Let's take a run down Broad Street

[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 (http://www.broadstreetrun.com/site3.aspx) 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 (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml) . 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]

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??:D

[Scratch]

Yea, but don't ya just love that??:D
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? :confused: 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.

[Scratch]

Ran 10.2 miles this morning, blood sugars behaved much better than last Saturday's run.

I've also been doing submaximal sets of weighted pull ups and a push up variant throughout the day.

[Scratch]

A 3.3 mile run today to close out the week, one where I finally got to run 4 times and it totaled up to 27 miles, my second highest weekly total ever.

It's been a pretty strenuous week of training, along with all the pull ups and push ups I've been doing. I think I'll take it easy this coming week, rest up some so if the weather is decent on the 30th, I can take a shot at a 5K race that day.

[Scratch]

I did a very easy run yesterday, early on in the run I could tell my legs weren't all there and eventually I realized that instead of pushing it any, I should just relax, enjoy the bright sunshine and comfortable temps and take my time out there.

I plan for an easy run tomorrow and Saturday, then hope to go hard in a 5K race on Sunday.

[Scratch]

Ran 8.2 miles last night at a very easy pace. Easy easy pace, you might call it. I'm using the heart rate monitor again to help enforce these slower paced runs that are meant to give me runs that don't beat on the legs too much and provide a lot of good base aerobic conditioning.

Almost done with 2007 now and it's been a great year for me fitness wise. I healed up a broken ankle, started running again and did a half-marathon in November, can now do 15 pull ups in a single set and had 3 good A1c results.

I have some specific goals in mind for 2008 but will always try to be flexible enough to adapt to whatever curveballs life throws.

[Scratch]

4.8 slow easy miles today. That sets me up with the 5K distance tomorrow to set a new monthly mileage best.

[Scratch]

Closed out my running for 2007 today with a 5K race and a new PR of 27:11 by their clock or 27:12 on my watch.

Ran 555.1 miles for the year with a start up date of April 21st. Did 9 5K races, 2 10K races, one half-marathon.

It was a good way to close out the year today. I hope to continue to make progress in 2008 and most of all, remain injury free. Out of all the running stuff I managed to do this year, staying injury free was the most important goal that was achieved.

[Scratch]

I elected to start off the new year yesterday with a long run. More normally, I might have done like 7 or 8 miles, but with the day off and also the shot of cold air coming in today, tomorrow and Friday, I figured I could do a slow easy 11 miles and try to get my target weekly mileage in this way.

[Scratch]

14 mile run today, that's the most distance I've ever covered.

[Scratch]

A short 3.3 mile run for some more legwork and recovery from yesterday's 14 miles. It was a good week of running, I kept the heart rate low and totaled up 28.3 miles. I've sketched out ideas for getting 4 days and 31 miles this upcoming week.

[Dan Gato]

Scratch,

I always read your postings, it's inspirational, I bet many here are wanting to do what you're doing.
Keep it up !!!:)

[Scratch]

Scratch,

I always read your postings, it's inspirational, I bet many here are wanting to do what you're doing.
Keep it up !!!:)
Thank you.

I think one point I may never emphasize enough, in the past or even in the future, is the importance for a person to approach all of this with an idea that it's best to take small steady steps forward. It's the old little strokes fell great oaks idea or the journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step.

Last year at this time I was hopping around on two crutches. I could do about a total of 6 chin ups in the morning and would be spent for the day. Now I had gotten that broken leg through my hastiness and lack of knowledge, and broke my leg by running far too much far too soon. So I don't know, spending 6 weeks in a cast was tough, but taught me some value with patience and it also was beneficial in how it made me put some focus on improving my upper body strength as well.

The point is that with what I'm now writing about running miles is that it took a slow and patient build up. I carefully increased my weekly mileage and carefully increased the distance on the long runs. I usually took an easy week every third week to give my body recovery time.

