HISTORY

Chapter 1

Click image below to read article about Triabetes at the 2008 Ironman Wisconsin.

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Chapter 2

2009 Ironman Arizona

Who starts a 140.6-mile race with just Diet Coke and half a banana in her stomach? Denise Ricci. At 4:00 AM on the morning of Ironman Arizona she had no choice.

Ricci left her ritual breakfast of bagel, banana and Boost protein drink on the kitchen counter, walked across the dark driveway and got into the truck in the desert. She has Type 1 Diabetes. She woke up that morning with a blood sugar of 430 milligrams/deciliter. The normal range for non-diabetics is 80-110. Her insulin pump, which infuses a carefully determined amount of the hormone overnight through a canula inserted under her skin, had come detached.

She spent eight hours without insulin entering her body to stabilize the uptake of glucose. Without insulin, the glucose in the bloodstream is not transported into the cells for energy. Prolonged elevated blood sugar, results in devastating damage to eyes, heart, kidneys, nerves and blood vessels everywhere. In the short term, high blood sugars make muscles stiff and dehydrate the body – the last thing she needed when her mission was to race longer than most people could if their life depended on it.

Ricci was not the only person managing the Ironman with a useless pancreas that day. She was one of a fifteen-person team that started in the water at sunrise in Tempe. The Ironman distance is considered by many to be one of the most extreme tests of physical endurance. Race participants have 17 hours to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run a full marathon (26.2 miles.) The months, and in most cases years of training for a race like this are incredibly challenging, even for someone without diabetes.

Type 1 diabetics have won Olympic gold medals, completed Ironman races in less than nine hours and successfully climbed Everest. It is widely known that exercise is a crucial component to controlling diabetes. Yet, newly diagnosed patients are often discouraged from continuing activities they’ve done their whole lives.

“Just a few years ago, the thought of doing any kind of race, whether running, cycling or anything seemed too ambitions for me. I was fine sitting in front of the TV watching re-runs of Seinfeld every night,” says Triabetes team member Kevin Burgess.

“Once I got together with the team, and we all signed up, this barrier inevitably broke.”  Burgess was astonished when he first read a Triabetes teammate’s Ironman training plan, but soon he too was on a training plan that had him working out for multiple hours every day.

The program founder, Peter, Nerothin envisioned the Triabuddies program closing this gap. Thirteen kids with Type 1 were chosen from across the nation. Months before Ironman Arizona they were paired up with one of the Triabetes athletes and were in contact via phone, e-mail and some in-person visits. Prior to arriving in Tempe to watch the race, the kids completed a four-day sailing trip in the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. Each day of the trip they managed their own insulin delivery with advice from expedition leaders.

Emmy Award winning production company, Andiamo Productions, followed the Triabetes team through their year of training for Ironman Wisconsin in 2008. The executive producer, editor and videographer, all have young children with diabetes. The documentary, made as a legacy to these kids, premiered on Saturday before the Sunday Ironman in Tempe.

“Sometimes having diabetes really sucks,” said ten-year-old Ryan Maloney in his speech onstage at the premier of the documentary. Ryan is an alumni of last year’s Triabuddies program and has since been speaking about his experience in front of his peers and at large, diabetes related events.

Having diabetes may suck, but Ryan showed that it hasn’t stopped him from doing anything. He announced that he will race a half marathon with his Triabetes athlete-mentor, Steve Parker. The two crossed the Ironman finish line holding hands in 2008, and plan to do all 13.1 miles together in Carlsbad, California in February.

Watching the documentary reminded returning team member Anne Findlay of a special bond she feels with the people related to diabetes.

“A little bit of magic happens when there are others around you that know what it is like to be 53 and suffering during a marathon, or going strong at 140 on the bike,” said Findlay.

This magic followed and pushed Ricci the whole race in Tempe. She took insulin to bring her blood sugar down from the 430 she woke up with. After thirty minutes she tested again it was 410. The insulin did not bring it down as much as she thought it would. She blamed adrenaline, which makes you more resistant to insulin, and is naturally higher on race day than during training. This makes race day bloodsugars more unpredictable. She took more insulin. Her blood sugar stayed high. Unsure whether the pump was delivering properly, she used a needle to deliver some insulin at the start. Then she dove into the 60 degree water in Tempe Town Lake.

