Rick Benson – Endurance Athlete and Type 1 Diabetic

I am a 54-year-old Type-1 diabetic diagnosed in 1989 at the age of 30. I am also an endurance athlete who competes in road racing primarily, and I am newly into track racing.

My experience using the NanoVi Pro has transformed my training and fitness in extraordinary ways and these are the bullet points that I can provide to highlight my observations.

Using NanoVi™ to regain and maintain my health
I resumed bike racing in 2011, after taking over 21 years off because of my diagnosis in ’89, I was a Cat2 racer that raced nationally (NPC events) and felt that my Type-1 diagnosis in 1989 prohibited my ability to compete at the level I wanted.

My USAC license # is 3371 if you want to review my USAC profile. Feb 2010, my wife bought me a mail order carbon bike and I began riding again and started over.

I purchased my racing license and started as Cat5, upgraded first month, and upgraded to Cat3 last year but felt flat, hit a plateau, and was struggling. I began using the NanoVi on Jan 15, 2014. Prior to this, my training is summarized best by describing it as solo, 16k miles in 2013, and while being regular, it was uninspired, and I considered myself a “bike rider” and not a racer. I entered races to be part of the social network. I competed in Nationals but like most races, I was “pack fill” most of the time because I would start out strong but fade.

In the last 4 months of using a NanoVi Pro, my cycling has improved dramatically, and I am now faced with mandatory upgrade to Cat2 with over 55 points accumulated in these first months of 2014. My TT, road, and crit racing are all podiums and my colleagues/competitors continually ask about what has changed recently.

What is most observable is the improvement in breathing, energy utilization, relaxed state of mind, ability to recover and decrease my heart rate quickly, and a dramatic awareness of “wellness”, which I define as a conjugate of thinking more clearly, eating better, not cramping, never sore or lactated, improved and restful sleeping, and ability to ride through all levels of intensity during races and get stronger as races progress, instead of fatiguing closer to finishes.

I recently spent one week off the device, and was surprised to not only cramp, but feel fatigued, rode slowly, breathed harder, and was not fluid on the bike but struggling, where my body was much more stressed and fighting itself to recover. That went away with resumption of NanoVi use after only 1 day.

I should close by stating that I honestly went into using the NanoVi with no expectation that I would see any perceivable difference in cycling ability, but thought that I was a good candidate to try it for endurance affect, given that I do ride a lot of miles all year around.