But I suppose also what's been hugely important in getting to where I am now is that I've rather enjoyed the challenge of it all. That's why whenever I hear anyone say what should they do, I say, "Find something you'll enjoy doing." Well, it's not always immediately enjoyable -- I hate doing ab work, oh man, that's bloody uncomfortable working the ab muscles -- but over time when you start noticing the differences showing up, it's pretty cool.

And I'm really looking forward to the Broad Street Run. That's going to be excellent running down through Philadelphia like that.

[kstreeter513]

Scratch,
You have been an inspiration to me too. I have always enjoyed running, and for the past year and a half, I have been running 5-6 days consistently. But reading your posts about the runs you do has inspired me to run the St. Louis marathon this year. It is on April 6th. and I am very excited. I have four months to train so thats good because my weekly long run is only 15 miles so far. This weekend I'll try 18. But its good to see that you haven't let diabetes get in the way of things you want to do. Keep it up, and run strong.!!

[Scratch]

Scratch,
You have been an inspiration to me too. I have always enjoyed running, and for the past year and a half, I have been running 5-6 days consistently. But reading your posts about the runs you do has inspired me to run the St. Louis marathon this year. It is on April 6th. and I am very excited. I have four months to train so thats good because my weekly long run is only 15 miles so far. This weekend I'll try 18. But its good to see that you haven't let diabetes get in the way of things you want to do. Keep it up, and run strong.!!
26.2! Yeah, work on extending the long runs. I'll be interested in hearing how that goes for you. Now see, I'm probably not even going to consider making a run for 26.2 until 2010 at the earliest, but one of the things I've been trying to figure out is whether I just follow the classic marathon plans of long runs of up to 20 miles, then trusting that the training will be enough to handle an additional 6.2 miles on race day, or if as a diabetic I should make some sort of plan to go into the distance beyond 20 miles so I can find out what it'll be like out beyond the glycogen wall.

I don't know, I really don't know right now.

[Scratch]

Strange weather, I was perfectly comfortable wearing a tee shirt and shorts. 9 easy miles. When I was done that, I wandered over to the monkey bars and did a quick set of 10 pull ups, felt real smooth and easy after hammering weighted chin ups since last week. Then I did 15 push ups to top it all off, went to my car, and my blood sugar was 93 mg/dl.

I wish it was always so easy, but I won't complain.

[Scratch]

6.6 easy miles after work. I should have worn gloves though. Thought it was warm enough, but by the end my fingers were extremely cold. I rubbed them and shook them before trying to draw blood, but ended up with too little and the Ultrasmart Error 5 code. Grrr. Second draw was good and I was at 80 mg/dl.

It's strange looking back at times. It took me over 2 months last year to get to my first run that went over an hour. I went a meager 4.75 miles while doing that and my legs were dead tired at the end.

4 of my first 5 runs this year have lasted beyond an hour and 2 of them over 2 hours.

About the chin up progress as I'm also working towards being able to do one arm chin ups, I loaded up the backpack this morning with weights and was able to do one chin with 82.4 lbs on my back.

At this time last year, I was finishing up my first week in a cast.

[kstreeter513]

26.2! Yeah, work on extending the long runs. I'll be interested in hearing how that goes for you. Now see, I'm probably not even going to consider making a run for 26.2 until 2010 at the earliest, but one of the things I've been trying to figure out is whether I just follow the classic marathon plans of long runs of up to 20 miles, then trusting that the training will be enough to handle an additional 6.2 miles on race day, or if as a diabetic I should make some sort of plan to go into the distance beyond 20 miles so I can find out what it'll be like out beyond the glycogen wall.

I don't know, I really don't know right now.

Do you eat or drink any kind of sports drink while training? I am on a pump so it is a little bit different for me, but I have found that if I cut my basal back to 20-25% of the original basal rate, and suck down an energy gel (25 grams carbs) every 4 or 5 miles, I can run without ever going low and finish with a great BG.

I have also found that if I cut my basal back any more, even if I don't eat anything while running, the ol BG spikes. But if I leave it @ 20-25% I get low after an extended period of time. Short runs (up to 7 miles) are no problem. But if I don't eat on my long runs...look out BG.

