My name is Alex. I’m 32-years-old and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in July 2014.
I served twelve years in the British Army as an electrical engineer and since leaving I have been working in a call centre. I would like to have been more active over the last few years, but I enjoyed making up for lost time with my two young boys.
Before I was diagnosed with type 1 I would do 5-10k weighted runs and was relatively fit. After my diagnosis, I lost the wind from my sails as I separated from my wife and lost contact with my children.
I was scared to do a lot of things which included going to sleep, sex and exercising, while I was checking my blood glucose eight to ten times daily.
I registered for the Cannon Hall Run 2014 in aid of Barnsley Hospice and felt new motivation to train and take part. Slowly I built my confidence and worked out that for every mile ran, a 4gCHO glucose tablet was eaten and my blood sugars barely moved on a three mile run.
The only problem I found is that they are very chalky and not easily eaten while running, I almost choked a few times.
I noticed that my local supermarket had glucose drinks which contained about 4gCHO to 100ml. I bought a load of 500ml bottles and used a permanent marker to place markers every 100ml which worked a treat, if you don’t mind carrying it.
I completed the Cannon Hall Run 10k in 67 minutes, which I felt was a terrible time as I was used to doing that in 40 minutes, but I felt great because I finished it, managed my blood glucose and raised money for a good cause.
With the wind back in my sails, I have set Yorkshire’s Tough Mudder 2015 in my sights and begin my training on February 1 2015.