to talk to me, and we spoke about getting ready and being prepared for the ride. She made the mistake assuming I was a type 1. A lot of people did that on this ride.

She was pretty nervous about the 26 miles, but we talked about what she'd done to train for it, and how she felt, and I told her, "you wont know that you can do it until you've done it, but I believe given what youve said, you will be able to finish!"

I was telling myself the same thing.

Blood sugars good, the day was starting to warm up. I wanted to leave at 8, but told @llamaeyes I'd wait for her. @rhiannonstone arrived just before 8, having ridden the 6 miles or so from the hotel to the start. Apparently that's what she needed to do to eat breakfast. The smell of food made me want to barf, so I let her go and waited some more, after telling here where to find air pumps for her tires.

@llamaeyes and @moxie showed up just before 8 and it didnt take long for us to get started.

I remember going under the start line and hearing the announcer, "Look at that big smile!" as everyone yelled, "Go Red Rider!"
and realized I _was_ smiling. I could RIDE today! huzzah!!! I was looking forward to my body moving, my lungs taking in breath, my legs pumping.

I didnt take pics at all my stops, which I'm sad about! The 1st time was in this lovely space just outside of Yountville, big gorgeous fields rolling away. (I'm hoping @llamaeyes has some)

At the 5 mile mark, there wasnt more water, so I pushed on ahead. It was great getting @byronium's mass texts to all of us as he hit the different rest stops. I was glad he seemed to be moving so well and quickly.

1st Rest Stop: skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx

Blood sugar was doing well, I was drinking plenty of cytomax and got to refill it. The Tour de Cure also had Cytomax powder, but the 100 / 80 milers had cleaned them. I was glad I had plenty of sticks of Cytomax - ended up giving a few away to folks. I was also using Accelerade, which has some protein as well as sugars, but I find that I need a lot less of it then is recommended (whey protein is still hard to digest for me. :/ ) It looks like for 50 miles and under, I can manage on just Cytomax, and should stick with it.

The next bit of riding wasnt bad, I was warmed up, and my lungs were happy, I started feeling like I was going to be ok! There were sections of road that were just painful in their bad pavement. My butt and wrists were not thanking me for this. oh look, scenery! I kept telling myself that.

Second rest stop! there was Cytomax powder here! I filled up. I drank. I tweeted, facebooked and texted. @llamaeyes and @rhiannonstone showed up. I stretched and drank some more, and headed on out after making sure @llamaeyes didnt need me.

at the 25 mile mark, I stopped, half way there, humming bon jovi to myself. This kinda neat place was across the street.


skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx

I managed to take a dorktastic picture of myself :

skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx
Next year, will I do the 100? ;) 

@byronium and I went to this last night: http://www.diabetes.org/in-my-community/local-offices/san-francisco-california/

and i'm really glad I did! It was fun meeting other Red Riders, and I learned about: http://teamwild.org/ <- women triatheletes with diabetes! omg.

I also met some awesome women who were really inspiring, as well as had an opportunity to talk to Dr. Suneil Koliwad, a research doctor at UCSF! We had a great chat about some things to try to help me with longer distance bicycling, and he recommended how to find a few doctors who might be helpful in terms of knowing enough about diabetes and athletic training to see if I can get over some humps.

I was really touched by some of the stories presented - I didnt know who the Bachelor was (probably the ONLY woman there who didnt) but his father's story was similar enough I was choked up about being afraid of admitting to it. It brought up struggles around being silenced by my family's shame, to silencing myself, to ignoring it, to letting it get out of control. I'm glad I had a wakeup before it actually killed me.

Who knew that 26 million people suffer from this? I didnt. Its impacted from so many issues from food safety, access, ethnicity, choices made by our parents, choices made by us in the past, its so complicated! 

The biggest, scareiest thing for me is that Just Having Diabetes, I've _doubled_ my chances of having a heart attack.

Some quick facts from last night: 

• Diabetes affects 25.8 million people of all ages
  • 8.3 percent of the U.S. population
• Among U.S. residents ages 65 years and older, 10.9 million, or 26.9 percent, had diabetes in 2010. (My father and uncle are in this group, btw.) 
• In 2005–2008, based on fasting glucose or hemoglobin A1C (A1C) levels, 35 percent of U.S. adults ages 20 years or older had prediabetes—50 percent of adults ages 65 years or older. Applying this percentage to the entire U.S. population in 2010 yields an estimated 79 million American adults ages 20 years or older with prediabetes.

• Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, nontraumatic lower-limb amputations, and new cases of blindness among adults in the United States.
  • AMPUTATIONS! BLINDNESS! huge fears for me. :/ 
• Diabetes is a major cause of heart disease and stroke.
• Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

I'm deeply grateful for @byronium for coming with me last night, and for all my friends who are doing the ride both for themselves and in supporting me, it means a whole lot!


Please support me: even just the cost of a cup of coffee would mean a tremendous amount!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/104848507

I dont actually like big group rides. Let me just get that out of the way. The very first big ride I did was the Cinderella Classic, and I didnt finish it, but it was ok 'cause @crayonbeam, @JR, and @alicia were all there, and I had a pretty good time.

The next one, the Portland Bridge Pedal - I got it into my head it would be fun to go and ride over these bridges with Byron. And it was. I got a new bike. and then started riding more.

