Alpe D'Huez

It's taken me this long to return to racing, even though I was only doing this one for the fun of participating. The Alpe D'Huez is one of the most famous and celebrated Tour de France climbs. I raced the short course (1200m swim, 30k cycle, 7k run) expecting to do ok despite my lower training load this year, but really just wanted to finish and enjoy being able to compete.

Then diabetes happened. This is the email I sent my parents in the after race.

Hi, just checking in.


I've never had worse diabetic conditions than I did today. I broke the Mr Bean record*.


Spent the whole morning with meter reading "hi"**. The adrenalin of the whole thing was inhibiting my insulin. Tested 45mins before race still "hi". Swam slowly, rode the downhill section into a headwind. Bsl still felt high. In fact it still felt high at the first aid station.


Somewhere between the two stations I slowed so much my garmin didn't think I was moving and the two ppl I had been slowly moving away from blew past me. I started seeing stars and half my vision was going black like I'd been staring into the sun for a few seconds, but I was still hesitant to drink my sugar drink because my blood still felt high. After about a k I gave it a shot and it tasted so good that I drank it all within 200m. Another k up the road I was still in hell and pulled up beside a Marshall to pull out given there was still 10k to go and I had no more sugar til the next aid station. At the same moment I unclipped, a lady passed out back down the climb, so off went the Marshall and the closest ambulance. 

Working on my tan

I only added this photo for the scenery

I was fucked. I sat there and realised after a few minutes that the soonest chance I had of getting more sugar was riding up myself. So on I went.

Station to station took me 40mins of garmin time (it paused for my break and whenever I was going especially slowly, so would have been another 10mins). That's roughly 50mins for 5k - walking pace. 


Two drinks of about 300mls of Powebar's sports drink and a powerbar taken through the second aid station and possibly a gel (I honestly can't remember) before I started to feel a little better and confident that I could get to the top. 


Sugar bursts were fun. At one stage I got into the big chain ring and booted it up to 35kph going at about 6% gradient. To answer your question, you try making rational decisions, or decisions at all with no sugar going to your brain. I guess you just going into a default mode and do everything by that, mine was "I'm racing a triathlon, go as fast as possible!"


Had blown completely again by the top of the climb, but this time there were occasional flat sections where I was just destroying everyone around me only for them to pass me as I looked like I was practicing track stands every time the road went above 5%.

Heading out transition hugging a PowerGel. 

Walked through all of the aid stations on the run, but was still blowing everyone away. Was having a good run probably close to 4min k's until the downhill. Cramped in both hammy's. Couldn't run downhill without them cramping. The last third of the course is downhill. Stopped for maybe 5-10mins waiting for them to release and then walked until the last 400m of flat.

Perhaps if I'd have removed the watermark, I'd have been more aero...

Literally couldn't have done anymore than I did. But sitting there with half of Alpe D'Huez to go, no sugar left and close to passing out was the worst it's ever been. I checked my legs, neither of them were broken***, so kept going. Now I just have to wait for my organs to start functioning properly again****. I only hope I can use that fight to race harder and faster in future.

You wouldn't know it but I was trying to run as slowly as possible and still dropping these dudes. Then they all dropped me on the downhill!

Otherwise I'm well. I seem to have it under control, but I can't even begin to tell you how much coke, gels, Powebars or sports drinks I've had today, but it would have been more calories than any Christmas we've ever had!*****

* The Mr Bean Record was my previous worst low blood sugar. When I was 12 or so I was watching the Mr Bean movie not noticing my sugar level dip ridiculously low. By the time we'd noticed, mum had to basically yell at me to keep eating and drinking or I'd forget what I was supposed to do.

** When your Blood Sugar is so high that the meter couldn't even bother giving it a score, it reads "hi"

*** My father used to tell my brother and I when we were playing rugby as kids that we weren't to come off the field or go down claiming injury unless our leg was broken.

**** One of the tough things I find about racing and training is that sometimes straight after a race, my organs just seem to shut down a bit. They stop processing waste which make glucose control almost impossible. My only way to prevent it is to stay on the move and keep the blood flowing.

***** As a young child I was only allowed junk food on my birthday, easter and christmas as a result of diabetes. Naturally, I would gorge myself to make up for the other 362 days of the year I had missed out.

With my return to Australia in only a couple of months, I hope to get a few more blogs in to wrap up my time here. Once back in Aus I endeavour to focus purely on the triathlon side of things, mixing it up with the diabetic things I go through.