The First Ride

Jessica and I got our bikes this week and set off on the road for the first time today. We successfully completed 5.5 miles, only 99.5 more on June 27th! The steep inclines in a few spots on our route today were difficult but other than that we both felt good after the ride.

This past week we tried focusing on getting all of the equipment necessary for this journey and found a great local bike shop to help outfit us (Fountain City Pedaler). They were very generous in helping us with minute questions and even a 1 on 1 training to teach us how to change a busted tire tube.

Now that we have been able to get equipped for the training, this week we are going to start actually riding and learning more about our training schedule. We think that our coach for the ride will be Tim St. Clair who ironically lives and works in my hometown, Greenville, SC. I was told by the staff at the Ride to Cure Diabetes that I will also be assigned a "diabetes coach" to help me manage my diabetes during the training. Although I have always been active, I have never done something so physical for such a prolonged period of time. We estimate that the ride itself will take us around 8-10 hours but who knows, maybe we'll get faster during the training period. Either way, we will be on the road a long time so testing my blood sugar often will be crucial. Today before our ride my blood sugar was a little high at 256 (normal is 80-120) but that is not too abnormal for diabetics after they eat (I had just eaten lunch about an hour earlier). However, after our ride I was down to 77 and obviously needed to eat. This diabetes coach will help make the ride smoother.

Andrew