The next big group ride I did was the ADA Tour De Cure, and that had its own stressors - coming out as a diabetic (or a person with diabetes? still not sure how I identify there) But the actual ride itself, 50 miles in Napa, was amazing. It was really well managed, the rest stops were in the right places, and the encouragement from random strangers was so encouraging! I did great. Its still my 'gold standard' for organized bike rides. :)

The next big ride I did was 63, and it sucked. So many reasons - I didnt train at all, the metric century had hills that were insane. My body just wasnt going to do it, and it gave up. Ever since that ride, I've had this terror of hills - I am still not sure if its physical or psychological, but I've been really working hard on dealing with the psychological and taking the appropriate meds for the physical (Panic attacks, utter anxiety and fear, an inability to breath or see straight) But the ride itself was really scarey as well with the rolling start, so many REALLY good cyclists, the pseudo-encouragement from better bikers. Gah. I hated it. I'm going back this year just to prove to myself that I can do it. And to give the finger to those annoying 'helpful' bikers. (I'm still utterly terrified when I think about Coleman Valley Road...)

I wasnt sure about doing this one, so soon before the portland bridge pedal, but @rhiannonstone's been getting more into riding as well, and suggested we all go. Touted as a good ride for beginners to group rides, there was a 20, 31, 56/63 mile routes. After being prompted a few times by byronium , we opted for the 31.

I suggested that we pre-ride some of the route a few weeks before to see what might be problematic or what might need some work and so we did, last sunday: http://gayathri.dreamwidth.org/2011/08/01/ and rhiannonstone posted about her ride: rhiannonstone.dreamwidth.org/102817.html

But we didnt do the 10 mile loop up to the Pulgas Water Temple, and I was a little nervous about how I'd handle the hills. It didnt help that when I got home sat night after dinner, I realized my front tire was completely flat again. That would make four flats in 3 weeks. AHRGH> but the thing about this is that I've gotten really good at taking off the tires and pulling the tubes.

@rhiannonstone had tweeted about ruining her manicure working on her bicycle, which reminded me to wear nitrile gloves while I did mine. ;)

Sleeping the night before was funny. I kept having annoying dreams about the ride itself. The ride itself was _awesome_ - we found each other easily, bikes were ready, we were ready, and off we went!

Its hard riding in a big group especially when I'm not that great at starting from a stop sometimes. For whatever reason, I felt really good and strong today and taking some of @llamaeyes suggestions, on this, I kept thinking more about how I was going to be successful vs how it was hard, and also just looking 10 feet in front of me when it got really tough.

We actually parted ways with @rhiannonstone and @llamaeyes before the big hill they had to tackle and headed to the water temple. This was a grind, but not bad, the worst part was how _damn_ cold it was that day - my chest wouldnt get warm enough and I kept having to use my inhaler to manage the cold induced asthma. :( As long as I was moving, I was fine. As soon as I stopped, this would start to physically hurt my muscles. :( Up the hill to the overpass - this section was a little scarey. The road was an unkempt bike path, very steep and narrow - it felt a little more like I was offroading vs road riding, but it was good when we finally hit the downhll section onto the road to the water temple.

This was a long slight downhill, and I got myself tucked in behind @byronium and got into the big ring. This was great, we were pedaling hard and I got up to 26 mph before we had to slow down for the rest stop / turn around. This was at mile 11ish, so we still had a good 20 miles to go, so as soon as I warmed up - this was the ONLY SUNNY SPOT we hit the whole ride, we turned around and headed back.

It got colder, damper, and even rained on me - the worst was as I was trying to get uphill across the narrow bridge andI could no longer see - my glasses had fogged up and it was raining. This was the only panic inducing point on the ride, but I kept breathing and pedaling and visualizing the road being easy and clear and safe.

Fun was finally catching up to @byronium and seeing he had a friend pedaling behind him - this woman in all pink with a Specialized Ruby in white with pink glitter crystals all over it. We tackled that last bit, and I got to the top, a little out of breath, but no panic! not bad.

Resting through a few light changes, we head on down the hill to get to the intersection where we parted ways with @rhiannonstone and @llamaeyes - I knew the hills coming up, but felt pretty strong about making it. The rest of the ride actually went really well - we hit Sawyer Camp Trail, and I tucked in behind B and someone else and we paced at a nice steady speed, I really enjoyed this, we were steady and I felt smooth and at home.

(Except my new Hincapie bib shorts kept moving around. Turns out I got the wrong size. You can't really sell a pair of bike shorts, even if you've only used them once, sadly)

Anyway, l managed not to damage anything with the not quite right fitting shorts. When we got back down the hill and were on the last leg pedaling away - I realized that I ahd energy, and pulled ahead of Byron and upped the pace to closer to 20mph. This felt great. :) But I did get tired, and ralized why people switch doing that. Coming into the end, we almost didnt go over the finish, but made the turn to see llamaeyes, and rhiannonstone cheering us on! That was really nice. :)

PIcnic with mango, proscuitto, crackchips, diet pepsi, stories, running into princeofwands and karenbynight and their family (and their really cute friend, Chris? rowr.) The great part was while I was tired, I wasnt wiped out. And the days after were also ok!!

30 minutes today! listened to headfones and that worked out better.
fasting: 115 - I think too many sushi rolls last night. :( (bedtime was 155, kinda high as well!) 

Sunday, looking at doing a longer day, hoping that some other friends will join us - its accessible by bart!

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35 minutes, havent found my heart rate monitor yet. Fasting: 104, after a BAD blood sugar low at 3 am involving trashing the kitchen. I somehow managed not to over eat, got my blood sugar up to a good level before falling asleep again, but I feel awful today from lack of sleep.

At least for me. :) 
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I bought a bike. :) A Trek mtn bike...

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So what's the word on other gear I should have? I think the next purchase should be good gloves (some recommendations would be good!), bike shorts (my old pair I used to use riding are not in great shape), a flat kit, and one of those little bags that go under the seat to carry the usual gear I have in the fanny pack.