[Scratch]

Ugh, had to cut my morning run short by a mile today because of intestinal difficulties.

[Scratch]

Longest run yet today, 9.5 miles. The long runs are important to help me learn what the distance feels like and when you run for more than an hour at a time, it really does a lot of work on the leg muscles.

Next weekend I'll try to extend the distance to 10 miles or more. It's weird when you go long for the first time because afterwards you're often in a state of semi-disbelief: did I really just go that far?

[Scratch]

Did a recovery type of jog this morning, where I run at a very easy pace and just try to give my legs some extra circulation without pounding on them. 3.7 miles, putting me up over 20 miles in one week for the first time. Also, if you take today's miles and add them onto yesterday's miles, that's 13.2 miles in a 24 hour time period.

So I'm slowly getting there. Just 8 weeks away now!

[Ronin]

Way to Go Scratch!

While it may seem that you are not getting hits, the reality is that we're all just a bit awed at your progress since your first post. I'll bet that you are feeling and experiencing all kinds of side benefits of all the training, even to the point of liking that almost daily run.

Keep up the good work.

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by Ronin

Way to Go Scratch!

While it may seem that you are not getting hits, the reality is that we're all just a bit awed at your progress since your first post. I'll bet that you are feeling and experiencing all kinds of side benefits of all the training, even to the point of liking that almost daily run.

I already liked the running long before now. If I didn't, it would be harder to keep going, harder to be doing like I'm doing sometimes, getting up at 4:30 AM so I can make a quick cup of coffee and drive to a nearby high school track where I can run without worrying about cars being unable to see me in the darkness that's overtaking the northern hemisphere as we are now in autumn.

But it's been a fair bit of progress since that Saturday in April when I mixed in a few laps of running with some walking at the track. It's a good thing too, because the closer I get to November 18th, the more I realize just how far of a trip it's been. Even now sometimes I'm looking at everything and thinking it would have been better to do a lot more running before doing a half-marathon, maybe have waited til fall of 2008.

I mean, barring something unforeseen, I'm going to make it and should likely be able to run all of it or the great majority of it, but it's going to be near the outer bounds of my endurance still in 2 months. That's okay though, I think there's an important idea in that, where we all need to try to see that exercise and activity needs to be seen as something long-term, building gradually. Don't expect results inside of a week or two weeks, it's a gradual accumulation that after a few months you can look back and almost scratch the noggin about the progress that has been made, if the work has been put in.

But I don't think anyone should be awed by my progress. For reasons I can't always verbalize or internally comprehend, I've got the motivation in me and it keeps pushing me to do these things.

At times, it isn't easy. It's frustrating as all heck when the diabetes throws a curveball I didn't see coming or I think how much nicer, how much easier it would be to do all of this if I weren't a type 1 diabetic. It'd be nice to just go for a run without having to stab a finger and draw blood.

But I'm getting there. One mile after another, one test strip after another.

[Scratch]

Track workout this morning. A bit nervous going into this one, but still I felt good about how the ankle has done this year and I carefully read up on conducting intervals in Jack Daniels book. So I went to the track this morning to do 1 mile warmup, then 3x800m intervals with 400m of recovery in between, with a half mile of cooldown at the end.

In the dark and fog, it was a bit hard to gauge my pace and like my tendency in 5K races, I bolted out too fast during the first interval. That would have some carryover effect into the next two intervals, but overall I'm pretty happy with my first go at doing intervals as a way to put some beneficial stress on my vo2max capability.

I need to get about 5.5 miles in on Thursday, so I'm thinking of avoiding the track in the morning and doing an afternoon run in a park that's close to where I work. Don't really feel like doing 22 laps of easy pace in the dark like that.

[Scratch]

Well I hope that's the last time I've had to run in heat this year. Took a water bottle with me and drank or splashed all of it on me before the 5th mile was done.

It was a bit odd returning to run in the little park where December 21st last year my tibia broke. Although once I got running I didn't think about that all that much, I just tried to keep moving despite the misery of the heat.

I don't like running in heat. I should have started pouring water on my head earlier in the run and probably should have come with an extra cache of water to use too. Will try to remember those lessons for next year and summer when the heat returns.

Take tomorrow off from running and get ready for Saturday. Big day coming, my first run that'll go up into double digits for miles. It'll either be 10 or 10.5 miles depending on how I feel at the 10 mile mark.

[Scratch]

10.6 miles is what I ended up running today. It took a while, that's for sure, but it was good that I was able to progressively pick up the pace throughout the run and finish strongly.

It seems absolutely unbelievable almost that I just went over double digits in miles on a run.

[Scratch]

I just got back from my final run of the month, it felt good. Finished off my biggest week and biggest month.

September highlights:
This week: 23.7 miles
This month: 79.2 miles
New 5K PR of 29:11 on 9-15
Longest run of 10.6 miles on 9-29

I'll be taking an easy week this coming week with plans to run a 5K race on Saturday.

[Scratch]

You're going to have good runs and you're going to have bad runs. This afternoon's was a bad run. Had some struggles with my blood sugars mid-afternoon, the weather got unusually warm and sticky, I never felt a good rhythm while running.

But I got my miles in, 6.6 of them, and I'll hope the next run goes better.

[Scratch]

Yesterday I ran a 5K race which had some disappointment to it. Maybe because of the weird warm humid weather around here, I didn't go as fast as a pace as I would have liked and finished about 50 seconds slower than 3 weeks ago. That was the disappointment.

But on the other hand, there were some good things too. I went with my plan of keeping myself reined in during the first mile, trying to avoid the "it feels like I'm dying in the last mile" feeling, the trying to hang on effect. So after the first mile I worked on picking up my pace throughout the last two miles and pulling in runners who had been ahead of me. Over the last 1.8 miles or so, nobody passed me as I would work my way up. That was a nice feeling.