As for my training, I am following the traditional training plan. My long runs will top out at 22 miles (what another 4.6 after that anyway). I am very excited though and will let you know how it goes.

[Scratch]

Do you eat or drink any kind of sports drink while training? I am on a pump so it is a little bit different for me, but I have found that if I cut my basal back to 20-25% of the original basal rate, and suck down an energy gel (25 grams carbs) every 4 or 5 miles, I can run without ever going low and finish with a great BG.

Often I don't have to eat or drink anything. I try to get my blood sugar level to around 140 to 150 mg/dl at the beginning and I will leak around 10 carbs worth per hour. 10 carbs comes out to around 35 mg/dl of value for me, so starting at that level, I can go around 2 hours without needing to add any fuel.

I don't know why this is, based upon what I've read about other type 1's experiences with blood sugars and insulin levels during exercise. I've got some sort of strangeness to my metabolic situation my daily basal shot works just fine and I can go exercising fairly easily with hardly any worry of going low. Although that's not entirely true, back in late 2007 when I switched over from my old regimen of 2 NPH shots, correct with R, feed the insulin, to MDI, my basal shot was much larger, 24 units. On heavy exercise days, like when I would go golfing, walk and play 18 holes, my blood sugars would tend to plummet.

But I kept getting more active having more freedom with MDI and I became active every day. Even when I went down with the broken leg, then I began doing upper body strengthening and maintained activity level. So now I run on a basal shot of 15u per day and it works very nicely, except for my tendency to drop a lot from 10 PM til around 2 AM. And I also have to use 1 unit of Novolog in the morning to supplement my basal, so I guess my basal is more like 16u per day.

I guess it's all because of how active I try to be and that my metabolic variance isn't a widely humping curve that everything works very nicely for me without having to worry about using a pump to adjust basal rates.

[yellowlab03]

Hey Scratch, are you running with your pump on? I take mine off for runs, but mostly because our PT shorts are a pair of Ranger panties... Well we call them something else, but it wouldn't really be appropriate here:D.

Also, are you on any type of work out program like crossfit?

And last but not least, what is a normal diet for you?

[Scratch]

I don't pump, I use injections/MDI to have a basal/bolus regimen.

My working out basically consists of running for aerobic activity, variations of pull ups, chin ups, and push ups and other bodyweight exercises to improve strength.

Diet, I just try to eat a balanced diet with a good mixture of dairy, vegetables, fruits, and sources of protein. I have to avoid all barley, wheat and rye products because I probably have celiac sprue.

[yellowlab03]

Thanks, the reason I ask is that I am getting ready to start training for Ranger school and I need to train a certain way, but at the same time manage my BG levels. Eating whatever I want anymore isn't an option because i need to aclimate myself to strenous workouts on about a 4,000 cal diet. I figure getting my body used to that for the next year will greatly help for when I start the course and am forced to eat about that.

[Scratch]

Thanks, the reason I ask is that I am getting ready to start training for Ranger school and I need to train a certain way, but at the same time manage my BG levels. Eating whatever I want anymore isn't an option because i need to aclimate myself to strenous workouts on about a 4,000 cal diet. I figure getting my body used to that for the next year will greatly help for when I start the course and am forced to eat about that.
You got quite a challenge in front of you, I'd guess. I think you're right to think that you need to start getting ready and training now, there's no substitute for not getting started on that and with you being a type 1 diabetic, you've got a lot more to handle than a regular person doing the same training.

Definitely keep yourself a log of everything. I find it very helpful for me that I can look back at what I've been doing and what effects have happened.

---------------

As far as my working out, I ended up pretty much cancelling all the weekend stuff I had originally planned. I hit the fatigue wall. It doesn't surprise me that it happened, I've been going after stuff pretty vigorously for the past month and I had a recovery week 2 weeks ago, but when you're trying to push things to limits it's pretty tough to get everything planned so that I would have hit the fatigue wall today instead of Saturday morning.

In essence, my recovery week started 2 days early.