After the swim Ricci was still high. Her infusion cite canula was kinked. Nothing was getting through. She had only received the two units of insulin via injection on the start line. She was nauseated, her body telling her not to eat anything, starved instead for insulin.

She stopped on the side of the bike course. Triabetes team member Bill Carlson rides up and sees her looking panicky. He stops and gives her a syringe with 15 units in it from his personal stash. Carlson was the first Type 1 diabetic ever to complete an Ironman.

“Bill is fast and he slows for me, he is my superhero,” said Ricci reflecting on the race.

At mile 56 on the bike, her blood sugar had come down. She was able to eat a little bit. Nutrition is incredibly important during a race like this.

“This is where having diabetes does suck, not a moment goes by that you don’t have to calculate the after effect,” she remembers thinking. She had a frozen Snickers in her bag at the turnaround, but she decide her blood sugar wasn’t low enough to eat it.

“I was still nauseous anyway, but just throwing away a Snickers, is so wrong.”

At the final turn around on the bike, Ricci’s Triabuddy Delaney was there. The two use the same kind of insulin pump and Delany had an extra infusion site. She helped Ricci insert it into her abdomen.

“How cool is that, this great twelve-year-old is able to help me,” Ricci reflected later. “My people saved me. Any other race there would not have been tons of diabetics out racing on the course.”

Ricci credits Triabetes with changing her life, because it changed the way she manages her diabetes.

“I no longer see renal patients in the hospital and think I might be one of them someday. I now have the tools to avoid all the complications of diabetes.”

“Some races are about shooting for a new personal record or placing well, others are about making it to the starting line and doing one’s best to finish,” said Findlay, before the race. “This race would be the later.”

Findlay has been on the other end before, but she spent most of 2009 recovering from a high speed cycling crash where she broke her collarbone and several ribs. She has a nagging IT band injury and hasn’t been able to train as much as she normally would have, thus making the marathon extra daunting.

“While some pain is expected in an Ironman, I am hoping I can know the line between enduring to the finish and risking permanent harm.”

Throughout her recovery and training, Anne found incredible inspiration in her Triabuddy Elisa Ibsen.

“I’m not sure who is inspiring whom,” says Findlay about the Triabuddies program. “I can say with certainty that I would not be pulling on my wetsuit without Elisa’s implicit support.”

Although she feels that Elisa already grasps that diabetes doesn’t have to stop her from living her dreams, Findlay hopes to be a positive influence Elisa will think about if she ever wonders if diabetes might be a reason to let a goal slip away.

Race day, Findlay’s IT band did not let her off easily. She started walking in different parts to stretch it, worried it would prevent her from finishing.

“I felt that I could maintain a pace where the pain was tolerable, although I was limping along for about 18 miles,” she said after. “When I started my third lap I thought I might cry from the discouragement.”

The run course consisted of three long loops. Athletes ran through the crowds near the transition area and finish line and were forced to turn away from it all – twice – to the lonely section of roads and hills, harder for spectators to get to and dark for all but the very fastest professionals who beat the sunset.

Fourteen of the fifteen Triabetes athletes completed the race. All ran down to the chute each getting 100 meters of high-fives from the hands reaching out to them from the crowd.

One year ago Ricci had poor control of her diabetes. But in Arizona, despite the fluctuating blood sugars during the first half of the race and malfunctioning insulin pump she crossed, as an Ironman, with a perfect blood sugar of 92.

“I think it was just a reminder from up above that even though this race is over, I need the diabetic community in my life. They are my people and always will be,” she said.

“I can’t imagine winning the gold medal at the Olympics feeling any better than this,” said Findlay.

Tribetes IMAZ CDres

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Chapter 3

Follow the Triabetes Media Project for an inside look at the Ironman Saint George team.