Category Archives: Cycling

What (Kinda) Works Now

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Chris sent me a message saying that someone might ask me about running with type-1 diabetes. I haven’t yet heard from him/her, but it got me thinking about what I’m doing now and how it’s going. It’s not perfect, of course, but I’m actually in a pretty good place.

Let’s start with the big disclaimers. First, this is what (kinda) works for me. Your diabetes may vary; it likely will. Second, this has only recently started working for me; it could all change tomorrow. Third, it assumes that you use an insulin pump and that your basal and bolus rates are correct-ish; mine are getting there. Finally, I can’t consistently reproduce what I do in training when I’m racing; something always seems to happen.

Remember, three big things impact BGs during exercise: insulin, food, and intensity. (There are other things, but these are the big ones that you can control.)

Active Insulin: I tend to workout when I have no (or, at least, minimal) insulin on board. For example, I swim and do my long running/cycling first thing in the morning before any boluses. And when I workout in the afternoon, it’s been 4-5 hours since my lunch bolus. This means that there’s very little extra insulin to bring down my blood sugar. When I do have rather high BGs (but no ketones) because I misjudged a meal, for example, I will sometimes give myself a little insulin. I’m really conservative doing this, though, since it usually brings me down more than I think it will.

Basal Insulin: I am starting to think that changing my basal insulin has less of an effect (for me) than I had originally suspected. This might be because my basal rates are fairly low now, or it could be that my body is better at using fat and carbs together than it was in the past. Who knows? Anyway, when I run or ride my bike, I set a 30% reduction 1-2 hours before I start. Usually longer in the afternoon and shorter in the morning, since I like sleeping. When I swim, I set a 0% basal rate (i.e., no insulin) starting 45-or-so minutes before I hop in the water. There are three reasons: (1) I’m skittish when it comes to insulin and water, (2) it’s similar to what happens during triathlons, where I need to detach from my pump to leave it in transition before hopping in the water, and (3) it seems to work.

Food Before: Food is not the best part of the three for me. I want to eat more before I train, because food is fuel, and I hate running out of steam. (We’re remarkably like people without diabetes in this respect.) Food normally means insulin, which violates that whole “minimal insulin on board” thing. But I’m working on getting myself in a mindset where I can experiment with small amounts of insulin to cover pre-athletic carbs. High glycemic foods still spike my BGs when I’m working out, often more than I would like. Lower glycemic things do better, but quantity counts; 20g of carbs from Greek yoghurt about 10 minutes before I did a two-hour run worked well yesterday, the first time I tried it. Be careful here.

Food During: I tend to eat like I don’t have diabetes when I bike or run. It’s just how it works for me. I eat an energy gel every 45 minutes to keep up my energy. I also carry a full tube of glucose tablets with me, just in case. And I drink water. Water is important.

Food and Insulin After: I find that I always need to give myself insulin after I’m done exercising. I haven’t yet figured out how much to give, but I usually bolus the full amount of any correction I would need (or enough to bring me down 25 mg/dL [1.5 mmol] if my BGs are in range). After really hard workouts, I like a protein-rich snack with carbs. (Odwalla’s Chocolate Protein Monster is my favorite.) These carbs and protein are important for recovery, and I find it necessary to bolus the full amount for this snack, even though I will eventually be more insulin sensitive for the next 24 hours after big workouts.

Frequency: It helps to have a regular frequency, usually three or four times per week (or more). If I workout at least this often—although I can’t remember the last time I did less—my insulin sensitivity stays much more “normal” than if I don’t. Consistency is key.

Supplies: I bring these things with me on my workouts.

  • A full tube of glucose tablets
  • My pump (enclosed in a Zip-Lock bag to keep perspiration from killing it)
  • My BG meter when I go on longer runs or when I’m curious about what’s happening on shorter outings. I use the OneTouch Ultra Mini just for exercise.
  • Energy gels. I’m not very brand-loyal; I like vanilla and chocolate Gu and Clif Shots and just about any Hammer Gel flavor.
  • Water (in a FuelBelt Sprint Palm Holder)
  • I also carry about $10-15 with me in case I need to buy some extra food.

There are some other things I like, but they don’t have anything to do with diabetes preparedness. I have a Petzl Tikka headlamp, which is great for running on these dark afternoon; I’ve never had a jacket as nice as my Asics one; and I need shorts and pants with pockets . . . and a drawstring. (Without the drawstring, all of the extra stuff in my pockets makes ‘em fall right off.)

Good luck! And just remember, do whatever works; there’s no single right way.

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, General, Life Lessons, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 7 Comments

Closing the Books on November

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Here we are: November 30th. The last day of November. The last day of post-something-everyday month. I feel this year’s NaBloPoMo has gone better than last year’s, and I’m thinking about some possible tweaks for next year. Maybe I will take a little hiatus starting tomorrow, using the time to read books on my reading list and further purge the office of mental baggage. We’ll see when I’m moved to post write something new next.