I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made. All the push ups I've done the past month, along with handstands, have made the triceps and delts begin to show up some. I took a photo on Saturday and there's some noticeable development since the last photo taken back in early October.

[Scratch]

5 cold miles today. I don't like the wind but I got through that. I'm going to have to be tough about this, forecast over the next 2 weeks is for more cold weather like this.

Legs felt much better with the extra rest I took.

[kstreeter513]

Scratch,
Were have you been at lately? I really like reading your posts. Is everything alright? Or have you just taken a few recovery days?

[Scratch]

Scratch,
Were have you been at lately? I really like reading your posts. Is everything alright? Or have you just taken a few recovery days?
I seem to be taking a bit more recovery to get energy back up, both physically and mentally some. Since about Wednesday, haven't had much motivation to run, felt good enough to run on Thursday but the weather threw a curveball with a fairly steady snow falling in the afternoon which made me decide to get on home rather than trying to run on a possibly slippery park path followed by me maybe having to drive over some nasty roads to get home.

Friday, just couldn't get motivated to go run after work.

Same thing yesterday, although I did put in 51 minutes on the exercise bike.

Today I'm feeling the itch again to run, but not enough to go out in 20 degrees with a strong wind. That's just a bit too painful right now for me to deal with.

I think I just needed something of a break mostly. It might be real good that I did and I'll get out there Tuesday afternoon and get to run on super rested legs.

[Scratch]

I got out there today for 8.2 miles after work. Everything felt okay.

In other fitness kind of stuff, this morning I finally started getting good comfortable holds of what's known in yoga as the crow pose. It's also sometimes referred to as a frog stand and it's a step along the way to doing tuck planches. It took a bit of time and observation to shore up the weaknesses that made finding and holding the balance point of the crow pose, so it felt really cool to begin holding some of them for 15 to 20 seconds at a time today.

[Scratch]

Did 5.75 easy miles in the cold and wind. I think last week's mental break did me some good, it had been getting some like I felt pressured to run and taking a week off let me remember the idea of running for how much it can be enjoyed.

And each time the wind kicked up and slapped me in the face today, I thought how much better it was to have that than being in a cast like I was this time last year.

[Scratch]

I got lazy yesterday, didn't run. But I did 6.2 miles today, so I got 20 miles in for the week. Less than what I had been planning, but at least I'm getting in quality aerobic time.

I built a couple of ab wheels this morning. Oh man, those things are evil with the way you have to contract the abdominal muscles.

I'm getting very close to being able to kick up into a handstand, yesterday I even had a momentary sense of balance with my legs up and just my hands underneath me, it took me so much by surprise I let my legs drop, then I couldn't find that sweet spot again. Still need more lower back strength to keep the core stable up there.

[Scratch]

5 miles tonight. Will try for more on Thursday to close out the month, then hopefully do a pair of runs on the weekend to end up with a total somewhere up around 30 miles for the week.

[Scratch]

I couldn't stay out as long as I would have liked, had to make do with a 4.1 mile effort tonight. I'll try to get a good long run in on Saturday and follow up with a somewhat longish recovery on Sunday.

It may not have been bad for the month to be only around 84 miles. The prior 3 months I had gone up over 90 miles in each month which was something I had never done before in my life so it might have been good to step back, run most of these miles very easy and not try to be, I don't know, heroic about fighting through weather.

[Scratch]

All right, let's see. I didn't run both days on the weekend. I got the itch to golf on Saturday and decided to skip doing a long run that day.

I ran yesterday, 9.3 miles.

Not exactly sure what I want to do with this week right now.

Improvement in shoulder and lower back strength paid off some this morning when I was able to get both feet away from the wall and hold a couple of handstands for about 3 to 5 seconds each. That's not bad at all, thinking back to 2004 when my right shoulder went through the worst part of frozen shoulder and I couldn't lift my right arm up over my head. Now I've got it strong enough to support my own weight.

[Scratch]

A 6.55 mile run this evening. Felt nice with the warm temps, although my legs were feeling a bit sluggish and tired.

