Collin's story

My diagnosis was a challenging time, mostly for my family. Fortunately for me, I was excited to play with all of the fancy new medical equipment!  I was even proud to show off all of my medical gadgets to my friends.  At the time, I was very involved in activities such as ice hockey, boy scouts, water skiing, and snow skiing.  As an 11-year-old boy, such a complex condition was certainly something significant to acclimate to living with.  Luckily, that did not deter my parents from encouraging me to return to my normal activities as soon as I got a handle on my condition.

To this day, my active mindset really helps me manage my diabetes and maintain a healthy body.  This especially rings true in my sporting activities.  Although type 1 diabetes adds an extra challenge to my training and racing, I certainly don’t view it as a limiting factor. It is simply another parameter that I need to closely monitor.  As competitive cyclists, we closely watch metrics such as heart rate, power, speed, distance, and perceived exertion every time we train and race. You see throughout the cycling world how excited people get when a new data measurement device hits the market to help track training and racing. So I simply see the metrics that I track with my diabetes as just one more thing on that list of parameters to measure and monitor.

I take pride in showing my fellow diabetics and cyclists that my diabetes doesn’t limit what I can accomplish in cycling and in life.  Diabetes certainly does not define me, but is a vessel through which I can conquer life’s biggest challenges.  We are fortunate to live in a time where, with the proper attitude and outlook, type 1 diabetes does not need to limit what we can accomplish!

 Collin Drake