One thing I had hoped to do a month ago was to clear out a bunch of the things I had in mind to post. I posted roughly half of them. Yay! This dispatch aims to tidy up some loose ends. It will probably be long, and it might be rambling. Beware! If anything turns out to be just a bit too long or important, I’ll break it out into its own post.

It’s a good time to clear the decks. Lisa is out for the evening, I’m streaming a concert by Cœur de Pirate (mp3), and I’m in the mood to write. In fact, I’m in the mood to do just about anything to take my mind off the fact that I’m basal testing and have to skip dinner. Fortunately, at lunch I had some of the very delicious Comté cheese that we bought in Montréal last weekend; I hope that it will fortify me for another four-or-so hours when I can eat a very late (10PM) dinner.

Oh, one more thing before I get going with the things I had intended to write about. I’ve been listening to (and loving) the new album by Caracol. Unfortunately, it isn’t available in the US yet. (Next year, she hopes.) But you can stream the tracks from the web site. It’s so good! In my book, it’s one of my Top 5 for 2011. Go check it out and tell me what you think and what albums/CDs/whatever you really liked this year.

On with the show.


Basal Testing: I hate basal testing. I don’t think anybody who uses an insulin pump likes to do it. Why would we? It involves eating a normal meal, waiting at least three hours since the last insulin bolus, skipping the next meal, waiting 4-6 hours after the normal meal time to eat again, and recording blood glucose every two hours (or so). And that’s just during the daytime. At night, the requirement is to go to bed without a snack and then wake up at 1:00 and 4:00 (for example) to test.

Ideally, you see an awesome, tight range of numbers that make you feel confident that your basal (background) insulin rates are correct. But if there’s too much movement one way or another, you have to stop. This means you get to eat early, but it also means that you have to make an adjustment in the pattern and then run the test again on another day. Plus, who actually does a basal test when everything is going right? No one except crazy people. No, you only do a test to figure out what is going wrong.

But in October I decided to bit the bullet and get my all my basal rates as correct as they can be. I was noticing a lot of trends in my CGM graphs and decided against just making changes willy-nilly. I still suspect that most of my problem is under-bolusing for meals, but I can never know without checking that the basals are correct first.

One big problem with basal testing is each day is a big ole cycle that leads straight into the next. Where do you start? Some people say, “Overnight. Get that right and then you can start your march through the day.” Maybe for them. My evenings are cray-cray, going high after my after-work training and then bouncing around after dinner before I give myself my final “well, I’ve messed up today pretty good” insulin and/or snack before bedtime. That makes overnight testing difficult.

For me, it’s been easiest to find a few mornings that seemed designed for testing—in-range BGs, flat/normal CGM graphs overnight—and skip breakfast. Then I tested my breakfast bolus ratio and timing. Then I skipped lunch for an afternoon basal test, followed by the lunch bolus test. And now here we are at dinnertime without dinner. Once I’m done here I can figure out a rubric for my afternoon/evening workouts and test that before taking a stab at dinner and (finally) the overnight basal.

One hard question I’ve had to answer is whether to exercise on days when I do basal testing. Since I train 5-6 days each week, I feel okay skipping one for the greater good. But then there’s the admonition that you should do what you normally do, which for me means exercise. Today I skipped a bike session in the basement, which is “okay” since I swam this morning, but it’s also torture because I really, really want to ride my new bike. Greater good.

By the way, to any CDEs, endos, etc., who might be reading this, please note: I’ve been on the pump for over ten years, and this will (hopefully) be the first time that my basal rates and bolus ratios are correct/proven. If you’re going to put someone on the pump, you need to (a) make sure y’all work together to get the settings locked down from the start, and (b) work on all of the behavioral issues that come along with multiple daily injection (MDI) therapy. Just saying.

I just hope that when I get through with this process, I’ll be able to translate all of this hunger into a baseline for making amazing observations about exercise+insulin+food.


Three hours to go.


Organized Bike Touring: I was asked several times right after my trip (photos) whether I would do another organized bicycle trip. Most of the people on the tour had done several already and were talking about which one they would do next. I always played coy. “Maybe.”

I enjoyed myself quite a lot. The scenery was great. I really enjoyed spending time with Mom in France. My fellow travelers were wonderful. The tour leaders were fantastic people. It was terrific having so many details taken care of; all I had to do was get on my bike and ride. And there was plenty of time to do things other than cycling.

But two things brought me down. (1) I wish there had been more actual riding. I could easily have gone an extra 20-30 miles most days, and I wouldn’t have minded a slightly faster pace. I certainly wasn’t expecting a race or even a hard ride each day, but I think the tour company we used was aiming at a more casual riding experience . . . which is totally cool, if that’s what you’re after. No judgement from me. Honest. And (2) Lisa wasn’t with me. I was having a great time doing and seeing interesting things, eating delicious food, and going to beautiful places that she would have also loved . . . just without the bike.

