Transcript – Monique Hanley
Monique:
My name is Monique Hanley. I'm from Melbourne, in Australia. In 2007 I was invited to come and ride with Team Type 1 as the only female and only Australian on the Race across America team.
I'm a sporting person first, then I'm a person and by the way, I also have type one diabetes.
I was diagnosed with type one diabetes when I was nineteen. I was playing very high level basketball back home in Australia. But all of a sudden I couldn't keep up at training. I had all these symptoms but I couldn't really explain why I needed to go to the bathroom so much. Everyone was telling me how great I looked because I lost all this weight, but I hadn't really put them all together that they were contributing to something in particular. At the same time that I had all these symptoms I was having a blood test for something else and luckily that blood test did show up some random glucose levels.
I do remember sitting there and just sort of being very quiet and listening and nodding my head a lot. But there were things going on in my head, Oh my god, I play basketball, this cannot, this cannot impact on my basketball, because basketball was my life at that time. So that was the first thing I asked them, was well the statement, "I play basketball." And luckily they had the foresight to say, "That's a good thing, and its good that you exercise, so that's great." And to me that was such a relief.
Yeah, you never lose the feel.
After I was diagnosed I went back and played basketball for two more years. I also traveled to Canada and had a great time, and learned a lot about how I coped in different situations and managing diabetes on my own and most importantly reassured my parents that it was something that I could manage regardless of where I was in the world.
Phil Southerland:
Monique heard about Team Type 1 and she found our website, saw what we were doing.
Monique:
I couldn't believe that there was a competitive team of cyclists that all had type 1 diabetes. Talk about the perfect match in heaven. So of course, I was emailing Phil straight away just like an excited kid at Christmas.
In 2007 I had the opportunity to join Team Type 1 in the Race across America. We set a new world record for our crossing and in that process our whole team had such a huge impact on everyone with type one diabetes.
Rick Crawford:
She definitely brought a different level to the women's side of Team Type 1. When she gets on the road, she's burning rubber.
Monique:
In 2006 I had a lot of trouble with pushing myself in particularly long road races and managing diabetes and I never knew how much I should be eating or how much I should have reduced my insulin. I wanted to really learn as much as I could about how all the other teammates were managing their diabetes. They were using an insulin called Apidra for example, that everyone seemed to be really happy with.
Switching onto the new insulin required a lot more testing, monitoring my blood sugar during the day, before and after each meal, and in the lead-up to the next training session, and after each training session and of course at night.
As you get tireder and tireder, it's very hard to stay upright on these rollers.
Apidra isn't the difference that makes me a fast bike rider. I need to test and be on top of everything. I need to be eating right, I need to be sleeping right, I need to be training right. All those factors all contribute together which help me be as effective a racer as I can be.
Phil:
When it comes to bike racing, she's motivated, she wants to be the fastest, and so she makes the small adjustments necessary to do so.
Monique:
You gotta be able to keep up with the boys. You gotta try and beat'em if you can.
But that doesn't mean that all that energy is always successful and there are always times when things go wrong.
We were out training today, and I went low. I dropped off the back of the bunch on a downhill, which for me is a pretty rare thing.
Phil:
This is Hypoglycemia!
Monique:
And I actually had Phil drop back and help me.
Phil:
Monique over here was having a rough moment and sure enough, you know, blood sugar was far low, what were you, thirty? Thirty, which is, you can barely speak a sentence when you're thirty.
When you ride you gotta eat, we gotta try and have our bodies as fine-tuned as possible so we can perform when we're riding on the bikes. Now when she gets her blood sugar back up she'll be smoking all of us on this next sprint.
Monique:
Recover, get back on the bike, keep going. That's how it works.
Phil:
It's tough to check your blood sugar enough times every day, to give your shot enough times every day, to eat right, exercise, it's a three hundred and sixty-five day a year job and that's twenty-four hours a day. You never get a vacation.
Monique:
My involvement in Team Type 1 is to race the best I can and to be the best athlete I can possibly be.
Rick:
Monique can actually compete at the top level with the women. She's very competitive already, we're going to continue to develop her to make her more competitive. So from a standpoint of relative effectiveness, she's our ace.
Monique:
Team Type 1 is a great opportunity for me to say who I am. It's hard to believe that I was at such great pains when I was first diagnosed, to really hide it from my teammates, to where I am now with Team Type 1 plastered all over my uniform.