Also set a new highwater mark for highest heart rate average ever for a 5K race yet, which should be a good sign that my anaerobic threshold has been pushed up a few beats higher.

Went out and ran 3.8 miles this morning, finished the week up with around 15.5 miles. This was a cutback week, tomorrow the new week starts and I'm looking to go around 26 miles by the time it's done with a long run that goes over 11 miles.

We're six weeks away from Philadelphia.

[Scratch]

Once again I will hope this was the last hot weather run of the year. One good bit of fortune was the cool front passed through while I ran and it was noticeably cooler and drier at the end than the beginning.

6.25 miles today, 20 more miles to do this week.

[Scratch]

A tempo run yesterday after work. About 1 mile of warmup, 2 miles at tempo pace, a brief recovery interval, 2 more miles of tempo pace then a cooldown of about a mile. Total distance of 6.25 miles.

It seems amazing that it wasn't til the end of June that I did my first run lasting over an hour. It wasn't til the end of July I did a long run of more than 6 miles. So far this week I've done 2 runs each over 6 miles and going for more than an hour. Tomorrow I'm going to go around 11.5 miles and that should probably take me over 2 hours. The buildup has been slow and conservative, but even so, it's amazing how much more I can do now over 2.5 months ago. You just got to be persistent.

[Alice]

Scratch, I just caught up with some of your runs...you have amazing dedication and I can tell you really enjoy running. My knees are terrible, so I just walk...but you are inspiring me to get out and explore my new neighborhood.

Yesterday I went for a short 1 mile walk...I was buzzed by 3 joggers in the first 5 minutes. Then, I was passed by another walker...so I guess I better pick up my speed!

I try to walk 3 miles, but need to map out a new course with my car. I like to have a 1 mile, a 2 mile and a 3 mile.

My new favorite lunch spot is 1.8 miles from my home, so I'm going to start walking on low-humidity days (otherwise I'll look like a drowned-rat from humidity!)...I'm looking forward to my winter in Florida. Chicago, I'd go to the gym and walk on the treadmill...not the same!

Question: I know you keep glucose tabs (so do I)...have you ever dropped really low during a run? I haven't had much problem with walking...I always walk above 100 though.

[Scratch]

My general principle is that I try to have my blood sugar somewhere between 120 and 150 mg/dl before the run, if it's just a run for training and I'm not going to be going all out in a 5K race. Racing because of all the stress it puts on the system causes my blood sugar to spke high and 30 minutes before 5K races now I usually inject with 1 or 2 units of insulin.

So far, I've been either fortunate or well calculated enough that I haven't had a hypo while running yet over the last 5.5 months. I think I'm helped by one important feature of my present metabolic state -- I'm about as insulin sensitive as I can be and because I exercise in some form almost every day of the week, there is little variation caused by the activity when it's being done. I know some diabetics have terrible difficulties with exercise and their blood sugars plummeting, which I think may be caused some by how if you aren't normally active on a consistent basis, the activity will greatly affect how sensitive the body becomes to insulin.

But if you're already near maximum sensitivity, then the effect isn't as dramatic.

I do have enhanced sensitivity after exercise generally, where my I:C ratio goes to around 1:20 for a few hours instead of my usual 1:10. I think this is because the muscles go to pack away glycogen that got used up while I was exercising.

Still, it can be a great struggle sometimes. Yesterday, I was riding uncomfortably on some strange metabolic fluctuation and calculations to figure out how to run for yesterday afternoon --

I had to do a somewhat uncomfortable dance with the diabetes yesterday to accomplish getting my run in. For unknown reasons, something got miscalculated or my liver decided to go bonkers for a bit early yesterday afternoon after lunch. I was in good shape before lunch and eating a lunch of known effect. At noon, I gave myself 8 units with plan of snacking at around 2 PM to get my blood sugar to a comfortable number by 4 PM.

At 1:45 PM, I test and it’s 215 mg/dl. That’s not what I anticipated, I was expecting 100 to 120 mg/dl. I calculated bolus remaining and it seemed like it should get me to 150 mg/dl around 4 PM, but the fact that I was way above where I should be made me decide to inject 3 units more bolus. At 2:55 PM, I test again and get 231 mg/dl. Now I’m getting in a bad position, the blood sugar is above 200 mg/dl which I don’t like running at and I’ve got 1 hour old bolus in the system that’ll be affecting my run if I do it. I felt like I’m just guessing, but I go for 4 more units of Novolog.

3:55 PM, 153 mg/dl. Great, the blood sugar is going in the right direction at least as far as what it should be doing according to how much active insulin I have in my system. Bad, because in the next 1.5 hours I can expect about 3 units of bolus insulin to be used which without activity would probably drop me to around 50 mg/dl. To counteract that effect, I decide to eat 35 grams of carbs, all the while sort of crossing my fingers that those won’t end up causing me to go super high instead of just covering the insulin that’s going to be active while I’m running.

At 5:27 PM, my run is finished and I get blood out of a freezing finger. 81 mg/dl. Shew. The calculations ended up working. But keep in mind that was after the calculations up til 3 PM hadn’t been working. I hate, hate, hate being a diabetic sometimes.

----

So I have some issues sometimes. But beyond all the good cardio and strengthening benefits of the exercise, all the testing and observation has made me much more familiar with how my body and its metabolism operates. I feel that provides direct benefit to the management of being a type 1 diabetic.

It's a pain in the arse at times. Man, if there's ever a cure, I can hardly imagine how good it would be to go for a run without stabbing a finger prior and stabbing a finger afterwards.