If only there were a way to bring Lisa, a noncyclist, along on a trip that involves some (longer distance or more intense) bicycling. Oh wait, maybe there is! Clearly it involves bringing a larger group of friends to France, some of whom ride and some who don’t. We’ll see what happens in a couple years. :^)


Two and a half hours . . .


Occupy This! will be posted tomorrow.


Two hours to go.


iOS v. Android: I have an iPod Touch. It’s great. I have all sorts of useful apps, and I use it all the time. It syncs with my Mac apps, including iTunes. It doesn’t make phone calls.

I have a Google Nexus One phone. It has a nicer-than-the-iPod’s input editor coupled with its not-quite-as-nice touchscreen keyboard. It has a couple of apps that I used when I was in France, only one of which was not already on my iPod. It kind of plays music. It shares data with “useful” Google apps on the web. It makes phone calls, is unlocked, and accepts normal SIM cards like the one I bought in France that let me call home at 4¢/min. (No shit! 15€ gave Mom and me so much talk time over two weeks that we had a bunch left over when we returned home.)

I wish I had a mythical, nonexistent, unlocked iPhone that supports pay-as-you-go and takes regular SIM cards. That would be perfect.


Are we there yet?


Before There Was Facebook: A Short, Subjective, Incomplete Insider’s History of PlanetAll will be posted Friday.


Almost there! By the time I write one more and then proofread, it should be “dinner time.”


Cyclocross: Early in the month I had thought about writing about how I was considering cyclocross as an off-season pursuit. But then I saw one and decided that it looked painful (and not in a fun kind of way). Although this did make me laugh.


Yay! I made it! I did my proofreading, took one more BG test, and had dinner while chatting with Lisa, who just arrived home. The results are mostly good news: I was incredibly stable until 9:00, at which time I started to drop slowly but steadily. That happens to be just an hour after my basal rate kicks up from 0.4 u/hr to 0.7 u/hr. That hardly seems like a coincidence.

Posted in Cycling, Data-betes, Diabetes, General, MetaBlogging, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2011, Travel | 2 Comments

Heart Rate Training?

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Jeff Mather

How do you get faster at any endurance activity? Ironically, you get faster by doing it faster than usual. If you run every run at one pace or do every ride at the same tempo, then you’ll never progress. You can only build up so much aerobic capacity, since you can only move so much blood and oxygen around. What you need to do is to work harder so that the muscles themselves are stronger and capable of giving more.

My running plan includes plenty of tempo running and interval sessions. And I’ve finally gotten to the point where there’s “normal swimming” and “harder swimming.” But how do I know how hard to work when cycling?

I think the answer is heart rate training, which is new to me. Have any of you had success doing this?

I’ve figured out several of the basic calculations based on my computed maximum heart rate (183 bpm) and resting heart rate (52 bpm). According to an online calculator, these are my target heart rate zones:

Zone 1: 118-131
Zone 2: 131-144
Zone 3: 144-157 (Aerobic)
Zone 4: 157-170 (Anaerobic)
Zone 5: 170-183 (Maximal)

Now, where do I go from here?

Posted in Cycling, Data-betes, Fodder for Techno-weenies, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2011 | Leave a comment

The Writing is in the Wall

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Today was a busy day. I brought this home:


I had the second part of my bike fit today, actually riding my own bike. Turns out, my left leg is longer than my right one, and it was affecting my pedal stroke. I also have narrow feet and very collapsed arches. We tweaked a lot of things, added shims between my shoe and pedals, added orthotic inserts to my bike shoes, and more. Tonight when I was riding on the trainer, I started to feel some of those changes for the better. Tomorrow or Wednesday, I’ll swap out my road bike and my new one and give it a longer ride.

And then there was the beam-signing at the office. We’re adding another building (and parking garage and traffic flow patterns and landscaping) to our campus after we’ve outgrown the other three. Everyone in the company was invited to sign the last structural beam before it was set into place this afternoon. Here are a few pictures.

And as the last photo says, we’re still hiring. Why not apply?

Posted in Cycling, General, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2011 | 1 Comment

Just Give Me the Dorky Helmet and I Will Be “That Guy”

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Jeff Mather

In order not to bury the lede, I’m going to start with the big news: I put down a deposit on a new bike today, which I will pick up (hopefully) on Monday after a final fitting session. Here it is:


You should know a few things about my decision to get this bike:

  1. I have been saving money to buy a new bike at some point in the future ever since I bought my last bike in 2009.
  2. I hadn’t expected to buy a tri-bike after just one season.
  3. Lisa suggested, out of the blue, that I should get one. Merry Christmas from my sweetie (and my slush fund)!
  4. I’m deeply, deeply ambivalent about this bike for so many reasons.

