New opportunities

Again months have gone by since I last managed to put my thoughts down here.  Lot's of exciting things have been happening in that time though.  First and foremost, I finally got a replacement for my bike that was broken way back in June.  It looks just like the old one, but this one is the new and improved 2009 Orca.  I've got to give Orbea credit for taking a good product and tightening it up even further.  Unless I am mistaken, I believe that I am the only TT1 rider with a white '09 Orca; everyone else is on blue ones.  I'll get a picture of this sweet ride up on here as soon as I can.  

I have also recently reconnected with an old teammate of mine from the Cali days; Jim Fryer is now running a social networking site specific to cyclists.  If you get the chance check it out at http://www.cyclistvillage.com.  Jim sent me a Cyclist Village kit, made by Capo, really nice stuff, to the extent that they may be the best shorts I have ever worn.

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in West Virginia at the end of September doing some athlete days.  Had a really good time and got to meet and talk to some really nice Doc's and type 1's.  Best of all, I got to spend one morning on my bike riding with a group that even had a police motorcycle escort.  A little weird getting to roll through red lights when your with a small group and going pretty darn slow.  

I guess the most exciting thing that has happened over the past couple of months, and the thing that makes me wish time would pass faster so next season will get here sooner, is that TT1 has decided that a true development team is necessary for us to ensure that we have the type 1's to fill the pro squad over time.  This is exciting because they chose me to run this part of the TT1 program.  The Devo team will be made up of 4 younger riders who will be given the opportunity to race a bunch, get lots of guidance, and basically learn to be a pro cyclist.  Three of the spots have been filled so far, but the fourth position is proving challenging to fill.  Should anyone out there know a  type 1 cyclist who is 23 years old or younger and at least a category 3 racer, who wants the opportunity of a life, have them shoot me an email...

Time to get ready to go riding, I'll see if I can do a better job of updating more regularly.

Wow!

Wow, I appear to be really bad at this blogging thing, at least with regard to doing it regularly.  Anyway, it has been an interesting couple of months.  Still waiting on a replacement bike from Orbea; admittedly it is not their fault that the airline chose to destroy mine, but it is really hard to do a good job for you sponsors when you have to explain to everyone you see why exactly you aren't riding your team bike.  That said, a big thanks to my best friend, Wes, for making sure that I have a frame to use.

Last week I spent four days speaking to CDE's at their National conference, AADE, in Washington DC.  A really good time, particularly as I was able to catch up with teammates I haven't seen since we finished RAAM.  I had a lot of fun talking to CDE's and sharing with them how the Freestyle Navigator and OmniPod in conjunction with Apidra insulin have helped me to manage my diabetes and have a better time racing my bike than ever before.  Ironically, it was during these four days that I "chose" to have the most severe hypo I've experienced in ages.  A big thanks Matt Brooks for making the run all the way back to his hotel room to get me some Dex 4 liquid, without which I'm fairly sure the evening would have been far worse; total carbs to treat that hypo were 2 Cokes, a Dex 4 gel and 2 Dex 4 liquids which got me to roughly a BS of 115.

Saw my doctor yesterday and he was kind enough to give me an injection of Prednisone in my right knee to treat the bursitis I've developed since the end of RAAM; I;m now going to quit waiting on that replacement frame and go ahead and position the saddle correctly on my Seigler.  That's about it for now.  Thanks for reading.

Tim

Changes

Well, this is my first shot a blogging.

Having finished the Race Across America as a part of the Team Type 1 squad about two and a half weeks ago, I've been really interested to see how my body (diabetes) was going to respond.  Initially there was no noticeable changes; even during the race I wasn't having to change the basal rates on my pump significantly.  Having returned back to the working world, I'm not on my bike every day, nor am I going flat out when I am on it; as such, I had anticipated there to be a shift in metabolism, but it has not been what I expected.  Thanks to my Freestyle Navigator, my navi, I know that between 1 and 2 am my blood sugar typically starts going up, and will stay that way until about 6 am.  In order to manage that increase my basal rate is set to increase for the same period, and this typically is spot on.  The past two nights now something has changed.  If you are not familiar with the navi, it continuously monitors the glucose level in the interstitial fluid and provides real-time awareness of what is going on.  So, for the past two nights, my navi has let me know that my glucose level was at a less than desirable level, and staying there.  Getting an alarm from the navi, a very persistent beeping, in the middle of the night is pretty easily managed normally by decreasing the basal rate and tossing down some Dex-4 (glucose tabs), but when it keeps going off every 45 minutes to an hour, you end up with a crappy nights sleep.  However, a crappy nights sleep is way bette than a seizure because the glucose got too low.  Anyway, that's been the past two nights, constant alarms; I'll try lowering my basal even further tonight and see how it goes.

No riding/training for me today, I'm off to the river to do some fishing.