It's All Systems Go

As we prepare for the One Drop Caicos Adventure in June 2017, we are doing a ton of training. These training diaries are stories from the field and things I have learned from my time in training.

With just under two weeks left until we take off for our One Drop Caicos adventure, I had just one more system to test out. I have spent the last six months training my body to handle to long miles on a stand up paddleboard and in the pool and on foot and on my cruiser. Now I just had to make sure that all of my gear could handle going from a swim to a hike and then back to a swim.

I knew my body could handle the two disciplines but hiking in dry clothes can be very different than hiking in wet clothes for that precious skin that tends to get chaffed.

Once at the pool I laid out my gear for the hike It reminded me of setting up my transition area in my triathlon days, except for the fact that I would be strapping on a twenty pound backpack after I got out of the water.

The first hundred yards in the pool I was cursing myself for not training in the pool more during the spring. My arms were tight and burning and it felt like every stroke I was pulling my body through caramel.

But by the end of the 400 meters I had loosened up enough to regain my confidence. I jumped out of the pool and rolled on my socks from the toes, an old trick from my triathlon days to avoid pulling sticky socks over wet feet, and threw on my Lalo Tactical shoes.

I had no doubt that these shoes could handle the water. They were made for Navy Seals going through BUDS training where they stay wet for days on end. They never get soaked and stay light even if they’ve been through a bucket of water.

A quick check of my sugars. 106. Perfect. Now for a quick two-mile hike.

What I failed to realize in my planning was that the pool is at the bottom of a valley. So any direction I walked it would be straight up hill. And I suck at hiking uphill.

But the workout had to be done. i had to know whether my gear would work.

My drybag held up perfectly; stable and comfortable but I will need to wear a shirt instead of a tanktop. The straps hit right at the front of my arms as I swing them and after 15 miles that skin would be rubbed raw.

At the top of the hill, I started to slow a bit. Walking all of a sudden felt harder than usual. i had doubts whether I could finish the last downhill mile.

When thoughts like those come, it usually means I am low.

Another check to confirm. 75.

A vanilla Gu energy gel fixed me right up and I was on my way again.

The best part about hiking straight uphill on the outward bound part of a hike is that the second half is a pleasurable downhill and a great view.

Once at the pool again, I jumped in for a final four hundred meters. I was most concerned with calf cramps from the warm water.

A few years back I did a reverse triathlon where you run first, then bike, and then swim. And it was a total cramp fest.

Most of that was my fault. I spent the night before in a bar with Tony and Michelle who were racing the next morning and downed about half a dozen diet sodas, which started the massive dehydration cycle I was on. A bent site overnight added to it.

The morning of the race my kids did their first (and only) triathlon, which meant I was in Mommy-Mode, focused on them instead of myself. I hadn’t noticed that I was riding the 400’s all morning.

By the time my race started, I was massively dehydrated and, of course, undertrained. The cramps started during the run and progressed during the bike, but I managed to keep my feet moving and just dealt with the pain.

But once I dove into the 85-degree water they seized up like never before. Pain was at a 10 immediately. I had to jump out of the pool to try to work them out before finishing. I think the pain left a lasting impression on my brain. It is for sure something I want to avoid feeling again.

But this time, I had hydrated, watched my sugars and felt no cramps. if anything it felt good to kick my feet and give my calves a chance to stretch out after the uphill hike.

The nine swims between each cay are now something that I am most looking forward to.

I finished the workout at a terrific 115. For my last major training session before i leave, it couldn’t have gone any better. I am now confident in my training, confident in my gear, and so ready to get out there and enjoy every second of this trip.

A Full Adventure in Just a Weekend

As we prepare for the One Drop Caicos Adventure in June 2017, we are doing a ton of training. These training diaries are stories from the field and things I have learned from my time in training.

Not every adventure needs to be a week-long out of the country type of adventure. You can fit an entire adventure in the span of a weekend.

My friend Michelle and I just finished an 80-mile bike ride that has been on our Someday-I-Will list for some time now. It was a good chance for me to evaluate my bike training for the upcoming One Drop Caicos trip.

Saturday morning we loaded up our gear and took the first train from Oceanside to Los Angeles, the subway another few blocks, and then the streetcar all the way to the Santa Monica Pier. At one point we had contemplated taking the bus another few blocks just so we could say we took every form of public transportation available in So Cal.