A couple of my coworkers and I joke that “triathlon is a rich white person’s sport.” And while I’ve seen people riding all sorts of bikes and wearing all manner of kit during various triathlons, the joke is uncomfortably close to the truth. Even though swimmers can wear just about anything (although a wetsuit will give you some advantage) and running is running is running regardless of your income level, anything involving a bike—including triathlon—is going to start to seem like thoroughbred horse racing. Cycling is where all of the money is spent, often for diminishing returns

“$2,000 for an aero wheelset to save a couple of minutes over 112 miles? $500 to save 30 grams by switching pedals? Yes, those are just what I need to get me to Kona.” Um, right. It would be like most of us thinking we can buy our way to a Boston Qualifying time by getting better shoes. I’m not saying the advantages aren’t real or that people shouldn’t be able to spend their money in whatever race-legal way they want. It just seems that common sense goes out the window whenever our reptilian brains see anything associated with two wheels.

So how did I end up standing around in my bike shorts and jersey this afternoon at Landry’s bike store waiting to get fit for a super-aero time trial/triathlon bike? Believe me, I’ve been asking myself that question and second-guessing myself and looking deep inside my athlete’s soul for the answer.


I guess it’s the simple fact that tri-bikes are faster than the bike I have now. Not just a little bit faster. No. A lot faster. A couple years ago I was just a guy with diabetes on a bike, but after this past year I consider myself an athlete. I feel I can be competitive in several of the races on next year’s docket, and I’d like to see how far I can go by giving my potential just a bit of help. [1]

This is the big, up-front investment. While it’s true that you never really “just buy a bike,” I don’t plan on putting much additional loot into this one right away. I hope I’m more down-to-earth than that. After all, it’s “not about the bike.” There’s a whole lot of hard work for me to do to feel like I’m living up to the potential of this bike, and that’s a big motivator.


Of course, maybe I’m just making a big deal out of nothing at all. Why don’t I just get on with telling you about the bike fit process.

When I bought my road bike (at a different store) the fitting was really simple: “Sit on the bike on a trainer while I get out my calipers and protractor and we will adjust the saddle.”

Today was nothing like that. Over the better part of an hour I was videotaped riding a highly reconfigurable “bike.” A specially trained bike shop guy reviewed the video frame by frame, measuring various angles, reconfiguring, retaping, remeasuring, repeating, . . . He used a laser level to aid in making extremely accurate measurements throughout the process.


Having recorded myself swimming, it was interesting to have this applied to another event. (Now I just need someone to film me running and to analyze my stride, in order to complete my mini-series triathlon.) Turns out I have very long arms and legs and a rather short torso—which I already knew, since most of my clothes must be tailored in order to fit right. I also have very flexible hip, knee and lower back joints, so I can get into a pretty aggressive aero position. That was unexpected.

Forty-five minutes after stripping down to my bike clothes (which I was wearing under my regular clothes [2]) I was ready to get bike recommendations. Or rather one recommendation. “Can we at least pretend like I comparison shopped?” I asked; so we played that charade quite convincingly. If I got that less expensive bike I would need to spend more money in accessories to get the same fit as the “right” bike. Or I could spend twice as much for the same fit with better components (like aero-er wheels and lighter pedals and shit like that.)

And then, the soft sell: “Do you want to take it for a ride?” Without a helmet? “We can lend you a helmet.” Outdoors in the cold? “Do you want a jacket or something? [Seriously, man, HTFU.]” I can manage without one for a few minutes.

It wasn’t the same pure joy that I had when I first pedaled my road bike. That feeling of effortlessness and the fluidity was replaced by wobbliness as I got used to the equivalent of driving a Porsche with a go-kart’s steering wheel. Because I was in a residential neighborhood, I didn’t really get the chance to open it up; nevertheless I could feel the responsiveness of this almost weightless bike.

I can hardly wait to give it a try.


1 — 2011 really was the year when I became an athlete. I competed in nine different races, and I used a couple of training plans to prepare for them. I was actually a bit haphazard in the events I chose, and I’m trying to be a little more focused next year. Of course, I’m also trying to keep a lot of the spontaneity and love for what I’m doing, which is precisely why I rebel against most triathlon training programs. “Life is choices.” [Back . . ]

2 —  I put my new office gym membership to use for the first time today over lunch so that I could change clothes. OMG, those were some chatty guys in the locker-room with me. I thought we were genetically programmed to become mute and blind in the presence of other naked men. (It’s a mutation on the Y chromosome. That’s a fact. Look it up.) This is going to take some getting used to. [Back . . ]

Posted in Cycling, Fodder for Techno-weenies, General, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2011, Reluctant Triathlete | 3 Comments

Provence, Post-trip Odds-and-ends

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Jeff Mather

This post is a mishmash of odds and ends about September’s cycling trip in Provence.

