As I sit here, I’m struggling to write about the Fort Worth, TX Tour de Cure that I rode in on October 20, 2007. Why, I don’t know, but maybe it’s because it was a struggle for me to finish this ride. It was during this ride that I decided it’s no fun to ride by myself, it’s no fun to not know anybody, it’s no fun to not have someone to talk to, and it’s no fun to be riding with people that aren’t so friendly and are very untalkative (maybe they were serious about riding, but they were no fun).

But at the same time I was bummed out, I was also greatful, I was greatful to have gotten the names of various people to ride for, because if I hadn’t had them, I probably wouldn’t have finished. And so as I’m riding along, trying to keep my mind off the fact that I was on a route, mostly alone, and the roads weren’t well marked and I was as good as lost if the spots in the distance disappeared, I was going through names…Al, Amy, Ben, Chanelle, Charles, Clara, Choa Har, Colleen, Dezi, Diego, Donna, Dot, George, Harold, Holly, Jenna, Jimmy, Joann, Kay, LaRay, Laurie, Lawrence, Lura, Marjorie, Mary Mac, Michelle, Mikayla, Nancy, Pat, Sarah, Shirley, Suzanne, Tracy, Troy, William. It was these people that got me through my ride, if I hadn’t known all these diabetics I would have turned around (at mile 7ish) and gone back to grandma who was waiting for me at the end and said “I’m done, let’s go home”. That’s how not happy I was with this ride. (Of course, I say I would’ve gone back, but truthfully, I probably wouldn’t have, even though I wanted to I would’ve kept going because otherwise it would’ve been a waste of 20 hrs on the road and a very so not worth it expensive hotel room.)

I suppose I should start at the beginning. My journey began at the Doral Tesoro with me venturing out to check in for the ride at about 7:30.

This was the first time I had to check in normally (normally being with all the other riders). In CA I had express check-in for being in the Elite Riders Club and in CO there was Pre-Check-In the night prior to the event. There weren’t many of us, so checking in wasn’t that bad, I only had to wait for about 7 minutes in line before I could get my number and my t-shirt (of which they didn’t have my size). Check-In was fairly uneventful.

The lucky number this ride was 263.

After checking in, I decided that since I was taking my road bike out for it’s first serious ride (as training rides don’t count as serious) that it needed a once over. First mistake, I asked for a once over, I omitted the fact that it was my bike that needed the once over not me. The guy was funny though, when I said “I think I’m pretty good to go but if you could give me a once over that’d be great” I got looked up and down and he said “yup, you look pretty good to me” Talk about blushing.

He tuned up my bike after I made it clear what it was that needed a once over. It wasn’t quite right (it being my bike because I was looking pretty good). And then he pumped up my tires for me because I didn’t know that I was to check them before each ride (that and I didn’t know how to pump up the tires on my road bike to begin with). Apparently on road bikes, the pressure can go from 130 psi to 80 psi overnight. After he pumped up my tires, threw out the caps (added weight I didn’t need he said), told me I should have a much smoother ride, he sent me on my way.

I had my number on, my bike was properly tuned and the tires were pumped and it was time to assume my position in line. I wedged myself into a spot near the front so that when I slowed down it would be ok because I didn’t start at the back of the pack.

We had to listen to some announcements (which we really couldn’t hear anyways) and then we were off. The beginning was cool, a cop led us, I guess the cop was our pace car, technically speaking that is, he let us out of the start and I don’t know for how long because I lost him at approximately 3 miles. But for 3 good miles I was riding along at 20 mph. Which in my book is like totally impressive. It was during this time that I also passed the first rest stop. I didn’t need to rest at the 1.7 mile mark. Coincidentally, I didn’t have to rest at the 8.7 mile mark either. (Which could’ve been very stupid, here’s the story, I usually stop at every 8-10 miles to check my blood. I was scared to stop because I didn’t want to be left behind because I was semi-close to a pack of riders and I couldn’t see anyone behind me, so in the name of knowing where I was going I kept going, this would kill me on the way back it turns out.)

At 12.3 miles, I got to stop for the coolest thing I’ve ever had to stop for: A TRAIN!!! And as I was riding towards it, I took at my camera (while I was still riding) and took this picture (the meaning behind me taking it while I was still riding and not when I had stopped is because when I had to stop, the train was just about across the street.)

At 15.5 miles there was another rest stop and this time I stopped. I would’ve been stupid to have not stopped. I parked my carbike in the visitor’s parking spot (I was a visitor, in true form, I came from another state.)

