Category Archives: Fundraising for Diabetes

GBR 30/30 Challenge Fundraiser Party

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This video is of my talk at the party night fundraiser, which was on to raise funds to support the financial side of GBR 30/30 Challenge for Diabetes UK and JDRF. It was filmed by my mother and some bits didn’t come out, so had to have some serious editing with parts missing, but you’ll get the gist of it!

Diabetes Fundraiser

It was a very good night at The Sportsman in Slade Green and I’m very grateful to the venue for their support. Many friends and family and friends of friends and friends of family friends gathered… if that makes any sense… and everybody present on the night showed great support for me ahead of one crazy, crazy challenge that is soon coming up!

My talk was about my life generally with diabetes. Although I did not plan out a speech properly, I thought it good to speak from the heart and had a few photos on a screen for people to see. There were only two other diabetics present, both with Type 1, Nick (who is my age and caught it from me in school…) and young Callum, who is now 7 with his birthday a few days after the party! Callum is also a Type 1 diabetic and now on the pump, his family are very supportive of him and it was great to see them come along. Maybe my talks of what I have achieved in terms of diabetes might not be a great help to the majority of the people in attendance on the night, in consideration to the fact that they were not diabetic, but if it can help but one young lad out and show that diabetes cannot prevent him from doing anything he wants to in life, especially not playing any sports, then that’s my job done. That’s why I am running this challenge!

We had some great prizes up for grabs on a raffle which raised a lot on the night. Sir Steve Redgrave had signed a couple of photos for me and also a copy of his latest book: ‘Greatest Olympic Moments’. Katherine Grainger, the veteran Gold medallist who put on a great and emotional show at the London 2012 games, signed a vest top for me. A few celebrities had signed some photographs too, Jasmine Harman, Dermot O’Leary, Caroline Flack and Kirsty Gallacher – with thanks to Jonny at John Noel Management and all the mentioned TV stars for that. There were also x2 free tickets to the UCMMA show on the 6th April at Troxy in London and a Water Bottle and supplement of Liquid Collagen from GBR Nutrition. The Bexleyheath Marriott Hotel, former employers of mine a few years ago, provided some free Gym, Spa and Swimming passes in their Leisure Department and we also had some bottles of wine and giant chocolates up for grabs too.

After the party some were back at my house until 4am, bearing in mind I haven’t had a drop of alcohol this year (apart from one occasion in January) to build my fitness and kept to this on the night. The people who were there were my Aunt Jayne, who I saw two years ago and hadn’t seen for many years before that either and my Mum and her hadn’t seen each other for 5 years, she had driven all the way up from Somerset to surprise me! My Uncle Alan and Cousin Amie who live down in Broadstairs, and my rather merry Granddad Bruce who was continuing his merriness until the earliest hours of the morning – even after we managed to get him home as he phoned me at 5.30am, sounding furthermore merrier!

Although that doesn’t sound much, I never thought that I’d see all of those and my parents in my house in SE London in the same room, at 4am in the morning, getting on so well together in my life! Me having diabetes probably is the reason that this happened…

The night raised £511 which has since grown to £666.80 – I’m not too sure the 666 figure is a good sign but that was a fantastic amount to get raised when I was targeting and seriously doubting beforehand that I’d raise £500. (this also doesn’t include the additional £100 we paid for expenses so would have been £100 more too!)

A wholehearted massive Thank You to everybody that helped out and to all of those who came along from me!

Gav

Diathlete Showreel

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Ultra-Marathon Running & Diabetes Challenges Showreel

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Diabetes UK – The Big Event

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On Saturday 14th July 2012 it was the Diabetes UK Big Event at the University of Warwick just outside Coventry. Being involved with the new UK Young Leaders for Diabetes UK I travelled up from my area in South East London on Friday 13th July to stay over on campus at the university, and be fresh and ready come the next morning…

I arrived in Coventry early at 1pm, which I wasn’t expecting, and so after a brief walk about the City Centre I decided to hop on the University bus and check in. I have to say no offence to any person reading from Coventry, but the Cathedral appeared a decent view… it suddenly crashed downhill after that. Not a place I’ll rush back to visit too soon…

I checked into my room and found that I was the first to arrive of all the Young Leaders, there is twenty of us and I am the type you’d expect to be late to my own funeral – I didn’t know what to do with myself! Fortunately Hannah arrived around twenty minutes later and we went to get a coffee, where we bumped into a few of the Diabetes UK employees. Laura the Ninja-betic, Martyn and Kevin soon showed up on site and we soon decided it would be good to check out the campus amusements (the pub…). One of the best parts of what I enjoyed about being involved with the Young Leaders group is that we are all from different areas around the UK, for example the four mentioned so far are from Manchester, Portsmouth, Shropshire and Dunfermline, yet, we all have that distinctive similarity in being diabetic (and we’re all type 1 coinsidently), and in being young adults that have that similarity I found that gave us all an extra bit of togetherness. Well I certainly was bonding…

Zoe Scott also was one of the first on the scene and it was good to finally meet her, she is involved with Hedgie Pricks which supplies an intersting psychological service for people with diabetes. And soon there were a whole bunch of us from all kinds of places, even flying over from Northern Ireland in Mairead’s and Caroline’s cases. Thomas Jones – guess where he is from! Unfortunately the dia-welshman was on crutches and not able to sing! I’ve always had my own way… well I was going to continue that sentence, but that is enough said, I’ve always had my own way! This way perhaps is pretty forward, especially where pretty blonde Irish barmaids called Rosie are concerned, but it sure was good to socialise the way we did that night and I felt for many of us it kind of bought the group together more. Maybe not for Tim though, as I bought him a shot of vodka with chili and tabasco sauce in it without explaining the ingredients…