The Roads: French roads come in different flavors. From major, controlled-access, interstate/autobahn-type autoroutes to the single-lane chemin, barely wide enough for one car. We rode the smaller ones. There are also some really nice bike paths. (Trivia: In France, if there’s a bike path parallel to a highway, cyclists are obliged to use it.) Here are some photographs of the roads we traveled.

Our VBT tour leaders said that their main consideration for picking roads is traffic, which means that occasionally we were mostly on a network of teeny-tiny roads and made lots of turns. We had cue sheets for every ride, and some of them ran for 4-5 pages. I wonder how long my regular rides would be if I had to describe them for other people. Of course, we also saw a lot of rustic French scenery because we were on said tiny roads.

“There is a rumor that French drivers are bad,” said Pascal, one of the tour leaders. “This is not true. French drivers drive quickly, but we are not bad drivers. We will always wait to pass cyclists until it is safe.” This certainly seemed to be the case—except for that one delivery van driver.

The French also love rotaries/roundabouts. So do I! They’re much better than traffic lights, and they really help keep traffic moving. They present new challenges when you’re on a bike, but by the end of the trip, even Mom was getting used to them.

Basically, I liked riding on most of the French roads, but I wouldn’t mind using the slightly more traveled roads. After all, what’s a little traffic? This leads us to . . .

The Crash: I don’t know why people say that “everything slows down” when you crash. In my experience there’s usually very little time—mental or actual—between when I think, “Oh, Shit!” after I realize I’m likely going to fall and when I groan as I’m picking myself up off the deck and checking the damage. Sometimes it’s just the space between the sensation of the tire losing traction in the rain and the moment of realization that the ground is approaching too fast. All that “time slows down” business just seems like wasted decision-making time that I could be using to keep myself upright.

On the first real day of riding—from St.-Rémy-de-Provence to Arles—I had just enough time to realize that the slow-speed characteristics of the bike were different than the one I ride at home and that I wasn’t going to get my feet out of the pedals in time before falling. It happened as Mom and I rode into Arles on a suddenly busy backroad. I had glanced down to check the next direction on the cue sheet, and I looked up to see traffic stopping at the same time that the road narrowed. Now, while I like the Shimano SPD pedals I bought so that I could simultaneously have clipless pedals and shoes that I could walk in, I didn’t have much practice with them, and they have different “clip out” tension than my Speedplay pedals (which I love—seriously, best pedals ever). So, yes, I saw it coming, but not in slow-motion. If anything, it felt accelerated. I was still working on getting unclipped as I fell, cursed, immediately got back up, dragged myself out of the street, checked for any damage, and continued on.

I don’t fall very often—*touch wood*—and I’m kinda glad that (if it had to happen) I fell on Monday. I knew one thing going into the trip: I was not going to wear shorts in Paris. It just wouldn’t be fair to the Parisians. (See “fashion,” below.) Open wounds might put a kink in my sartorial prerogatives, though. Fortunately, a couple days later I was healing nicely. By the time we got to the City of Light on Saturday, I only had a wee bit of discomfort whenever I sat down. By the time we went home, everything was fine, if not completely healed.

On the trip I learned that the French don’t really understand bandages. You can get small, “Zut alors! I cut my finger” bandages or the larger “Oh, mon dieu! I seem to have cut my thumb” size. That is to say, you can’t really get anything big enough to cover an open wound on your knee . . . at least not at the pharmacy I went into. I ended up using some of the Tegaderm dressings that I usually put over my CGM sensors, which had the benefit of (a) being flexible and (b) not sticking to the wound, but it also was (c) transparent enough to induce winces when my fellow riders saw them.

This was also the trip where I learned why men who race shave their legs.

Laundry: The key to not overpacking for any trip lasting longer than 5-7 days is to do laundry. Unless you feel like spending a lot of money—or are in India and are totally fine with other people doing everything for you—you, my friend, will need a laundromat. By the way, the way to say “laundromat” is «laverie libre-service».

As with American launderettes, it’s best to bring something with you to keep yourself entertained. Books, magazines, iPads, other people, and stray kitties are all reasonable choices for accompaniment.

Fashion: “France” the very word exudes style. [1] Paris Vogue makes American Vogue look like a Macy’s catalogue. Walking down the street is a fashionista’s delight. And then there are the shops. Everyone says Rue St.-Honoré is the place to window shop—or actually shop if you have money—but I recommend Avenue Montaigne. Seriously.

But it’s not just the well-heeled who look good. Many more French people look more put together more of the time than anywhere I’ve ever been. That’s the way it should be. Of course, as with anywhere else, there are exceptions, and women always tend to look more with it than men. (We first noticed this in Australia, and now I can’t help but see it everywhere.)