Thanks to the jersey I was wearing (the official 2007 Tour de Cure Jersey) some conversations where started while I was eating and getting water at the rest stop.

I had a nice little conversation with Ms. Baumer about me wanting to ride in every state. At which point Gina got called over and Gina is the Communications Director for that area and she knew who I was. As soon as Ms. Baumer started talking about me wanting to ride in every state, Gina was like “I know you, you’re C…Courtney, Courtney Benefiel” (I of course was all impressed, she not only remembered my name, she said it right) and then I got to talk to their VP. The rest stop was a good rest stop. I was there about 15 minutes. And my blood sugar was ok (which was good because not only did I not stop at the prior rest stops, I didn’t check my blood before riding and I didn’t have my usual snickers marathon bar because I had just eaten breakfast)

When I was done chatting I hopped back on the trail, I was of course back on the trail with no one in front of me, but I knew in general the direction I needed to head because I had just come from this direction. I rode hard because I needed to be able to see people in front of me because as I said earlier the roads weren’t well marked and if there weren’t people in front of me I was as good as lost. In fact, I did get lost, kindof, not really. I had to stop and wait for people to catch up so I would know which way to go. What happened was that for the first 20 miles or so there were two women in front of me. I take that back, they passed me just before the second rest stop, well, somewhere around the 6-8 mile mark.

So, these women, Sonya and Denise. I was ahead of them, they pulled ahead of me, I caught up with them. I had a nice little conversation with Denise about how she had to have slowed down. It was funny. She said “yeah I’m slowing down, these hills, the wind, the roads, they’re going to jiggle my tire off” I talked with her for a ways, and pulled ahead, I caught up with Sonya, who’s a beast when it comes to hills, she loves them, and she told me I could pull ahead and so I did just that, and I didn’t get very far, because then I had to stop, because I didn’t know which way to turn. From them on I stayed behind them, or between them, but never ahead of them.

I was within 2 miles of the finish and I could feel that my blood sugar was dropping so I ate some glucose tabs and went on my way. About a mile from the finish I called grandma’s cell so she could be at the finish to take pictures of me, and that was the coolest thing because they didn’t have a photographer on the route like they did in CA and CO.

So, this ride was a little bit of a struggle. It was partly probably due to irresponsibility on my part (not making 3 stops, not checking my blood more, not eating more), and partly the routes fault, not being clearly marked like it should’ve been. But I did finish.

The ride ended up being 34.95 miles. I didn’t do it in what I had hoped would be record breaking time, but 2 hrs 59 minutes and 36 seconds is ok (I guess). I was very thrilled when I was going through the stats on my speedometer and saw that my max speed was 30.1 miles. I know where I got to that speed to, I think, it was on a down hill (obviously), it was before the 2nd rest stop on Tim McDonald Road. I laid out flat over my handlebars and pedaled as fast as I could and I resisted the wanting to look at the speedometer, it didn’t feel like 30, but the speedometer says so, and thus I’m thrilled. My average wasn’t impressive, 12.2 mph. I was doing better than that on my “training” rides back in NM, but they were also flat, whereas Texas, it’s not so flat (and I mentioned that and the Texans just looked at me and sped past…)

I struggled with this ride, but you know what, now that I’ve written this, the struggle is worth it, especially when a cure found.

I hate diabetes, it interferes with my exercise schedule (among other things). Today I checked my blood one hour after breakfast because I wanted to go riding. Big mistake, I know full well that I’m going to be high one hour after I eat, had I checked my blood an hour later, I wouldn’t have been high, I would have been in a normal range. A range appropriate for exercise. A range appropriate for me to go riding my bike for more than 30 miles. But no, I wasn’t in a normal range, I was high, and I was feeling sluggish, and against all common sense (because we’re not supposed to exercise when our blood sugars are over 240 because we’re in danger of pushing them higher, especially if we have ketones because there’s already not enough insulin in our bodies, but that’s another topic, so i digress)

So, I went for my ride, and talk about the laziest ride of my life, there was just no desire to ride. But I rode. I’d ride for a while at a speed of 20 miles an hour and then I’d decide I didn’t want to ride that fast anymore and slow down to 12ish mph. And then I didn’t even have the desire to ride my 30+ miles that I had intended on riding. I’m completely lame.

