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| Entry for February 07, 2010 |
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| Help support Alex's efforts |
| Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation |
| Send Alex an email |
| Click Business Cards |
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| Some travel stories |
| Facebook group Marathon des Sables (requires a Facebook logon) |
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| Facebook group Jelly Baby Campaign |
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| Fundraising permission letter |
| Sun Valley True Fruit (fruit strips) |
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| With less than 8 weeks to go until the event, I think / hope / believe I am as prepared physically as I'll ever be. There was nothing new today on the physical side. Everything works well and I feel like I'm walking in a high key of C. Bit by bit I'm replacing the old stuff with new. I've already replaced the backpack, as you know, and the boots. Now I've got new clothes and today was the first tryout for them. They seem to be good, with the only question in my mind being whether the shirt is OK for the heat. It is very light and rated at 30+ for the sun protection, but it was as wet as if I'd gone swimming in it when I got home today, so maybe it's not good for the heat and sweating. I'll have to judge next weekend at Wilsons Prom. This week I'll start using the new knee supports, to make sure they are run-in before the event. Everything else is OK and event ready. The last big thing for me to do is to do a big marketing campaign on the Facebook group to try to raise money for JDRF. Also I need to get people revved up so they follow me on the web site as I do the event. That'll happen over the next few weeks. Finally, I'm meeting with a journalist from one of the major newspapers tomorrow. I hope I can convince him that I'm worth a story. Cross your fingers for me. 28km - 5 hours and 50 minutes |
| Newspaper articles |
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| Entry for February 13, 2010 |
| Wilsons Prom. This is possibly the last Wilsons Prom walk, although there is time for one more if I decide to do it. This walk went very well, with me getting back to the tent by 11:30pm. There were no major dramas, with the biggest aspect of this walk being the $%^&* weather. The first 3 hours was nothing but rain, and the rest of the day was overcast, dull and threatening rain for most of the time. I spent the whole day wet, sloshing along in my used-to-be new boots. The people down at The Prom have got to know me now and I'm on first names terms with some of them. It has been a great experience just doing these walks, so maybe I'll continue these after I've finished with The Sahara. I've turned the walk into an adventure page which you can find here. The other piece of news is that had a newspaper article published in The Age yesterday. Saturday's Age is the most read of this large daily newspaper, and the article was on page 8 of the first section, so it should attract a little bit of interest. You can see the article here. Hopefully I'm starting to make some inroads into getting the story heard. |
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| Entry for February 19, 2010 |
| I have chosen not to walk this weekend. I've reached the pinnacle of my physical readiness, so I can back off a little now, with only 6 weeks to go. I will definitely walk next weekend and am still doing the morning walks on the way to work. I need to spend a bit of time with Donna. It's been a busy week. The article in the Age last Saturday, which I thought was excellent, has led to a couple of other things. This week I have had a telephone radio interview on a commercial radio station, which went quite well, even if only for 3 or 4 minutes. Also, leading directly on from the newspaper article, I had a very good telephone radio interview on an ABC station. That went very well. The lady was a very good interviewer and the interview went for about 7 or 8 minutes. leading on from that was a call from a listener who most impressed and now wants me to be a guest speaker at a local Rotary Club meeting. Yesterday there was a photoshoot with a local newspaper yesterday, which I believe went well. I am yet to get a call from the reporter, but that should happen early next week. Finally just today, a representative from a large, international software company said that he's sure they can do something to support me. That is yet to produce fruit, but it is definitely hopeful. |
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| Feb / Mar 2010 |
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| Entry for February 27, 2010 |
| Today was probably the second last "normal" training walk before I go. There is just so little time recently to scratch ourselves. Today's walk was good. 25km in precisely the time expected with no surprises at all. My main focus today was on fine-tuning the taping of my back to alleviate the damage that can be caused by the backpack rubbing in the wrong places. It all went well and there was no damage at the end. Next week is the last Wilsons Prom. I'll do another post before then, but I hope you find the time to keep track of where I am. The link is at the top of this page. Two newspaper interviews will be published next week. The company I work for has done an item for our staff magazine (30,000 staff), which will be published while I'm doing the walk in April. Plus there has been interest shown by a local diabetes magazine, to do an article after I get back. Plus there are a couple of TV shows saying they're interested in doing something after I get back. So there's lots happening. |
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| Entry for March 01, 2010 |
| Today I received a letter from Mary Tyler Moore, yes "the" Mary Tyler Moore, giving me encouragement for my walk. I am very grateful and thankful that Ms Moore could take the time to send me this letter. You can see the letter here. |
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| Bridget McNulty - Type 1 and travelling the world |
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| Entry for March 07, 2010 |
| The last Wilsons Prom walk is now complete. And I reckon this may have been the best one yet. No, I didn't do it in the fastest time. No, the weather wasn't perfect. But with a number of things getting in the way to make it tougher than it could have been, I'm home and I feel good. I finished in 17 hours and 20 minutes which, if you want to get pedantic, is 10 minutes off the standard time. But I don't really care about that. It's the fact that I feel as good as I do now that is more important to me. As it is a long weekend here, there were many more people on the track this time than normal. I got talking to many of them and they were all astounded by what I'm doing in 4 weeks. I think I may have even inspired one fellow to do the event himself in 2 years. One fellow, after I told what I was training for, asked me if I was the person in the newspaper article a few weeks ago. :-)) When I got to Halfway Hut, expecting to be empty as normal so I could cook my freeze dried dinner in peace, find instead that there were 10 people and their backpacks squeezed into an area not much bigger than our laundry at home. There was a little rain, so everybody was in there cooking their dinner. I managed to squeeze in and find a corner to do the same. For the next hour they were asking me questions about the event and my training. They were quite amazed when I pulled out my injection pens and had an injection. One lady seemed to be very knowledgable about diabetes and health in general (nurse? doctor?), so she was asking me a lot of pointed questions, to see if I gave the right answer. I think she was satisfied that it's not likely I'm going to die. The final funny thing happened at Oberon Bay, where the 2nd potential wet crossing at high tide is. I got there just after dark and found that it was not high tide, but still a wet crossing regardless. As this was my final Wilsons Prom walk and I was now looking forward to getting back so I could sleep, I quickly judged the depth and distance and then (thanks Robin) just stepped quickly through in my boots. I just didn't want the hassle of taking them off and putting them on. And guess what!? Everything was fine and my feet stayed dry. So a great final Wilsons Prom and I'm ready for the big one in 4 weeks. At least I hope I am. |