The productive side of this event was on the Saturday, after all our socialising time had concluded. The Big Event was sure well decorated by all from Diabetes UK involved, with balloons, banners, and a good layout for speakers and businesses and all kinds of diabetes info taking place. We were not inside the main area for this event through most of the day, as there was our own set agenda to take place in making progress with our own plans as this new Young Leader committee with Alex and Matt the main people in charge of this from D.UK. After discussing some important parts of our plans we also had the pleasure of hearing a few senior, high-up Diabetes UK members talk to us, such as Barbara Young the Chief Exc. I also spoke to Barbara earlier in the morning regarding my upcoming event, and it was interesting to hear direct from her the plans Diabetes UK are currently negotiating, and I look forward to further discussions with her in the future about my challenge. Barbara comes across to me as the kind that goes out and gets the job done, down to earth but knowing what is needed, I could relate to this and although my personal personality is maybe more wild side, I like that attitude she has and have grown to adopt this over the years myself. I call these people do-ers, Ray Ramnath from GBR Nutrition is a do-er, he speaks to people and approaches good contacts without fear, same for Paul Farrelly. I’ve learned from these people, and yes, I did actually say to Barbara “you are a do-er”…

I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to everybody as I was whisked off by a film team late in the day for an interview, and we had to have 30 takes as it was a good shot looking over the hall for the event, but unfortunately right next to the toilets. I also sniffed about and approached a few interesting and diabetes-related businesses that were packing up regarding sponsorship for my challenge soon to be announced! As mentioned, I’ve learned from Ray Ramnath and Paul Farrelly… watch this space!

(Me processing my thoughts the morning after…)

 

Professional Advice: Diabetes and Endurance

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How to control Diabetes levels when facing hard Endurance challenges

With a big challenge ahead of World Diabetes Day 2012 in the planning stages and to soon be announced, the best solution in terms of diabetes control through an endurance challenge of this callibre (and I can only tell you that it will be an absolute monster of a challenge) is to see the best.

I like being seen at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup and have attended the diabetes clinic there since being diagnosed aged 8, however, it has to be said that the standard of care I had when a child and through my younger years was far superior to the standard of care as an adult, depending on certain Doctors. Jan Karla and Sarah Putney, the diabetes children nurses at my clinic, are brilliant. The Doc I currently have, well, to put it blunt… I might as well call myself Dr. Gavin, as I go in and say how my levels have been, suggest what I should do to improve on and make every decision myself, whilst she nods her head like a Dodo - basically… there is no point in going!

And this brings me to seeing the professionals. On Tuesday 3rd July I had my first appointment with Dr. Ian Gallen and his team at Wycombe Hospital in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. It took around 3 hours of travelling across the capital to get there but it was well worth the journey. I spoke with Dr. Alistair Lumb and when first entering the room I wasn’t sure what to expect, I’d heard many good things even from Sir Steve Redgrave at the Cellnovo Rowing Event last month, but I sure didn’t expect to be engaged in conversation and talking over details for an hour and 40 minutes! It was 1 hour and 40 minutes to good use!

Here are some facts I found out more about through our chat:

When exercising with diabetes it can have 2 opposite effects on the body depending on the kind of endurance/exercise. For instance, if involved in a sport such as football in which there’s heavy competitive sprinting involved, a kind of stop-start performance endurance, the blood glucose levels can rise despite the energy levels being burned. This is because exercise burns fat and glucose, but in sprinting/speed-endurance sports fat isn’t burned as much, the body concentrates on burning glucose. So with glucose being burned rapidly in the body a reaction is caused that produces more glucose in the body to deal with it; for a normal person more insulin will be provided by the pancreas to counteract that and the sports-person is able to keep control, however, with diabetes no insulin is produced therefore a burst of glucose makes blood levels go higher.

Although the blood glucose levels (BGL) will rise it will only be temporarily, energy being burned means that the BGL will decrease in time; so say if a game of football sees the BGL rise over 10.0 when checking it after the game, a few hours later a hypo (4.0 and under) still will probably occur.

On the other hand, which from what I will be taking on in my challenge (that is soon to be announced publicly) is more what I have to monitor, longer endurance exercising such as marathon running, where a constant pace is set and energy is being burned at a consistant level, glucose is burned in the body but so too is more fat. And the body has many areas of fat, inside each muscle, particuarly the legs, which will be burned. This causes a reaction which lowers blood glucose levels, the energy is gradually being burned and the fat levels are being worn down. When this happens the body doesn’t react by producing glucose and insulin to cover it as there isn’t a sudden adrenaline/hormonal burst in the system to cause that kind of reaction, this means that over time energy levels will drop and blood glucose levels will lower, meaning with diabetes a hypo during the exercise/endurance is on the cards.

To deal with that I need an intake of energy; sports drinks can provide this. Weighing just over 10 stone at present I will need an intake of around 60gs of carbs during each hour to counteract the burned energy and keep BGL controlled. If out of carbs a good method to temporarily rise BG Levels back up, until a source of energy at a check point is again available, is to put in a sudden sprint for 10 seconds to get the body producing glucose.

…Interesting!

A number of people over the years have come to Ian Gallen and Alistair Lumb for advice and help in controlling their diabetes through extreme, crazy and gruelling endurance challenges. They say it is a good thing that the people who come to them ask about whether or not their DIABETES will be ok and managable in doing these challenges, instead of asking whether THEY will be ok doing these challenges!