[Scratch]

This past Sunday I did my last sort of goal race for running when I did the 10K at Brian's Run in West Chester -- the course even briefly overlaps my typical route into work in the mornings. I don't know if my legs were still fully recovered yet from the half-marathon back on November 18th along with how I probably ran too many miles the week following that, but I had a good time running the distance in some sleet and freezing rain. At the finish, I had some ice in my hair and on the front of my shorts.

Overall, I'm rather pleased with the progress I made since April 21st when I began for the second time the effort to make running part of my regular activity. The first attempt was at the start of November in 2006 and that came to difficulties when 7 weeks later and with less than 85 miles of running I had broken my tibia down in the ankle area. But I took the lessons learned from that, added more regular calcium rich foods to my diet and when I resumed running, did so in a conservative fashion to let my legs slowly build up.

Now, 7.5 months later, I've achieved the two races I wanted to be ready for -- the half-marathon on the 18th of November and the 10K at Brian's Run.

I'm quite serious when I say it's been one of the best things I've ever done. It was tough at times, making the time to do my runs, monitoring my glucose levels, being persistent about it. What I managed to do is a fair enough challenge and a worthy for those without the complication of type 1 diabetes, many normally healthy people would have found the goal and the process a fair bit of readjustment.

But all of that is just a subset of results under the idea of being active and using exercise to help maintain my health, not just physical health but my emotional and mental well-being too.

So I intend to continue running and hope to use this thread to let others see my progress on the way to The Broad Street Run in Philadelphia in May. 10 miles straight down Broad Street, past Independence Hall and finishing in the Navy Yard.

My path to there and then began yesterday with 5.1 miles in the cold and wind.

[notme]

Congratulations Scratch! You are doing something that I always wished I could do. I have never been able to stick with distance running. I don't know why I can't do it....I think I don't work out right to do it. I can run a block and then I can't go farther. I don't know if it is a breathing thing that I do wrong or what. I feel clumsy when I run. How did you get started? Like from the very beginning started?

I am recuperating from foot surgery, but I would love to start running at some point next summer. How do you start?

[Scratch]

Notme, I think the most important lesson that I learned is to be very careful and conservative when starting up. Last year when I broke my tibia it was because I tried to do too much too soon, and that's a danger because the general rule of thumb for running is that the cardio system improves most rapidly, then the bones, then the tendons and ligaments. The lag time between bones and tendons improving behind the quick way the muscles, heart and lungs improve is what can make a for a dangerous period.

That dangerous period last year was further exacerbated by the fact that for whatever reason I found that I love running. Something about it that sometimes when I'm running I don't feel like stopping. Then I found out a broken leg will stop you. Stopped me for 4 months.

From what I know now and what I've read about, a really good program for people who are interested in including running in their lives is the Couch to 5K program an example of which can be seen at Cool Running :: The Couch-to-5K Running Plan . It gives a safe approach for a person to build up to running 3 miles or 30 minutes after 8 weeks. My general feeling is that most people should just go with the time-based schedule. We often think of running as something that's supposed to be fast, but hard fast running is very dangerous when the bones, tendons, and ligaments aren't built up to that yet.

Which then leads to probably the most important thing that many people seem to have to learn early on -- Slow down! Seriously. When adopting running, you should aim to run most of your miles such that you could have a conversation with someone beside you. This conversational pace is quite useful to building aerobic fitness and preparing the legs in a gentle enough way to help avoid injury.

This year, for the first 10 weeks I was running, that's mostly all I did. I was slow. But that was fine. Then I just carefully began adding some more time and distance to the runs with most of those being run at a pace where I could have spoken in full sentences.

It's hard sometimes. We all kind of grow up with the idea that running is something fast, something hard. But one of the most important steps to take to get running is a step back in the mind where running isn't about how fast you get there but about learning how to run at a comfortable easy pace that feels like it could go for nearly forever.

[notme]

I bookmarked the page Scratch, thank you. This looks like a good program to start with for me.

Before surgery, I was walking 2.5 miles a day with my dogs at a very brisk pace. Right now my feet will only let me walk about 1.5 miles before they swell up. I have four pins and a wire in my toe and my feet swell rather quickly.

What shoes are you wearing for running? Have you had any issues with shin splints from the concrete?

[Scratch]

You might definitely want to visit a running store when you feel ready to get started, preferably one where they'll take the time to fit the shoes and watch your gait. It's a very good idea to get fitted with shoes that'll be designed to work with your stride and feet and not cause unneeded stress upon your joints.

I got fitted with a pair of shoes this year that felt right immediately upon trying them on and was quite happy to maybe pay a few extra dollars for more assurance that I wasn't going to be injuring myself in a bad pair of shoes. This fall I went back and purchased another pair from that running store, basically as a way of expressing my thanks to them for the time and service provided.

I haven't had any trouble with shin splints. Shin splints can mean a variety of things, although if they flare up quickly for a person in the first few runs it's basically a sign that the muscles on the front of the shins aren't strong enough to maintain stability while running. There are exercises that can be done to improve their strength, also cycling and brisk walking can be good activities to improve the strength of the muscles around the shins.