Sitting for so long that early in the morning meant my blood sugars were a bit higher than I wanted at 238, but, knowing I was going to hop on a bike soon, I didn’t want to overcorrect. I ate a granola bar and corrected for my high with half of my normal dose.

When we jumped on the streetcar, we cut back our basal to about 75% of normal in preparation for the increased activity. But I didn’t realize that it was about an hour ride to the start. I like to cut back my basal about twenty to thirty minutes before I workout. too soon and my sugars begin to rise, especially when they were already a little higher than I would like.

We hopped on our bikes and started off along the bike path that runs through the sand. With the sun blazing, the beach was slammed which meant we did more dodging beachgoers than peddling. But eventually the crowds thinned and we settled into the forty miles that lay ahead.

We stopped every hour to check our blood sugars and get a snack. We both ran in the 200’s for most of the morning, slowly coming down as the hours passed. It’s no fun to be low while in the

middle of a ride, so the high 100’s are acceptable on an endurance day.

The first real stop of the day, besides the numerous piers we would pass, was my grandma’s house in Palos Verdes, which happened to be right along our path. It was also one of the bigger climbs of the day.

After we stopped there, and got a little lost, it was a quick downhill to our lunch stop of the day. It felt great to clip out of my pedals and get some real food in my belly. The free ice and water made for a great refill station also, even if I did fill up all of my bottles with soda water by accident. One taste of that and I knew the error of my ways.

By lunch Michelle had drifted down to the high 100’s. I on the other hand jumped to nearly 300. I had been sipping Gu Roctane, a carbohydrate drink, and eating at least 200 calories every hour without bolusing for them.

The system I was running clearly wasn’t working. I turned my basal back up to 100% to cover the Roctane I was sipping and began to bolus at 50% of my normal rate. This began to get me back into good shape with blood sugars without going too low.

With half of our day over, we started the part of the trip that I was most concerned with. Most of our ride was along bike paths in very nice neighborhoods. The next ten miles were through neighborhoods I wasn’t as comfortable in. not to mention the sidewalks that hadn’t been repaired since they were laid forty years ago and the complete lack of a bike lane.

It was rough going for a good hour, dodging sidewalk gaps, constant driveway bumps, and the strange looks from the pedestrians in the area. Michelle barely avoided being mowed down by a car coming out of a driveway without looking.

The end of the neighborhood was marked by three bridges, over two rivers and a freeway. Right as we were coming down the last of the three bridges into Long Beach, my back tire started handling a little differently. I coasted to the bottom of the hill and across the street to an island in the middle of the intersection.

That was where I figured out I had a flat. I was so thankful to be in an area I felt safe in to change it out, too. I have never had a flat before while I was riding and it felt like a rite of passage for me to be able to switch out my tube with no problems while stranded on an island in the middle of an intersection.

It was also a good time to see how the new insulin regimen was taking shape. It had been an hour since lunch and I was beginning to see results. As we made our way through Long Beach, my blood sugars made their way into the 200’s and then down into the 100’s.

We sputtered into Seal Beach and drifted up the driveway at my parents’ house, our home for the night. We collapsed on the front porch for a good twenty minutes, too tired to even ring the doorbell. When we gathered our strength to open the door, we were greeted by my dad who always looks at me limping in the door and asks, “Erin, why do you do this to yourself?”

After showers and some couch time, we walked in to town to grab a bite and to shake the lactic acid out of our legs. Plus walking through a town is always the best way to get to know it, and Michelle has never had a chance to get to know Seal Beach.

I hit my first low right before our food arrived which made it taste even better. After we ate we walked down to the pier for our fifth or maybe sixth pier of the day. I didn’t bother bolusing for my meal knowing I would burn through the carbs right away.

When we got home, I reduced my overnight Levemir by 20% and sank into bed. A few brief lows and a lot of calf pain made it hard to sleep, but by morning the adrenaline kicked in and I was up and ready to go before my alarm even went off.

The second day from Seal beach to San Clemente would be another 40 miles and a lot of hills through Laguna Beach, right towards the last bit of our ride. And this time I had a much better diabetes plan.

I kept my basal normal and made sure to sip on Roctane. I covered each snack with half a normal bolus. And the day couldn’t have gone any better. I stayed between 80 and 150 the whole day. i rarely have days like that when I’m not doing long periods of exercise. it was great having those numbers while riding. I felt so much stronger and better hydrated.