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| Entry for March 14, 2010 |
| With less than 2 weeks to go until I fly out, and exactly 3 weeks to go until the start of the event, I'm heavily into the fine tuning of plans and travel details. There are still some practical things I have to do, such as ensuring I have every piece of food I require and that it is all packed correctly in the backpack. I do the final pack of the backpack here at home and won't touch it again until I get to checkin day in The Sahara desert in 3 weeks. I have only one slight detail of my preparation that is not yet complete, and that is my new requirement for a support for my right ankle. I've noticed on the last 3 Wilsons Prom walks that my right ankle has a slight strain in the ligament or muscle on the inside, going up my leg. So I've decided to get a simple support to try to reduce the risk of a debillitating injury during the event. Tonight I'm going to see how many of the various food items I have to buy. I have a list detailing how many I require, so I need to start that process. I'll start the packing of the backpack during the week. I'm a bit concerned about how much over-weight I'm going to be for the plane and how much it will cost in excess baggage. Also, I hope my travel bags are big enough to squeeze in every I need to take. Wish me luck. |
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| Entry for March 26, 2010 |
| Finally, after 2 years of planning, organising, worrying, training and very hard work, it is now the night before I leave. Looking back, it is funny to think how innocent and naive I was back when I got home from work and told my wife that I wanted to walk across the Sahara. Not only did I not know anything about extreme adventure events, but I had a lot to learn about managing diabetes under extreme conditions. I will never call myself an expert, but I certainly know a lot more now about a lot of subjects compared to back then. I now know that there are only 4 types of food that contain energy, aka "calories". I now know that there is a direct correlation between the type of exercise and the weight being carried, and the number of calories required per hour. I also now know the beauties and the joy of sports tape, why we use it and how to do it (on my feet, anyway). I also now know what it means to "pack light". In 8 days from now I will put 104 weeks of intensely hard work into practice. Let's just hope that I have thought of everything, practised everything, worked out routines to get me through the many hurdles I will face. Because if I haven't, I run a very real risk of dying in the Sahara desert. That is not my intention so I hope I've done enough work. Living with type 1 diabetes is hard work. So at least I've had practice at that. Talk again in 2 weeks. |
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| Entry for April 28, 2010 |
| I know it's been over a month since the last update, but a lot has happened that kept me from the computer. I'll give the executive summary here and provide a longer, more detailed story at a later date. I got to the Sahara as planned. That was an endurance event in itself. Sadly, I needed to pull out of the event just before check point 3 on day 3, but it wasn't the sugar that stopped me. The two years of hard work training for the Marathon des Sables meant that I was physically ready for the marathon. That wasn't the problem. It also meant that my food was OK and I didn't have any problems with my sugar or the diabetes. The way I managed my insulin and food routine worked well. The gear that I had chosen through the training worked well. I discovered that I didn't need to take a stove, so that was a learning, but all together my gear was close to correct. No, the learning was mainly to do with the salt / rehydration - call it what you will. It was a severe lack of salt / electrolytes on day 3 that stopped me. By then I had suffered 3 episodes of low electrolytes and was facing the long stage the next day. When the doctors came along in their 4WD with me feeling like an empty sack of skin, I knew it was time to call it quits. I was actually frightened by what could happen the next day. So I had to give up after covering almost 94km over 3 days. There were some interesting facts that came out of my 3 days. The temperature reached 50C on day #2 and supposedly 56C on day #3. I heard a number of people saying that this was one of the hottest and toughest starts to the race in it's history. On day #2 I passed a fellow, as I climbed up a diablical hill of rock and sand, who was being attended to by 2 medical staff. He was on a drip getting an infusion of saline. All together, about 120 people withdrew from the event, with over 100 withdrawing by the end of the day #3. So I wasn't alone. The longer story will come, in which I will also cover the cross-country trip from Marrakesh to London that we were forced to make because of the volcano in Iceland. That became an enduance event in itself. |
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| Entry for May 14, 2010 |
| The story is coming along, but there is so much to write about that it is taking longer than I expected. I have completed up to the last moment of the event, which you can read here. Make yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee and please enjoy as I begin to share my adventure with you. |
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| Entry for May 17, 2010 |
| After receiving some good feedback from the first pert of the story, I've finished part 2. This part covers the period from the end of the Marathon des Sables event, back to the days in Marrakesh, through to the volcano in Iceland and our trip across Europe. You can find the story here. I hope you enjoy the read and would enjoy having your feedback at the email link above. |
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| Entry for May 29, 2010 |
| Finally I have completed the story. I have received quite abit of comment from others about the first two parts so have made minor adjustments. You can find the last bit of the story here. I hope you enjoy it and would LOVE to hear from you. Just click on the EMAIL link at the top of this page. Lot's of people are saying I should publish the story as a short book. With help I'd be considering this idea. |