So here’s the skinny on my lame ride:

Total Miles: 17.73
Ride Time: 01:17:40
Max Speed: 21.4 mph
Avg Speed: 13.6 mph

In exactly one week I’ll be ridig in the first ever Ft. Worth, TX Tour de Cure. Let me tell you that I am excited ( even though I’ve only riden a total of 34.29 miles in the last 6 weeks). I will put in another ride this afternoon or tomorrow morning that way I get at least another 30 miles in before I go off to some state and ride on some terrain that I’m completely unfamiliar with. Although, it is flat and I should be good to go. I mean, how hard can flat be right? (worse case scenario, I get my butt whooped like when I was in CA on the overpasses, that’ll suck, darn hills.)

I think I’m in good shape for the ride, in general and overall, I have my new bike, my new helmet, my very cool hotel reservations at the Doral Tesoro. I raised $500 for the ride, and I’ve got names for most of the miles that I’m riding.

If you need a refresher, in Sept I asked for names from the community at PayPerPost of people that they knew of that had diabetes so that I could ride a mile for each of those people. I decided back before my ride in the Longmont, CO Tour de Cure that I was going to ride a mile for each person I knew that had diabetes. In CO I had the names of friends and family locked in my brain. I wanted to ride for an even bigger purpose in TX, other people as well as those close to me and near and dear to my heart (there are a lot of them, but there’s so many other people with diabetes as well. Plus, it helps to switch things up a bit).

I’m not going to post the names of the people I’m riding for, but I do want to recognize the people that helped me out by giving me the names. The number next to the name represents how many people I’m riding for that they so kindly told me about.

Amy (1)
Andreas (1)
Charity (5)
Dyane (1)
Eliza Jane (1)
Ginene (4)
Holly (1)
Lisa (3)
Lura (3)
Manda (1)
Melissa (1)
Pelf (1)
Sara (1)
Teresa (4)

So, I’ve got 28 people that I’m riding a mile for each of them thanks to all the kind people that gave me names and since I’m only riding 31 miles I came pretty damn close to have a name for each mile. I’m only 3 people off (and unless I get some late responders I have the usual peeps that I can ride for).

So, I’m in good shape for this ride, and like I said I’m really excited. I really can’t wait till next weekend and Grams is all excited that she’s going with me again so it should be a good trip

So, as you know, this morning I rode my bike to work. Cool, fine, dandy, awesome, sweet, pick your own word. I have to say that I enjoyed the ride to work much more than the ride home. Because even though I had to dismount to get across the tracks and then ride like 100 ft not on a side walk against traffic (yes, I was riding against traffic, I know that’s a big no-no in the biking world, but…well, hold your horses and I’ll explain why I ride against traffic) I felt far less likely to get killed than I did on the way home. Even though I had to dismount for that 100 feet and to cross the railroad tracks and all. And here’s why, when I was riding to work, I could see what was going to kill me (if I were going to be killed) but on the way home from work, I couldn’t see the traffic that might kill me. So I think that I was more concerned that I was going to be hit from behind while I was on the road than I was about the fact that I might be hit headon. It was nerve racking. And to make it worse, sense it wasn’t early in the morning there was a significant amount of more traffic on the road and cars have no respect for the crosswalks. They just pull right up into them. So I can’t cross them when my light is green because there’s a darn car in my way and so I have to like dismount or slow down majorly to go behind them and get back onto the sidewalk. It seriously messes with my cycling chi. It’s just really disturbing and frustrating.

In anycase, I did make it back to my car in 1 piece. I didn’t get run over by a car from the behind or anything else for that matter…

Total Miles: 3.5
Ride Time: 00:17:55
Max Speed: 24.3 mph
Avg Speed: 11.9 mph

ride your bike to work. I did that this morning. But not from the usual route I take when riding my bike to work. All other entries I’ve made about riding to work are from when I’m housesitting at a house close to work. 3.5 miles close to work in fact. But this week is balloon fiesta week. And since I work right next to Balloon Fiesta park and I knew that traffic was going to be a bear, I decided that it wouldn’t be too bad to ride my bike to work. But I didn’t ride all the way from home because that was 7 miles more than I wanted to ride. So I parked at the bottom of the hill that I had to ride up to get to work. It also was the next biggest intersection near work so I knew my car wasn’t going to get broken into because there’s a lot of traffic going through where I parked.

The path I rode on runs perpendicular to the river so I got to cross a bridge, and what’s funny about the bridge is that for some reason I thought it would be made out of wood. But it was like a real street bridge crossing the river just for us cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders. It was cool.

There’s really not much to report about this ride other than the fact that I had to dismount to cross the railroad tracks. And normally I wouldn’t have had to except that there were signs in my path to keep people from parking near them, I suspect that once this week and Balloon Fiesta are over that the signs will go away and then I’ll have a safer ride to work. Other than that, for riding on a very busy road, it wasn’t too bad.

