Catching up with Erin Spineto, member of the Sea Peptide Swimmers

A little while ago we chatted with Erin Spineto about the Sea Peptide Swimmers’ entry in the 2014 Swim Around Key West race. All three members of the team- Renee Moreno, Blair Ryan, Erin Spineto- have Type 1 diabetes and were getting ready to complete a 12.5-mile endurance swim around Key West. They completed that swim earlier this summer, and this past week we caught up with Erin to find out how the race went.

How was the Swim Around Key West!?

It went really well! But, there’s always stuff that jumps up and is different than expected. I swam the first leg of the race and was going against the current, which slowed me down. Turning a corner at one point, I started swimming into pretty big chop. I felt pretty sea sick for the last bit of my leg of the race. Renee went in second and was swimming against the tide going out, while by the time Blair started her leg of the race the tide had mostly gone out. She was then swimming in ocean only two to two and a half feet deep. In the end, though, we finished the race within the maximum time allotted by the organizers!

What is something that you learned through this adventure?

One of the huge things that I learned on this trip- I’ve been a pumper almost 18 years and I thought that was the only way of doing things, but a lot of the people on the trip had switched to needles, using some of the newer long acting insulins. I noticed that they didn’t have huge swings in their blood glucose levels, and that was interesting.

I’m still on my insulin pump, but now I’m using Levemir as background insulin. It’s helped me address one of the bigger issues I was having with swimming: I used to take my pump off to go swimming. I’d been in the 100’s [around 5.5 mmol/L] while I was in the water, but then would spike afterwards for about 7-8 hours. Now, taking about 70% of my basal with Levemir, I’m avoiding those spikes. You learn so much by hanging out with other people living with Type 1 diabetes!

The other thing I learned was that as diabetics we can do everything, but we just need to plan ten times as hard, which makes last minute changes even harder. Gu was one of our sponsors for this race, and I had been using their Roctane (high carb energy drink) product during training. I forgot to pack it for the trip, so I tried using just the regular Gu Gels to make up for the concentrated carbs in the Roctane. Without diabetes I might have been able to switch to another product or go with only water, but I had to know how the products would affect my blood sugar management, so I went with what I knew works, Gu Gel.

What do you think is your biggest take-away from participating in the Swim Around Key West?

I think that travel adventure with diabetes is really important. It’s sometimes hard to take care of yourself each and every day, when you don’t see the impact of that work until much later. With a race it makes you pay attention now, and work to organize your diabetes life, because it impacts your performance now and on race day. Consequences are more immediate. From now on, every year I want to find something new.

So, then, what’s your next adventure?

I’m thinking a 100 mile stand-up paddle board. It will take about 4 days. I’ll be standing up during that adventure and I’ll be able to look around, so I’ll be able to sight-see more than a swim!

Looking for more about the Sea Peptide Swimmers and their Swim Around Key West? Check out this article by fellow Sea Peptide Swimmer, Blair Ryan, over on A Sweet Life!