Food: I will confess that I ate a lot on the trip. I’m not a foodie—well, not yet—but I appreciate good food. And I like the way that traveling gets one out of a rut by forcing you choose something different. The food on this trip makes me want to learn how to cook. Maybe. I’ll keep you posted.

French food isn’t always perfect, but the things that I managed to pick off the menu were (almost without an exception) fantastic. Turns out, I’m a big fan of bistro fare and café culture. I wish France were closer. Although Lisa and I have been known to go to Montréal for a food booty call, Paris (or London for that matter) is just a bit too far for the weekend food splurge.

The thing that struck me most about the food on this trip—the Provençal part, in particular—was the freshness of the ingredients. I love going to the weekly (or daily) market to get a few things, and I love that France has a culture that values the market and food enough to rearrange the opening hours of other shops to make it possible for the market to continue to flourish.

Just in case you weren’t hungry enough yet, here are some pictures.

À bientôt, muffins!


1 — Although, seriously people, why do we have to mispronounce “France” so badly? We worry that we’re not saying Qatar the same way a Qatari man does, but we’ll pronounce France like a hick. What gives? [Back . . .]

Posted in 101 in 1001, City of Light, Cycling, I am Rembrandt, Life Lessons, Travel | 2 Comments

Sitting Bull Understands

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Dear Diabetes Online Community:

It seems that I did the high blood glucose equivalent of “drunk dialing” last night. Clearly I would be a sad drunk if I drank alone.

I’m not apologizing—no need to, really—but I am saying that I’m not normally so moody about diabetes and choices and the future. I stand by everything I wrote, though in the light of day after my BGs have come down and talking to friends, it doesn’t seem so dismal.

I know, for me at least, high BGs make everything feel more dire. Once I get beyond 300 mg/dL, I’m pretty sure that nothing short of being around other people I like (or maybe a basket of kittens) will drag me out of the funk before the insulin can do its job.

The worst time happened in one of the western suburbs of Milwaukee in late October 2000. I was still on NPH, and I was just learning how to use Humalog. It was new enough that I was still scared of its power, and I tended to underdose for fear of overdosing. Late one evening, near the end of a week-long course about how to support the DICOM file format, I was feeling the effects of eating too many french fries from the unremarkable hotel pub. This hotel was in the middle of a pedestrian-unfriendly suburb, so I couldn’t just walk it off. It was late, and there was no one around to talk to. There were only bad movies and really nasty political ads on television.

So I did what I used to do back in the day. I started to write a letter. (You know, with paper and pen.) But between the loneliness and the high blood sugar and the feelings of inadequacy I was feeling at the time about trying to go to grad school, it was a bad scene. The letter-writing eventually devolved into me having a conversation with the postcard of Sitting Bull that had slipped into my stationary box.

By the next morning, everything was much better. Just like this morning.

I want to thank everyone, especially Lisa, Scully and Kim. You told me what I’m constantly trying to remind myself of: Even though life is choices, some of those choices are pretty awesome.

I love this picture of Martijn Verschoor taking insulin while racing that Team Type 1 posted on Facebook last week. It reminds me what we can aspire to and is so much more uplifting than another cyclist-plus-needles photo I like:

Remember: Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. That’s the way to approach life, grasshopper.

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, General, Life Lessons, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2011, Reluctant Triathlete | 1 Comment

Pictures from the Ride

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Here are just a few pictures to prove that I really did more than just eat food in Provence. I hope I rode enough there (and walked enough in Paris) to make up for all of the deliciousness.

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Posted in 101 in 1001, City of Light, Cycling, I am Rembrandt, Photography | Leave a comment

Bread and Circus

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Okay, we’re back online. It’s Sunday night here in Paris for another five minutes or so. Mom and I have done a lot today, and there’s a lot more to do tomorrow. (Shopping!!) But for now, let’s go back in time to the day that was the trip in a microcosm. Wednesday was market day in St.-Remy-de-Provence, so our group headed across the street to the old city to buy food for our bike ride, as well as Provençal delights and souvenirs and other things. (There’s a market day for everything somewhere in France . . . including antiques of all kinds outside Avignon on Saturdays and birds in Paris near La Palais de Justice on Sundays.)

After shopping for lunch, we rode to Éygalières, walked up a steep hill, and ate some of the food that we got at the market, while looking out on the ruins of a 13th century church and down on the countryside. After lunch, a few of us headed out for a twenty mile loop through the Alpilles mountains. It was a lot more laid-back than the group ride the day before after we climbed the mountain road to Les Baux, despite the fact that we put up a faster pace. That’s probably because there were just three of us who opted for the long ride, and we were able to keep the ride moving along with less of the waiting around that always occurs when you get a larger group ride going. Adele, one of the two group leaders, and I talked on the mostly car-free roads; it was great to have someone along who knew the routes by heart, so that we didn’t have to keep attending to the cue sheets. It was also nice seeing Pascal at the bottom of the long, winding descent to point out the “tricky turn” and to give me some really good French chocolate as a reward for the big climb.

Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures from the 21st:

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Posted in City of Light, Cycling, Photography | 1 Comment

The One Where I give You Pictures from Provence instead of Details

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Jeff Mather

I don’t have much time to write these days. It’s the downside of being here. After not finishing dinner until 9:00PM (or later) and someone needing to get up at 6:00AM, there’s not a lot of time left over. (But that’s not really any downside at all.)

Just know that I’m having a great time riding through olive groves and fields of Provence, seeing Roman ruins at Arles, touring “perched” towns like Les Baux, wandering the quiet rues of St.-Rémy, eating delicious food, and chugging up a mountain pass that the professionals rode in this year’s Tour de France.

Here are a few pictures to hopefully keep you satisfied.

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Posted in City of Light, Crusty Old Paint, Cycling, I am Rembrandt, Travel | 4 Comments

Provence Preview

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Jeff Mather

I picked up Mom at the airport this afternoon. She lives in Wyoming, which is not the easiest place to get to—though, you can get there from here—and I miss her a lot. It’s so good to see her again. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting caught up, and she did her best to photograph and love on her grand-kitty.

Two days from now we leave on a late afternoon/overnight flight to Paris and from there to Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. I’ve kept this trip low-key here on the site, but inside I’ve been very excited. It’s what I thought about while riding all last autumn, over the winter, and into this spring and summer (when I wasn’t stressing about how I was going to do on my next triathlon).

Because we committed to the trip almost a full year ago, it’s taken quite a while to feel like it’s actually going to happen. Once Labor Day came around, though, it seemed imminent, and now I feel like I’m behind in my packing and planning. Fortunately, this bicycle expedition has been planned by other people. I just have to show up, eat chocolate croissants and crêpes, look at the beautiful landscapes and ruins, eat delicious Provençal food, and get on my bike and ride. Here are some details of the trip:

  • We’re starting a few days early in Aix-en-Provence, a city with a crap-load of fountains.
  • Then we’re going to bicycle around Provence and the Alpilles for six days, going to the towns of St.-Remy, Arles, Les Baux, and Avignon.
  • One of our excursions takes us to the Pont du Gard, a first century CE Roman aqueduct that seems wicked awesome.
  • And before returning to Boston (on the 28th) we’ll spend a few days in Paris.

Consider me excited!

(Oh, and by the way, go see “The Guard.” It’s fantastic. I want to come back in another life as Sgt. Gerry Boyle.)

Posted in 101 in 1001, City of Light, Cycling, Travel | 1 Comment

Post-Provence Teaser

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Jeff Mather

This is my post-Provence goal. We’ll see if I can do the 130-mile ride from Williamstown in the northwest corner of the Commonwealth to my house in one (rather long) day.

Posted in Cycling, General | 3 Comments

A Day In the Life

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Here is a small sampling of what has happened in the last twenty-four hours:

Loren and I went out for a short ride around Hopkinton and Ashland.

I put new tires on the bike.

This is why I get up early in the morning to go swimming.

Real men wear argyle. Just ask Thor Hushovd or Tyler Farrar.

What have you been up to?

Posted in Cycling, I am Rembrandt, Photography, Swimming | 3 Comments

Bike Surgery

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Sometime between lunch and when I left the office, I had talked myself into competing in one more triathlon before going to Provence next month. (What? You didn’t know I was going? Well, stay tuned.) There was only one little problem: this is an off-road/trail tri, and I don’t have a mountain bike I can use for it.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t have a mountain bike. Quite the contrary! In our basement is the first bike I ever bought, a 1994 GT Avalanche AL. I’ve had some good times with that bike, but I haven’t ridden it outside since the rear shift levers broke several years ago. [1] I did a fair amount of riding on it before we moved from Newton to Milford in 2004, but almost all of the mileage afterward was on the trainer in the basement.

My desire to fix the right-hand shifter—which had been in a serious state of nonexistence—was quickly rekindled by the idea of a sprint triathlon involving a pond swim, a mountain bike ride, and a trail run. But would I be able to fix something that most people (including bike repair shops) don’t recommend trying to tackle? “Who knows?” I thought, “But what’s the worst that can happen? It’s still broken.”

When I was a teenager, I took pride in the fact that I could fix anything on my Huffy. (I put over 1,500 miles on that bike one summer, including three 100+ mile rides.) But times change. While I was glad that indexed shifting came along to relieve us of the aggravation of trying to hunt for the right gear, maintenance became a bit more involved. I still do most of the maintenance on my own, but this kind of surgery had me intimidated.

