With the last JDRF Ride of the season only two months away, I made the irrational decision to sign up for the final ride in Tucson. As most of you know, my training this year didn’t go according to plan. If I’m being honest, it was completely non-existent. Any spare weekends I had, I was home with my family. There were not long bike rides on the Trace, and there were no intervals at the old airport. Instead, there were evening rides with my neighbors to get pizza and beer because if you’re anything like me, comfort food always helps.
So here I am, eight weeks away from the Tucson Ride on Nov. 19. I don’t remember the last time I put on a cycling kit and clipped into my pedals. My time has been spent on my cruiser bike wearing flip flops. I have enough extra weight on me that my jersey barely zips. I am a sight, I tell you.
But I have a gameplan. Intervals one night a week, a tempo ride another night, and long rides with hills on the weekends to build my endurance. I’m also cross-training with strength and with running. It’s a quick and dirty 8-week training plan, but I’ll get there. I’m shooting for the 106 miles in Arizona because go big, or go home, right?
Well, yesterday was my first official training ride. I took off in a sprint to my friend’s house and I was so terribly winded by the time I arrived, it was embarrassing. She only lives .9 miles from me. She laughed, and I would have had I been able to find the lung capacity to do so. I continued on to Cornelia Fort where I did a handful of intervals before the sun ended my laps. I don’t mind riding after dark, but there are far too many deer at Cornelia for me to ride quickly. I wasn’t able to do laps at Nissan because of events downtown. If the parking lot isn’t being used for other events, it’s the perfect place for intervals after dark.
I rode hard and fast, but it was still slow for where I’d need to be. My heart rate monitor beeped at me every few minutes and the slightest amount of effort or sprints made my quads scream at me in anger. I managed 16 miles at a pace of 15 mph and an average heart rate of 138. I’ve got a ways to go to be ready, but I have to relearn how to train.
In the middle of the night, I had a massive low blood sugar. That’s fairly common after hard efforts, and I simply forgot. I went to bed in the 150s and woke up about six hours post-ride to a blaring CGM and a low blood sugar in the 40s. I don’t remember the entire low, but I remember eating gluten-free blueberry waffles. I didn’t even know I had those in my house. Ha. I think there was syrup, too, based on the stickiness on my countertop and the dish in my sink. Instinct kicked in, I suppose.
My CGM didn’t wake my brother, and I’ve been having trouble with his app alerting him. I upgraded my CGM today in the hopes of correcting that problem. It’s amazing how taking one year off from training means you forget all the little idiosyncrasies that need attention. I suppose in the next two weeks, I’ll be lowering my basal rates and paying closer attention to what I’m eating at lunch to prepare for afternoon rides. There’s a whole new wrench in training with type 1 diabetes.
Still, I returned home last night and felt a twinge of excitement. I didn’t think I was going to be able to swing a vacation this year because of my work responsibilities and my trips home to visit my family. But it looks like I’m going to get a late-season bicycle adventure after all. I’ve got my work cut out for me, that’s for sure. But I am so very excited to make the final ride of the season.