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Be warned, this is going to be ugly. I had been looking forward to this, to finally run a race with distance of greater than 5K and hopefully get a good measure on the progress I've been making. As today approached, I grew a bit more apprehensive about the return of heat and humidity, but it's still early in September so that can happen.<br><br>
As a type 1 diabetic, in some ways my greatest fear about the racing is the possibility of waking up with a bad blood sugar. For that reason, I had set an alarm for 1:30 and when I woke up, a poke of a finger revealed that I was at 87 mg/dl. To guard against going hypo, I popped a glucose tablet with 4g of carbs, as in past experience that has usually served me well to keep me nearly stable until I wake up later.<br><br>
6:10. I wake up and I find my blood sugar is 264 mg/dl. Wtf? I tested with another strip and meter to be sure it was accurate, and got 250 mg/dl. Fuck. Currently my best explanation of this is probably that I hypoed some time overnight, maybe around 5 AM or so, and my body responded with adrenaline and the liver pumping out the glucose from glycogen supplies.<br><br>
Oh well. I jabbed up with some fast acting insulin and hoped to get my blood sugar down to a good level for race time. It can be a dicey situation when the body has rebounded, I find, sometimes the fast acting brings you down quickly, and other times depending on what all happened while sleeping, it can be a couple of hours before the fast acting begins to show effect.<br><br>
I was somewhat happy to see that when I left a little after 7:30, the blood sugar had dropped to 180 mg/dl. At least that went right for me.<br><br>
I got to the race registration about 8:15. It was already sticky hot and humid. I even considered just going with 5K, but I really wanted to test the 10K distance. Blood sugar upon arrival had reached 149 mg/dl, the shot I had given earlier was petering out.<br><br>
Now I had a decision to try to finagle. Did I leave things alone or go with more insulin? Sometimes after a hypo and my fast acting insulin has been working well, more insulin on top of that will make me plummet more. On the other hand, I was beginning to feel adrenaline about being there. I shot up with 1 unit.<br><br>
At 9:06, my blood sugar was again 149 mg/dl. I jabbed up with another unit of insulin.<br><br>
Race started about 9:20. After leaving the parking, nasty uphill greeted us all. My legs didn't feel all that good. I didn't feel like I was running all that fast, but my heart rate quickly climbed.<br><br>
I reached mile 1 in 10:01. But that was a hard feeling 10:01. Still, at least we were starting to get more downhill than uphill.<br><br>
I was really suspecting trouble when the second mile split was 10:15. I was already feeling beat up some, and despite more downhill my pace had slowed. Oh boy.<br><br>
I tried easing back and slowing down. Heart rate refused to budge down and the third mile was an ugly 12:29.<br><br>
I hit the start of the second loop around 33 something, I didn't get the split.<br><br>
Then came the uphill of the loop again. It killed me. Near its top, I said, "Fuck it" and began walking. That's the way things would go the rest of the way. I would walk, run some and feel horrible running. Walk some more. Run, feel horrible.<br><br>
I missed the 4 mile marker and hit split at 4.1 13:23 for 1.1 miles. Ugh. The next .9 miles would take 10:29. The sixth mile I just resigned myself that it was a bad run and rather than beating myself into the ground, I walked most of it -- 14:47. With that, I gave myself enough to run the last .2 miles in 2:07 and finish my first 10K race in about 1:13:30.<br><br>
That sucked. I had hoped at least for 62 minutes or better, maybe going after less than 60 minutes.<br><br>
But maybe because of the weather, I got the second place medal for the 30-39 age group. Or as I said when it was handed to me, "A medal for last place."<br><br>
Not the race I dreamed of.<br><br>
Oh yeah, blood sugar was 220 mg/dl when finished. Fuck again.
As a type 1 diabetic, in some ways my greatest fear about the racing is the possibility of waking up with a bad blood sugar. For that reason, I had set an alarm for 1:30 and when I woke up, a poke of a finger revealed that I was at 87 mg/dl. To guard against going hypo, I popped a glucose tablet with 4g of carbs, as in past experience that has usually served me well to keep me nearly stable until I wake up later.<br><br>
6:10. I wake up and I find my blood sugar is 264 mg/dl. Wtf? I tested with another strip and meter to be sure it was accurate, and got 250 mg/dl. Fuck. Currently my best explanation of this is probably that I hypoed some time overnight, maybe around 5 AM or so, and my body responded with adrenaline and the liver pumping out the glucose from glycogen supplies.<br><br>
Oh well. I jabbed up with some fast acting insulin and hoped to get my blood sugar down to a good level for race time. It can be a dicey situation when the body has rebounded, I find, sometimes the fast acting brings you down quickly, and other times depending on what all happened while sleeping, it can be a couple of hours before the fast acting begins to show effect.<br><br>
I was somewhat happy to see that when I left a little after 7:30, the blood sugar had dropped to 180 mg/dl. At least that went right for me.<br><br>
I got to the race registration about 8:15. It was already sticky hot and humid. I even considered just going with 5K, but I really wanted to test the 10K distance. Blood sugar upon arrival had reached 149 mg/dl, the shot I had given earlier was petering out.<br><br>
Now I had a decision to try to finagle. Did I leave things alone or go with more insulin? Sometimes after a hypo and my fast acting insulin has been working well, more insulin on top of that will make me plummet more. On the other hand, I was beginning to feel adrenaline about being there. I shot up with 1 unit.<br><br>
At 9:06, my blood sugar was again 149 mg/dl. I jabbed up with another unit of insulin.<br><br>
Race started about 9:20. After leaving the parking, nasty uphill greeted us all. My legs didn't feel all that good. I didn't feel like I was running all that fast, but my heart rate quickly climbed.<br><br>
I reached mile 1 in 10:01. But that was a hard feeling 10:01. Still, at least we were starting to get more downhill than uphill.<br><br>
I was really suspecting trouble when the second mile split was 10:15. I was already feeling beat up some, and despite more downhill my pace had slowed. Oh boy.<br><br>
I tried easing back and slowing down. Heart rate refused to budge down and the third mile was an ugly 12:29.<br><br>
I hit the start of the second loop around 33 something, I didn't get the split.<br><br>
Then came the uphill of the loop again. It killed me. Near its top, I said, "Fuck it" and began walking. That's the way things would go the rest of the way. I would walk, run some and feel horrible running. Walk some more. Run, feel horrible.<br><br>
I missed the 4 mile marker and hit split at 4.1 13:23 for 1.1 miles. Ugh. The next .9 miles would take 10:29. The sixth mile I just resigned myself that it was a bad run and rather than beating myself into the ground, I walked most of it -- 14:47. With that, I gave myself enough to run the last .2 miles in 2:07 and finish my first 10K race in about 1:13:30.<br><br>
That sucked. I had hoped at least for 62 minutes or better, maybe going after less than 60 minutes.<br><br>
But maybe because of the weather, I got the second place medal for the 30-39 age group. Or as I said when it was handed to me, "A medal for last place."<br><br>
Not the race I dreamed of.<br><br>
Oh yeah, blood sugar was 220 mg/dl when finished. Fuck again.
