As the Capital District gears up for the 15th annual Tour de Cure, Spotlight Newspapers caught up with two riders and some of the area’s top fundraisers, who took a break from training and soliciting donations to discuss the ride, sponsored by the American Diabetes Association.
The Tour de Cure, is a nationwide bicycle ride organized to raise money for diabetes research. The 2008 Albany/Stillwater Tour de Cure begins at Stillwater Central Schools Saturday, June 8.
Riders will travel along the Hudson River, past the Saratoga Battlefields and back across the river to the finish line on the other side on a 10-, 50-, 62.5- or 100-mile course.
A day after her 13th birthday in September 2003, Kaileigh Moore received a surprise, but not the type of post-birthday surprise one might expect.
Moore, now 17 and a senior at Saratoga Springs High School, was diagnosed with type one diabetes.
I think it has made me stronger, Moore said in response to how diabetes has affected her life.
She said little things do not bother her as much as they do other people.
Type one diabetes, formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is typically diagnosed in children and young adults. According to the American Diabetes Association, people with type one diabetes do not produce insulin.
Moore admits that a lot of work goes into maintaining her blood glucose level, especially during track practice, but she does not let anything keep her down.
She said that while the other runners have to make sure their shoes are tied, she has to ensure the stability of her blood glucose level.
`On the bright side, I’m the only one who gets to eat Skittles at practice,` Moore said with a little laugh.
Moore became involved in the tour through 21-year-old Casey Card, who also has diabetes. After finding out about Moore’s diagnosis, Card encouraged her to ride in the Tour de Cure.
Since her first ride, Moore has participated in four other tours, three of which she was a team captain.
She is captain this year for Casey and Kaileigh’s team, which raised $27,959 last year. Overall, the team has raised the third most amount of money in the area.
This year, the team hopes to raise $10,000, and they are more than halfway to their goal.
While the hill in the middle of the course is the most difficult to bike, the hardest part of the day is when it’s over, Moore said. She said she looks forward to the ride all year, and once she is there she hates to leave.
`Everyone wants to be there,` she said. `Everyone is happy.`
There are 795 registered participants for the event to date, and Amy Young, associate director of the American Diabetes Association, said she expects more than 12,000 people to ride in the Stillwater tour this year.
New this year, Moore said, riders with diabetes will wear red jerseys, so people can see the people they are supporting. Moore is a member of the volunteer Red Riders Planning Committee and said her 6-year old cousin participates every year, as well as her dad.
In addition to her work on the Tour de Cure, Moore is involved with her school’s honor society and building the school’s homecoming float. She also volunteered at the hospital last summer and was able to sit in on a live surgery.
When she goes off to Union College in Schenectady in the fall, she plans to study pre-med and would like to become a doctor like her grandfather.
Moore was fifth last year in personal fundraising, behind Mary Perrin Scott, a Delmar woman who is captain of the Bethlehem Stars.
Scott raised $7,710 through sponsorships last year.
Now into her sixth year, Scott hopes to raise $8,000.
Scott, whose daughter was diagnosed with diabetes several years ago, said she became involved with the tour through a friend who requested a donation to ride and suggested Scott join the tour.
When Scott asked her friend Jackie Hill, of Slingerlands, how she was going to ride without a bike, Hill told her to go out and get one.
Her first time out, Scott participated in the 50-mile course, having only ridden 18 miles on a bike before the tour.
In a diary she found of her daughter’s a few months ago, Scott read how her daughter woke up one morning dehydrated and drank water from puddles. Luckily, her daughter, who was teaching wilderness skills in British Columbia at the time of her diagnosis, was able to get to a hospital before she went into a coma.
Scott said everyone is so interesting, and she enjoys talking to the other riders, although some find it difficult to bike and talk, Scott said it is essential.
`When you’re on your bike for 50 miles, you get bored if you don’t talk,` Scott said.
She said she once found a side job for her husband while biking in the tour, and she has exchanged business cards with another rider.
Scott would like to find a cure for diabetes to help her daughter, who, she said, manages the condition well.
She said there needs to be increased educational initiatives about healthy eating though, because children should not be diagnosed with type two diabetes, which is generally found in adults and can be related to obesity.
People with type two diabetes, which is the most common form of the disease, do not produce enough insulin or the body ignores the insulin it is producing, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Insulin is required to fuel the body’s cells, and when a person eats and their food is broken down, the sugar becomes glucose, which provides fuel to the body’s cells. Insulin carries the glucose from the blood to the cells, but in people with type two diabetes, this does not happen. Therefore, the insulin builds up in the blood rather than the cells.
According to the American Diabetes Association, over time, high blood glucose levels could affect the eyes, kidneys and heart.
The Stillwater tour placed third last year in fundraising nationwide falling short two spots by relatively large tours by comparison. There are 80 tours nationwide according to Young.
To register for the event or sponsor a rider check out the Web site a diabetes.org/albanytourdecure.
“