Riding for Diabetes Research

This fall, Samantha McNerney, a medical technologist at MidHudson Regional Hospital, took a rugged ride through the desert to raise awareness for diabetes.

McNerney, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes eight years ago, participated in the JDRF Death Valley Ride To Cure Diabetes: a 64-mile trek through the heat (average of 93 degrees) and tough terrain of California’s salt flats and barren highlands.

“Diabetes is a 24-hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year disease,” she says. When she was diagnosed as a teenager, she attacked her “new normal” head on with blood sugar monitoring, carbohydrate counting and insulin injections.

McNerney, a long time runner, is relatively new to cycling and says her motivation to ride stems from the chance to help make living with type I diabetes a little easier. “I want to make it simpler to live the life you want to live even with diabetes,” she says.

JDRF is the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. Since its inception, the JDRF Ride to Cure Diabetes has raised more than $26 million for research to deliver life-changing therapies, and one day, a cure.