Riding a bike 100 miles in a day is not something to try to do without proper training (just like how running a marathon is not something to try to do without proper training). Yet, I’d done it before, pre-diagnosis, so my feeling was that since I was getting into better shape than I had been before, I’d still be able to do it.

When you’re diabetic, lots of people assume your biggest problem is your sugars being too high–and in fact, for many, that might be a problem. But there’s also another danger–your sugars being too low. Being diabetic isn’t simply that your body lets your sugars run high, but that your body has difficulty regulating your blood sugar period–you could be too low or too high.

Low blood sugar is called hypoglycemia–those who suffer from it often report feeling weak or faint. In fact, some of us have what I call “faux hypoglycemia”: feeling weak or faint, but yet registering normal when a blood sugar test is actually done (what’s happened is your body gets so used to a high sugar that something normal feels low). Activity–particularly aerobic exercise–tends to lower your sugar, so one of the real issues of being a cyclist, particularly one going long distances, is being low on sugar and not being able to do the usual thing to fix it (that being to eat something).

So in addition to figuring out the training for such a ride, I had to think about possible emergency precautions. Certainly carrying my wallet with identification and a few dollars to buy food if needed plus my cellular phone would be absolute priorities. Taking food with me would also be a wise idea (cyclists racing long distances have, for as long as I’ve been a cyclist, brought food with them–that’s what the rear pockets on bike jerseys are for). And having some knowledge of where I’d be riding–like where I could find a convenience store in case I needed some food, for instance, or where there were public restrooms available (for the obvious as well as refilling water bottles).

It was at least as muchmore work figuring out these things asthan it was figuring out a training schedule. At least I had a training schedule that someone else did to start with–I’d have to consider the diabetic factors by myself and with whatever resources I had at hand. Fortunately, I had the Internet, which can tell me a lot–sometimes too much–about any subject. But I felt like the work to train for this ride had doubled. That, however, wasn’t going to stop me.

I was going to ride 100 miles in a day. The distance wouldn’t stop me, the weather wouldn’t stop me, and, absolutely no way would my diabetes stop me.