My T2 friend and I have signed up for a Tour de Cure 100-mile ride in Coralville, Iowa this June. It’s going to take 18 weeks of training, along with some careful calculation of insulin, to make sure we make it to the finish line.

Starting in a few weeks, we will begin to ride for 2 hour chunks, and then stretch it out from there. The goal is to handle a 7-hour journey while biking 12 to 15 miles per hour. To survive such a long haul, endurance athletes must find the balance of food intake to keep from crashing from either too many calories or too few. A T1 athlete has to take that one step further by determining how to dial in the insulin to cover the added carbs. It’s a lot to juggle!