[Scratch]

Yesterday's snowstorm forced me to abandon my run today. It might get a bit tough now with so little daylight, I don't have a treadmill or gym membership, and shrinking safe running areas when it snows and ices up the way it did.

But then, you know who else had a same sort of problem? The Finns. Who were some of the best distance runners in the first half of the 20th century? The Finns. What did a lot of them do in winter and spring before the summer got rolling? Walking. They would walk a lot of miles to crosstrain, maintain and build aerobic fitness.

So I walked 5 fast miles after work today.

Hopefully I'll be able to run on Saturday.

[Scratch]

I got to run and do something new today. 2 separate runs. I had to help someone out late in the morning, which meant that I couldn't really go out and run for close to 2 hours like I would have if I did a run up over 10 miles. So I went out and ran 5.1 in the morning, helped that person out, and went out again early afternoon for another 5.5 miles.

It seemed to work out okay, although I wish I could have had all those miles in a single run.

[Scratch]

A 4.8 mile run today, legs felt pretty good. Tomorrow will be a rest and recovery day.

Cars out on the roads probably think I'm nuts to be outside in a light drizzle and 35 degrees. It was a bit chilly.

[Scratch]

Yesterday, I had my best feeling run since the half-marathon on the 18th of last month. So I didn't run it completely easy, a shade above that and covered 6.6 miles.

Weather tomorrow is looking iffy. If it's too tough to run, I'll gear up and do a fast walk in place of the run.

[kstreeter513]

Originally Posted by Scratch

Cars out on the roads probably think I'm nuts to be outside in a light drizzle and 35 degrees. It was a bit chilly.

Yea, but don't ya just love that??

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by kstreeter513

Yea, but don't ya just love that??

It's a bit crazy, but it's a good feeling.

Weather was bad today. After work, I didn't want to mess around with driving home over possibly icy roads in the dark, so I came straight home and crosstrained using the exercycle although it bores me to tears almost. Still, got a good 45 minutes in and I can be happy about giving my legs some work that way.

[Scratch]

That was strange. I've had instances of my blood sugar spiking on short intense runs like 5K races, for those I often inject a couple units of insulin 30 minutes prior to the race.

On long easy aerobic efforts, my blood sugar early in the morning usually remains fairly stable, after an hour begins dropping.

Today I did 10.2 miles, began slowing horribly after the first 5.1 was done and when I got back for the second time, my legs felt terrilbe. I found out why when I got inside and tested -- 282 mg/dl. I spiked up from starting out at 190 mg/dl and with about .5 units of bolus insulin to be used up over the next 2 hours. That situation there after two hours I would expect to be around 100 - 120 mg/dl.

All my overnight tests showed last night's Lantus shot was working right.

Maybe the cold temps my body reacted by releasing more glucose trying to keep warm? I don't know. Although the bad blood sugar at the end does probably explain why I slowed down so badly during the run.

[Scratch]

I've had more time to review what happened on Saturday and think I've got a better grasp on what went wrong.

This much is known:

-- Lantus basal insulin was working, I had dosed correctly on Friday night at 9 PM.
-- Blood sugar waking up at 6:15 was 145 mg/dl, I injected 1u of Novolog to help with my wake up coffee.
-- Blood sugar at 8 AM had risen to 195 mg/dl.
-- I decided not to inject any more Novolog out of worries of what would happen if I ran for around 2.5 hours and 14 miles.

That last decision was the big mistake. My observations have revealed that extra bolus insulin that gets used during exercise periods often results in a correction factor of 50 to 70 mg/dl. I could have safely injected 1 unit of Novolog perhaps even 2 units with an idea of testing at around 2 hours to check on things.

But I didn't and for reasons I still don't know exactly why, it looks like my liver output was increased or I had some extra morning insulin resistance or a combination thereof, which caused my blood sugar to go trending upward and my muscles being unable to use the glucose with proper efficiency.

But I got nervous about I suppose we all worry most about -- going hypo. I thought that I would come back from the run and find my blood sugar down around 140 to 150 mg/dl, which is where I usually like to be to start.

I should have taken cues from how much my blood sugar rose with the coffee.

------

Weather wasn't very pleasant yesterday so I did 45 minutes on the exercise bike and watched football while doing so. Even while watching football, the exercise bike is freaking boring. But I'll use it as needed.

[Scratch]

Got out for 7.5 miles of mostly easy effort yesterday and the blood sugars behaved this time. Weather forecast is looking good for tomorrow too so for the first time in a few weeks I'll get both Tuesday and Thursday runs.

[Scratch]

6 miles last evening after work, first run on a Thursday in December all month.

Yesterday ended up being one of my biggest all day fitness workouts ever probably. I also did a total of 77 pull ups and 300 push ups spread throughout the day, could have done more pull ups if I had some sort of pull up bar here at work.

Today's a rest day, then I'm rolling into a 4 day weekend.