There was this one part of the hill which really frustrated me though because it got steep and my gears weren’t shifting correctly. But, alas, I survived.

Total Miles: 3.54
Ride Time: 00:23:49
Max Speed: 16.2 mph
Avg Speed: 8.9 mph

I do have to say, that for me to be going 8.9 mph up a hill is much better than when I was on my mountain bike (mastering a different part of this same hill) and could only go 6 mph.

We’ll see how I fair on the way back home this afternoon…

I went for my first ride today since the Longmont, CO Tour de Cure (which was on August 25th). I had to go because mom has been in a tizzy because I’ve got the Ft. Worth, TX Tour de Cure coming up in just 2 weeks and I hadn’t ridden. She was constantly expressing that there was no way I was going to be able to go and ride 35 miles after not having ridden for what would be 2 months. I swear, that woman has no faith in my abilities. I should mention that I’ve argued her point and she had to throw in the fact that I was in the hospital for diabetic ketoacidosis, even so, I still think she has no faith in my abilities. It’s only a 35 mile ride, it’s not like I’m riding a century, 8 weeks of not riding isn’t going to effect me too horribly.

Regardless, I went for a ride, I kindof owed it to the road bike that I bought 2 days before I went into the hospital and have neglected ever since. That poor bike. It should’ve never had to sit in the garage for the 3 weeks that it did. It’s so sad. Well actually, I’m gonna blame part of this on mom. Last weekend, it had a flat tire, and I had wanted to go riding. Instead, I had to take it to the shop. So I didn’t get to ride it last weekend. And all mom did was ride it in the little circle at the end of our cul-de-sac, but road bike tires are so dang sensitive, I have no clue what it picked up, but it picked up something and thus had a flat. But now it’s got slime tubes in it and all is good (at least I think all is good, it didn’t go flat or anything today so it must be good.)

So I went to the river trail, which is where I trained for the SoCal Tour de Cure that I participated in back in May. And I was being lazy in the first leg of the ride. I decided that since I hadn’t ridden in 6 weeks that I was going to ride like all of 10 miles, but when I got to that half way mark I just continued riding, and that happened with every half way mark all the way until I had ridden half of 27.24 miles (I could calculate it, but I’m feeling lazy). Up until that half way point I was coasting along at speeds that I had to work to get on my mountain bike, like 12 miles an hour. I was riding in a fairly ferocious headwind but when I felt like it I would petal myself up to 15-16 mph.

But then, on the way back, I had a tail wind, and that was awesome, because the trail I ride is mostly flat, and the hills that it has barely qualify as hills, I mean, you know they’re there, but they’re not that bad, and I was booking along at some points going 18-20 mph. It was really cool. I passed this one guy that had passed me and he asked how fast I was going, at that point I was going 21.9 mph and when I told him he was like, it’s not fair, you’re young. I retorted, it’s not fair that you passed me in the first place.

It was a wonderful ride though, it was so much easier than when I used to ride it on my mountain bike with the nobby tires. There’s only one complaint that I have and that’s more due to me being cocky than anything else. I’m saddle sore (and it’s most likely because I was too proud to wear the cycling shorts that have padding in them.)

My diabetes was well behaved on this ride, although I’ve decided that if I ever have to eat another Clif bar in the any kind of soon future, well, I’d rather die than eat it. I can’t stand them anymore, I had to choke down the one I had yesterday before my ride and it seriously almost made me vomit (and it did this when I was in CO too, so it’s nothing new). In fact, I didn’t even finish the bar, there was like a quarter of it left, so to compensate for me not eating like I usually do, I took a stab at lowering my basal rate on my pump. While I was riding I was running at 70% of my normal intake of insulin. It’s a good thing that I did that because I would’ve been low at my checkpoint. I was 111 (when I started the ride I was at 172) and I ate the hammer gel and went on my way and when I was done I was at 92. So I was on my way down, which I usually manage to stay about the same at my 1 hr checks. Of course that’s normally, and normally is on my mountain bike, riding at a much slower speed. So it’s a good thing I lowered my basal. I can probably afford in the future to lower it a little more. We’ll see on my future rides exactly what I work out.

Total Miles: 27.25
Ride Time: 01:57:42
Max Speed: 22.2 mph
Avg Speed: 13.8 mph

Thanks to Amy, I was able to email Gina with my piece of writing about why I’ve registered for the Ft. Worth, TX Tour de Cure and how diabetes has affected me. (Affected me, HAH! It almost killed me 3 weeks ago.)

