Death Warmed Over

Sorry for the lack of blogging, I've been hit with a bad cold. And not just hit, but knocked down, tied up, flogged, and finally left for dead. I haven't been this sick in a while. The throat feels like i swallowed glass, my head feels like it's got a vice around it, and I'm coughing as if I was trying to start my first car during the middle of winter. (No, not good.)

My sugars are just all over the place. Take your pick at what it's from; hormones flying around fighting off the infection, sugar in the medicine that I'm taking (why don't they have carbs listed in my halls cough drops?) And not to mention the lack of activity that I'm getting (I haven't biked since Thursday).

I hate being sick, and if there's anything else I hate more then being sick is having a high blood sugar when I'm feeling sick. I'm sitting here at home on a Saturday when I could be out training. The whole thing just makes me sick (wait a minute, I'm already sick).

I'm going to sign off now, feeling like I'm gonna be sick. Later.

My Java Bottle

So last week I was dragging through my morning bike rides. And it wasn’t just last week. I can always seem to get up and run without a problem, but the bike is completely different, the inside workouts are an absolute chore. You would think just the opposite; nice and warm inside, light instead of complete darkness, the boob tube – what more could ya want? But I always seem to struggle….

That was up until this morning. Last night before bed I decided I’d set the coffee maker to be ready when I woke up, figuring I’d have just a little before I got on my bike. Then I had the absolute, fantastic, stupendous, idea of having my coffee while riding. Awesome! I set up a little table next to my bike and sat my big fat mug (that’s the thing that holds the coffee) on it and helped myself to that caffeine charged elixir whenever I needed a fix. It worked out great.

Don’t get me wrong. Water and Gatorade still have their place at my training table – but not at 5 in the morning. From now on when the alarm clock goes off for an early morning ride - it’s not go time – it’s Joe time!

sugar sniffer

I remember a year or so ago I saw a girl and her dog on Dlife; the dog had been trained to sense when the girl’s BG was going low and was able to warn her of it or others if needed. I’ll admit that the, ‘Timmy’s in trouble Lassie, show me where!’ jokes began to run through my head, but I also got a twinge of jealousy too. Even though I’ve got a pump that delivers precise amounts and a CGM device that’s designed to warn me of impending– these things are not idiot proof. (Ok, wait - let me retract that last part.) They aren’t without their problems. I still wake up with occasional highs or lows in the middle of the night, and these are perhaps worse then the ones in the day if for no other reason that it comes to you as a complete shock – wake up - boom - you’re low.

Then from today’s RSS feed I got a wire from ADA that spoke about the same type of idea, training dogs to tell when someone with diabetes is going low. (You can read it here.) So I fished around on the web and googled up http://www.heavenscentpaws.com/ .This is yet another great example of someone in the diabetes community with a personal involvement, trying to make it better for others dealing with the same disease. Click on their site and read their story for how just how they got involved.

I hope this becomes more mainstream. I would love to have my dogs warn me of highs and lows.

Race Summary

So the quick version is that it was a great start and a horrible finish, possibly one of my worst (finishes). I’m a bit more retrospective today (also a bit sore) so let’s see if we can’t break down what really happened.

I woke up at 5:30 am with a BG of 86mg/dl. My insulin on board lasts about 3 hours. The plan was to turn my basal rate incrementally 3 hours before that start and to supplement that with a bolus (again, that would be gone by the start). The rationale behind the drop 3 hours before is because I need to have a very small amount of insulin in my system when racing, and although dropping it an hour before does the trick for an hour long workout – it won’t for a three hour race. The idea behind an incremental drop is because as the race goes on, carbs get depleted from your body and you begin to use more and more protein and fat.

The basal rates then were as follows:

· 5:00am 1.00 (normal rate)

· 7:30am 0.700 (starting the drop)

· 8:30am 0.200

· 9:30am 0.100

· 10:30am 0.075 (race starts)

· 11:30am 0.050

I took two boluses, one at 6:30 for my meal (5.0u), and the second at 7:45 for the basal drop (1.6u)

The BGs pre-race were almost perfect. Here they are:

· 5:30am 86 mg/dl

· 7:00am 67 mg/dl

· 7:30am 95 mg/dl

· 8:20am 145 mg/dl

· 9:20am 95 mg/dl

· 10:12am 79 mg/dl

I had .88u on board before I started, which was a bit more then I wanted. I chugged about 65 grams of Gatorade and dashed off to the start.

The first 13 miles were absolutely splendid. The course was very hilly. And after some juggling at the first 3 miles I settled in and began picking people off. I’d guess that by the 6^th or 7^th mile I as in the top 5 with three other runners. I listed to the others and they were breathing pretty heavy while I felt good. I thought I was in a great position. It was too cold to get any blood from a finger (even with gloves and the blood rushing) so after ½ hour I began to have about 8 grams of carb every 10-15 minutes.

We went through 10 miles in 1 hr 8 min and 13 miles in 1 hr 28 min and 30 seconds. It was here that I started to struggle. Not breathing wise, but I knew something was going on. I tried to keep taking in sugar but it wasn’t working. I struggled through the next six with the guy I was running with, but soon after mile 19 he pulled away.

Then it got bad, really bad. I got nauseous, and dizzy; I had to start walking and I couldn’t believe it. After another mile I stopped at a water stop and had someone rub my hand until I was able to get blood for a test – 57 mg/dl. And it probably had been hovering there for the last hour. I drank enough Gatorade to jiggle when I jogged and began the long road to the finish. It was hard to take other people were flying by me while I continued to limp along. I watched the time go by what I wanted to run, then my last run, then a bad run, and still I was out there. when I say the long road – that is not an exaggeration. To put in perspective, it took me and hour and a half to run the first 13 and an hour and 40 minutes to limp the last 6. I did make it to the end though.

You would think I’d be demoralized, but I wasn’t – it was one of the proudest runs I‘ve had in a long time. Regardless of the time, I finished. And I will finish others. If I was to sum up the race, I would say it was a great confidence booster and a dose of humility all in one. Although my rates were low, each rate was actually .025 higher then New York, I had bumped them up thinking I would need it (guess not). And I think the hills could have made me use more energy then I had expected, so I should have turned my basal down even more. And lastly, starting the race with .88 was too much; I should have bolused less and bolused earlier.

Will there be another – damn skippy (that’s a yes). But for now, I just need to get my training hours in for the week (remember that comment about being sore? Yea that’s right; it’s going to make getting 10 hours in the week pretty tough).

Ha-Ha

I, the Guru, who be me, have come up with a short list of descriptions for Brian’s last marathon. Brian got:

• His ars kicked
• His clock cleaned
• Beat like a drum
• Waxed like on of Mr. Miagi's karate students
• Squashed like a bug
• Whipped like the cool frosty frozen topping on my fruit
• His charmin sqozed by the grip of death
• Licked like the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop

And my personal favorite….

• Beat like he stole sumthin’

If you have any others you'd like to add feel free to comment. His feelings mean nothing to me.

And the result?

This will be short, not sweet. I got demolished in the race. I'd be more retrosective about it but I'm demoralized and dejected. I'll talk more about it tomorrow.