Marathon #2 for 2008

So tomorrow I've got another marathon. The 47th annual George Washington marathon is in Greebelt Maryland. It's supposed to be a pretty hilly course (see below) but that's the kind of work I need right now, there will be plenty of time to taper and run fast.


I kept up my training this week and right now my oly hope is to come out without being too sore to keep up the training the following week?

The plan? Well the plan is to mimic the same thing I planned in New York. My insulin (IOB) lasts about 3 hours. I take a bolus for my meal 3.4 hours before race start, I turn my basal rates down in increments starting at 3 hours before the race, and add a bolus (1.5u) 3 hours before the start. the idea is that the bolus takes the place of the basal, and by the time the bolus is finished I'm left with only a trace of basal insulin.

I'm hoping this works out, I think the idea is solid, I just need to work out the finer points.

Another triabetic

100 and counting...

Is that 100 yrs old or 100 mg/dl? Honestly, I’d like both.

In article I found in an RSS feed from ADA it has been suggested that getting to the century mark of life is not as impossible as it sounds – whether you have a chronic disease or not.

A group of individuals (700 in fact) who had reached the century mark were contacted via phone for interviews and health assessments. They found that although 2/3 of them had avoided chronic diseases (yay for them) the other 1/3 were surviving despite a chronic related disease like high blood pressure or diabetes. YAY FOR US!

That’s absolutely fantastic news! I can’t tell you how many times as a kid I wondered if I’d make it to my grandparent’s age because of my diabetes. These and other stories about individuals living to the ripe old age of (what age is it when you become ripe?) gives us all hope that there doesn’t have to be such a thing as down and out.

too much...

Boy have I got some adjustments to make…

I found my self at work today with my shirt half ironed, my face unshaved, and my hair uncombed, looking pretty much like the elf from travelocity.com. I know I jumped into my training head first but I’ve got to be a little more realistic. I’m just doing a lot right now, too much to try to bump up my training. What’s got me so busy? (Ok, you asked.)

The wife is traveling, so I’m left at home all alone. Now don’t laugh, being alone usually isn’t enough to throw me – I can pay bills and cook a can of ravioli as good as anybody. But I’ve also got to take care of the boys (and yes, they’re only dogs. But they don’t get along with each other which means no one else can walk them or feed them and they always have to be separated and it’s a big huge hassle and waaayyyy too large of a topic to get into right now.) And this isn’t an overnighter - it’s for two weeks.

I’m trying to study for my certification as an RCEP (Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist) which I have to take at some point in this lifetime. If I don’t do it soon, I’ll lose my candidacy and there’s no way I’m putting more intern hours in.

I’m also trying to get every little ‘to do’ project done in the next two weeks before we put our house back on the market – and oh yes, I’m supposed to be looking at future houses, just in case we actually sell our house.

So that’s a lot – it is for me anyway. All of this stuff is piling up and I’m finding there’s no way I can slip in an extra hour on the bike, or time to head to the pool. So I think I’m going to shift a few things around training wise. I’m ok with training the number of hours that I am now, but I’m just not ready to start tacking on more. So we’re going to just kind of stay in a holding position for now. At least until I have something else added on to my plateJ

Rollin, Rollin..Ru-Ro

Yes, in the immortal words of Scooby, 'Ru-Ro'. Yesterday I was scheduled to ride for three hours. This time of year it's too darn cold to ride outside. I've got a trainer set up downstairs, and although it's probably easier in the basement I don't always feel like I get a good ride in. So I headed off to the local Y to get my bikin' in.

I was all set. A bag full of glucose tabs, jelly belly sport beans (cause I hardly ever use the glucose tabs) gatorade, and a few power bars. Of course I had my meter, strips, lancing device, Dexcom, extra infusion set (am I forgetting anything?) ah yes, the easy bake oven and kitchen sink.

I was surprised at how well the ride went the first two hours. I began at a pace a little over 20 mph and was able to maintain that pretty comfortably. I had about 8 grams of carb every 15 minutes or so and washed it down with a little water.

I must have gotten a little greedy with the carbs, because when i checked at 1hr 30 min I was up to 198 mg/dl. A good number when exercising, but i started out around 110 mg/dl so that means i was climbing. i questioned whether i should bolus or not, and decided the gym was the best place to do this - if i crashed at least it wouldn't be on the road. So i bolused 0.75u with my pump.
I really began to hammer the last hour, but with about 25 minutes to go I began to get sick of what i was doing. and for me - that's a sign I'm going low. I checked and low an behold, the crash wasn't coming - it already happened. I was 50 mg/dl.

After you bike for 2 1/2 hours and you need another, 1/2 hour, the last thing you want to do is get off, because the whole goal of riding long is to ride long. So I slowed the resistance down and began to force feed myslef the sport beans. I had two packs (25 grams in each pack) of them plus gatorade (22 grams) and after about 15 minutes i felt ok to pick it back up the last 10 minutes.

Not what i had hoped for, but you have to take this kind of stuff in stride; I'd much rather have this happen now then when I'm in a race. I still got the time in, and got to eat jelly belly sport beans - a pretty good training day after all.