So how did it go? Let the pictures do the talking:

The problem was that the hammer part of the ratchet mechanism wasn’t catching the sprocket. Or rather it was so gunked up that it would catch once but then be incapable of returning to the correct position for more shifting, so I could change gears every few minutes. But that’s not really so useful, is it? A couple hours later I was putting it all back together as best I could and hoping that I hadn’t broken it too badly when I popped a rivet that was holding part of it together. (An hour after that I was cleaning up a mini mess I made when cleaning the filthy, filthy cassette and chain. Yuck!)

The quality of my work will be known when I give it a ride in a couple days. Before that can happen, I have more to do. Tubes and tires and brake pads need changing. Handlebar grips need replacing. Cables need tightening. Derailleurs need adjusting. Parts need lubing. Saddles need cleaning. Aluminum needs polishing.

And once again, when it comes to triathlon, I ask myself this question: What have I gotten myself into?


[1] — Good times include riding the 1990 world cross-country course in 1994, trying to scrape my face off in a ditch in Iowa, and passing riders on “real bikes” with my knobby tires humming along. [Back . . .]

Posted in Cycling, General, Life Lessons, Reluctant Triathlete | 2 Comments

Sharon Triathlon

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Jeff Mather

Today I competed in the Sharon Triathlon and am very happy with my top 1/3 result. It’s hard for me to believe that just over three months ago I did my first triathlon, when I compare how that first one went and this one. While that other one wasn’t awful, it was much different than I had expected. This one, by contrast, was even more awesome than I had expected.

Here I am. Lisa got up very, very early with me to get there very, very early. She’s a peach.


Since the previous triathlon—where I swam a quarter-mile in 12:30—I’ve really worked at improving my open-water swimming skills. It occurred to me this morning while waiting for the start that I probably should have signed up as a normal “age grouper” instead of as a newbie. But I signed up back in the day when I wasn’t quite so comfortable, and what’s done is done. The swim was actually quite good: 17:00-or-so for a half-mile. Well, okay . . . it was difficult. Unlike my open-water swim practice, the water this morning was rather choppy. Was that because of the breeze over the lake or the dozens of other swimmers around me? At any rate, it was difficult because I still need better technique to go with the confidence and speed that I’ve been developing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed catching swimmers who started five, ten, and even fifteen minutes before me.

After my good-enough swim there was the first of the two parts I was actually dreading: transition. I actually contemplated calling this post “Lost in Transition,” but I didn’t want you to think (incorrectly) that I was displeased with my race before you even got to the first paragraph. My transition times—well, there’s nothing to do but be blunt—sucked. Somewhere between flopping about in the shallow water while taking off my wetsuit, actually getting lost on the way back to my bike, having trouble with my blood glucose meter, and trying to put on my shoes without getting sand in my socks, I frittered away about seven or eight minutes of time to everyone else’s three or four. Clearly, that’s something to work on.

The bike was really good. Like last time, I did all of the passing. (Well, technically I did get passed by two riders who were drafting off each other, but they turned left when the course turned right, so I say that doesn’t count.) The course was quite flat, and I was hoping to average around 20 mph. With the roads wet from the light drizzle that had been falling all morning, I was very happy with the fact that I almost made it.

And finally, the run. Unlike my first tri, I wasn’t coming off training for a half-marathon. In fact, I had kinda let my running slip a bit over the last couple months, and I was starting to notice it in the trouble I’d had hitting my times during my quality workouts. Plus, I had also been cramping a bit at the end of a couple swims, which I chalked up to the fact that the back of my body from my lower-back to my calves had been really tight the last week, almost to the point of pain a couple days. So I was a little nervous about pushing a hard run after an hour of swimming and biking, but it went well. I never really get the typical “brick” legs after switching from the bike to the run (*touch wood*) and today they felt good, too. My goal was to find a mildly uncomfortable pace and go with that; which I did. 7:53/mile isn’t much to write home about, but it was good enough today.

So there we have it. Swim=good. Bike=good. Run=good. Transitions=room for improvement. I’m digging this whole triathlon thing, and I want to do more of it. I have thoughts about where I want to go with it, but I’m keeping my cards close to my vest because I don’t know how much time I can actually devote and how I can balance it with everything else in my life. We’ll see.

Of course, there’s still that issue of diabetes. I had hoped that I could cobble together the things that were individually working for me in the morning. The swim that starts near 150 mg/dL and ends at 100. The bike ride that starts at 120 and ends in the same vicinity. And the run that starts at 150 and ends slightly higher. But enough was different that when I started around 150 before the swim, I ended it near 350. Ugh. And then I went up a bit more during the bike. As a result, my ability to take on extra carbs was severely limited, so I pretty much did the whole tri after only eating a pre-swim granola bar and a banana. Next time. Next time.

And there will be a next time, because I feel like I can keep getting better, and I’m having a lot of fun.

Posted in Cycling, Diabetes, Reluctant Triathlete, Running, Swimming | 5 Comments