A lunch stop marked the halfway point. After pouring out all of our diabetes supplies on the table we barely had room for the food. After a quick refill of ice-cold water, we were off again to conquer the Laguna Hills. There were three big climbs after a ton of little climbs and they looked pretty intimidating on the map.

After we would get to the top of a hill I would say, “Michelle, I think that was the first big hill.”

She would always come back with, “Naw. I don’t think so. The hill is going to be twice as high.” Then the next hill would come and I was convinced it was the big one. She was just as convinced it wasn’t.

We were pulling out Google maps and comparing it to the elevation profile we had, but we couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Until we came to the top of a hill and I declared that had to be the big hill. Now we only had two more to go.

But I was wrong.

Wrong in such a delightful way. The biggest of hills that I was sure was the first of three was really the final hill. All that worrying and fretting and the hills turned out to be totally manageable.

And over.

With the big hills behind us and a terrific decline down to sea level ahead, we picked up the speed and soaked in the view of the Pacific. Live music from a festival at Doheny Beach set the backdrop to our mini celebration. After hours of not knowing if we were going to make it or if we would wuss out and take the bus to the train station, we had made it.

Now we just had to make the next train or risk having to wait an extra two hours to take the next one.

With three miles to go and just twelve minutes to the next train we turned up the speed as fast as we could go after tackling 77 miles over the previous two days. And I was surprised to find I still had some gas left in the tank. We flew for three miles at our top speed, which for us, sadly to say, really isn’t all that fast. We pulled into the station just in time to realize I had the train timetables wrong and we really had a good twenty minutes to spare.

We were entertained while we waited by a helicopter flying over San Clemente beach shutting it down for yet another shark sighting, and by trying to clean up as best we could so as not to offend our fellow passengers by our stench.

When the train came we collapsed into our seats with a view of the Pacific as we made our way back home celebrating the fact that we had once again conquered what we weren’t quite sure we could.

And I think that’s the best way to pick an adventure. It has to be big enough that you doubt at times whether or not you will make it. It is that doubt that drives you to train consistently and to prepare fully. And it is that doubt that makes the victory that much sweeter when you finally realize along with Winnie the Pooh that, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

The Last Big One

As we prepare for the One Drop Caicos Adventure in June 2017, we are doing a ton of training. These training diaries are stories from the field and things I have learned from my time in training.

Yesterday marked a huge moment in training for a trip like the One Drop Caicos Adventure. It was my last and longest paddle until I take off.

Training for a trip like this usually takes six or more months and starts with shorter training sessions in each discipline. My paddle started at 90 minutes back in January.

As the months go by those workouts get longer and longer. Yesterday’s paddle was nearly 4 hours.

After this week I have two weeks of reduced training and giving my body a chance to rest and get ready for four days or grueling adventure. And, thank God, I feel like I finally got my diabetes procedures figured out for the paddle.

I always start with a test an hour before a paddle. That way if I am too high or too low, I have time to get it under control before I get on the water. I was a little high at 238. After learning from my last paddle, I corrected the full amount and drove to the lagoon.

This was what we call a shake down cruise. That means I tried out all of my gear the way I would in Turks and Caicos. I must have looked a little crazy paddling around with a full set of gear on the front of my board while paddling around a lagoon that is not even a mile long.

But I needed to make sure the new tie down straps I just installed would hold and that I could adjust my stance to balance out the weight.

Every ninety minutes, I stopped to get a small snack of about 15 grams of carbs. I was hovering around 150 so I didn’t bolus for the food. No one wants to fight a low while on a long paddle.

I also sipped on some grape Gu Roctane Energy Drink Mix during the paddle and the balance was working out perfectly.

Even though the diabetes part of my paddle was on point, the whole paddle was

just a little lonely and sad. Maybe I’m just a wimp when it comes to the weather, but it was dreary and overcast, cold and windy.

And being out alone on the water for four hours can make even the toughest of people a little weak in spirit.

All I could do was remind myself of the sundrenched, crystal-clear waters that we will be paddling over for two amazing days and be grateful that I won’t be taking on this trip alone.

There is nothing better than a few friends to cheer you up when you get to that low point during a long trip.

With that last long workout done, all that is left is to get to packing and make sure I don’t let the nerves get to be in the coming weeks. SaveSaveSave