This is what I’ve officially put on my Ft. Worth Tour de Cure Personal Page:

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For 15 years, I’ve battled a disease that has controlled and changed my life. This disease took everything I was away from me. It ripped away my childhood and the athlete in me away with it. I went from being a little girl who was constantly outside biking, rollarblading, swimming, and running around to being limited in what activities I could participate in. This disease changed me into a spectator when all my life I had been a participant. That disease is diabetes, and every 2 minutes another American dies from diabetes related complications. In that same 2 minutes, 6 more Americans are diagnosed with diabetes.

For 15 years, I’ve done nothing to stop this disease from hindering me. Well, I refuse to be limited by diabetes any longer. This year, I decided to do something to battle diabetes. I’m fighting back by taking part in Tour de Cure bike rides around the country. The Tour de Cure is not simply a pleasure ride, it’s a ride which will raise money to help find a cure for a horrible disease. A horrible disease that currently 20.8 million American children and adults are battling.

The Ft. Worth Tour de Cure is my third Tour de Cure this year, as well as third in my personal goal to ride in a Tour de Cure in every state. Although my personal goals are secondary to the primary reason I ride – for the cure to diabetes – I consider them an important part of fighting this awful disease. I ride for myself, for my family members with diabetes, for all my friends with diabetes, for those with diabetes that I don’t know, and for those that will be saved from the torment of diabetes when a cure is found. And I will continue to ride until that cure is found, whether it be before I’ve ridden in all 50 states or long afterwards.

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Thanks Amy! I couldn’t have done it without you

The first 35% of my Ft. Worth, TX Tour de Cure has been funded by my earnings from PayPerPost. Back in September I wrote about how I was riding with a bigger purpose and that I had asked the community at PayPerPost if diabetes had affected them. Pelf was one of those responders to my thread. She was also a responder when I IM’d everyone and asked if I could have the names of their family members/friends that had diabetes.

Pelf’s aunt has diabetes and I’ll be riding for her when I go to Ft. Worth, TX. And even though all I asked Pelf for was the name of her aunt, she’s supporting my ride, she’s actually supporting the cure. The cure for an awful disease that not only affects her aunt, me and so many other people.

Thank You Pelf for being so generous and sponsoring me in my ride.

A few months ago when I got this website off the ground, I wanted to get the word out about it and so I went to to the boards on my favorite online advertising company (for whom I write) PayPerPost. PayPerPost has a fairly large community and I was curious about how many people were affected by diabetes, whether it be through themselves, a family member, a friend, etc. There were quite a few people.

Today I started emailing the various people to see if I could get the names of these people that are affected by diabetes. I decided to do this because in the Longmont, CO Tour de Cure I found that it was easier to ride if I was riding for someone besides myself (I know, it’s so unlike my very self centered selfish self). When I was in Longmont I had just about 1 person per mile I was riding, mostly they were family and friends but there were some family members of some of my friends. When I’d get discouraged all I had to do was think of those people and I kept going.

I needed more people to think of for my ride in the Ft. Worth, Texas Tour de Cure and so I’m on a mission to get those names. Sure, I can think of the same people that I thought about in the Longmont, CO Tour de Cure. But there’s so many more people beyond my friends and family that have diabetes and when the cure if found it’s not just for me or my family or my friends but for all those that have diabetes. And that’s why I’m looking for names of people that I can ride for.

If you would like, leave a comment with the name of someone you know that has diabetes and I’ll name them as one of the people I ride for.

I just found out that this is the first year for the Ft. Worth Tour de Cure. I got an email from the communications director for the ADA in Ft. Worth Texas. She asked for our (our being the current registrants of the Ft. Worth Tour de Cure) personal stories of why we registered for the Tour de Cure. She wants to know how diabetes has affected us. She wants to place some of the stories in the metroplex (which I had to look up, it’s what they call the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area) to help promote the event with hopes that it will inspire people to register.

Now, I have to say that I hate writing, like professional writing, beyond my blog, it kills me to write for a professional population, where things have to be edited and grammar has to be proper. It just doesn’t happen. I do a horrible job at it. Being so, I’ve not even written my personal page for the Ft. Worth Tour de Cure, the page that peeps go to when they want to sponsor me. Yeah, I’ve not written it.

I asked Jules if she would edit something (the reasons I ride piece) for me later, but she laughed at me and told me that Amy is the writing nazi and that she’d be better at editing it for me. So, I’m going to start writing it, but in the meantime, I’ve emailed Amy and asked for her help…I’ve also told her that I hate writing…