Racing against Diabetes

Joe Eldridge tags up with Team Type I teammate Andy Mead as the Race Across America passes through Fort Scott, Kan., Friday evening. Every member of the team has Type I diabetes but they are the defending Corporate Challenge champions and are looking to break the record they set last year. (Scott Nuzum/Herald-Tribune)

FORT SCOTT, Kan. -- The defending Corporate Challenge champions of the annual Race Across America (RAAM) cross-country bicycle race are looking to break the record they set when they won the event last year.

They arrived at the time station at Cowen's Country Corner at the junction of U.S. 54 and old highway 69 about 6:15 p.m. Friday evening with two of the members tagging up on the shoulder of the highway at a blistering pace. The team is averaging almost 23 miles per hour, according to the RAAM web site, www.raceacrossamerica.org.

You would believe that members of this team monitor what they eat and drink very carefully. However, the reason why they do might surprise you.

"Everybody on the team has juvenile diabetes, Type I," team rider Joe Eldridge, one the founders of Team Type I said. "We have over 130 years of diabetes on our team.

Team Type I support members get a bike off the roof of one of the support vehicles prior to the relay tag at Fort Scott, Kan., Friday evening. (Scott Nuzum/Herald-Tribune)

"We're just trying to raise diabetes awareness, about exercise and diabetes and (saying you don't have to) let diabetes stop you from doing anything."

Eldridge, 24, and Phil Southerland formed the team, made up of men and women who have, for the most part, been living with the disease since diagnosis in their teens. A few were diagnosed in their 20's. Southerland himself would probably not remember the doctor's words himself, since he was diagnosed at the earliest age of all the members.

"My son was diagnosed with Type I when he was seven," Southerland's mother, Joanna, said. "They told us that he would have renal failure by 25 and that he'd be blind and never be able to be active. But he's racing cross-country at 25."

Some members of Team Type I posed for a photo at the time station in Mount Vernon, Kan., Friday afternoon. Seen here are (from left) Joe Eldridge, Phil Southerland, Bob Schrank and Nathan Bartels. In the back is Dave Bartels, who "provides osteopathic manupulation," according to Team Type I's web site. (Joanna Sutherland/Team Type I, used with permission)

Joanna Southerland, who is the director of career services at Florida State University, said that members of the team come from all over the country and one of the female members is from Australia.

"Myself and Phil Southerland started the team and went through the process of finding people," Eldridge, diagnosed at age 10, added. "It's not a large pool of people that want to race their bikes across the country who also have diabetes. We found everyone just through word of mouth and put the team together. Then we had to find a way to actually race across the country, so Abbott Diabetes Care sponsored us to make this all happen."

According to the RAAM web site, Team Type I made its official check in at 6:13 p.m. Their nearest competitor in that division was over 120 miles behind, still somewhere between Wichita and El Dorado, Kan.

Eldridge was the man who made the tag -- literally, tapping teammate Andy Mead on the shoulder at over 20 MPH on the shoulder of U.S. 54 -- when the team checked in to the Fort Scott time station. The team won their division last year in record time.

"We did this race last year in five days, 16 hours and four minutes," Eldridge said. "We set a new eight-person record and this year, we're trying to beat that."

Most of the riders had special devices strapped to the back of their arms. Knowing that RAAM officials use GPS technology to track the race, it was thought at first that these were tracking devices.

"Those are wireless insulin pumps," Eldridge said. "It makes it a lot easier to control and regulate our blood sugar going cross-country."

Biographies of all the members of Team Type I can be found on their web site, www.teamtype1.org. There is also a blog that is being updated as the team progresses across the country. There are also pictures

"We've had people with diabetes comment," Joanna Southerland said. "We've had parents with children with diabetes write. It's been wonderful to see."

Southerland also noted that the leader of the solo women's division, Kerry White, also has diabetes.

This year, some of the RAAM solo riders are moving at a blazing-fast pace. Last year, the first rider into the Fort Scott time station didn't arrive until 9:30 a.m. Friday morning. But this time around, some riders are as much as 12 hours ahead of that pace.

The first four riders, all competing in men's solo divisions, had passed through by 9:30 Friday morning. It would be another 8 1/2 hours before the next competitors, Team Type I, arrived at the time station.

Jure Robic led the men's solo riders, arriving first into Fort Scott at 9:11 p.m. Thursday night. Wolfgang Fasching arrived at about 1:49 a.m. Friday morning. And as of noon Friday, four solo riders had already checked in and out of the time station at Cowen's Country Corner at U.S. 54 and old highway 69.

Simon Ballou, who works at a local fitness center, mans the tent at the time station most of the time. He greeted Robic, Fasching and the other two solo riders, Daniel Wyss and Gerhard Gulewicz.

"Robic is a three-time champion (of RAAM)," Ballou said. "Last year, he caught pneumonia in Colorado and had to drop out. Fasching has won three times before. Wyss is the defending champion.

"Fasching looked a lot fresher than when he came through last year. He was jovial and was talking to his crew. He started to take off his riding gloves so he could eat (a pastry) but his crew just shoved it in his mouth. As I understood it, he had had four hours of sleep up to this point."