[Scratch]

10 miles tonight. Legs felt really good. Maybe the extra rest has helped them a lot, when I stopped at 10 I was on pace that if I'd kept going to 13.1 miles, I would have beat my half-marathon time from November.

[Scratch]

Broke my miles up today into 2 runs, one this morning of 6.6 miles and just a litle bit ago I did 4.8 miles. I'm finally feeling a lot more motivated to go out and run. It's a pain in the arse sometimes trying to make sure the blood sugars and insulin are all in check to go out and do the runs, but that feels more like something to conquer right now over letting them stand in my way.

[Scratch]

The week went a lot different than I might have expected at the beginning of it. I ran every day that I use for running and did the time and miles. I would have been happy to get up around 25 miles, effort like that would be up close to where I've been wanting to get to and would have been a good intermediate step.

On the other hand, I've been wanting to push my base weekly mileage to around 30 mpw, I have enough time and distance in on the legs to get around 30 mpw safely. I did that this week with 31.8 miles.

[Dan Gato]

Hi Scratch,

At what time do you prefer to run? (At what time do u get up?

What kind of clothes do you wear when is cold?

Thanks.

[Scratch]

Hi Dan, I don't really know if I have a prefered running time. It's nice running in the mornings, can put a good start on the day, but then running in the evenings after work can often be a good way to end up feeling more relaxed. Most days I usually get up somewhere between 5 and 6:30. The tough part about that right now is the wait for it to get light. I was happy this morning to get out there before 8 in the morning. It was cold but was also about the warmest it was going to be all day. A cold front has come through with lots of wind and arctic air.

The coldest temps I've run in so far have been mid 20s, I think. On that time, I wore a couple of long sleeve tops and a tee shirt, a hat, and gloves. Shorts too that time. A couple of times when down below freezing and running really easy, I've worn sweatpants too. It's not too tough to stay warm while running, the body generates a lot of heat when doing so.

I don't like wind though. Wind is the worst to run in. I think if it were upper teens and calm conditions, I could get by wearing shorts. Wind would change everything. It would take someone a lot tougher and better acclimated to cold than me to get me running if the temp was below 25 degrees and windy.

For whatever it's worth, I'm always trying to remember that in spite of some trouble with the self-motivation to start the year, the 124 miles I've got so far is 124 more miles than this time last year. This day last year I was still 5 days away from having my leg freed from the cast.

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Finally, some decent weather. I went out and did 5 miles tonight, will try for about the same tomorrow and Saturday, then go long on Sunday. Yeah, I'm going to try to run 4 days straight for the first time ever. The weather Monday through Wednesday was awful around here.

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5.85 miles tonight, took it fairly easy seeing how I want to run the next two days.

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5 really easy miles today. You know, yesterday was the first anniversary of the cast coming off the leg. That was kind of cool to be able to run yesterday because of that.

It'll be interesting to see how the legs do tomorrow. Today was the first time ever that I've run 3 straight days.

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I did it. 4 straight days of running, ran 5.85 today. Legs were better than I expected, although definitely not rested. I hope the weather cooperates more this coming week, I'd prefer to spread the 4 days out over the whole week.

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Ahhh wind. Yuck wind. I had wanted to go around 7.5 miles yesterday but the wind was terrible. Every time I'd reach the bottom end of the park, I'd come around into that wind from the northwest and that would hurt. I settled for 5 miles, then heading home to a microwave and heating up a bowl of the chili I made on Sunday.

This week's forecast isn't helping much. I had hoped to see about doing up around 33 miles. Now I'm thinking if I get 25 in that'll be acceptable.

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Cold but no wind. Shew. Did 7.5 miles. My legs are feeling some effects from the squatting and deadlifting I've been doing, a good effect in how they feel strong, a tough effect in how everything seems a bit tired right now.

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I haven't done a run yet, waiting for things to thaw out some although I did some weighted pull ups and roll outs with the ab wheels a little bit ago. It's also been a lot of progress since my last birthday -- I was in a darth vader boot a year ago, had begun working on upper body strength while in the cast but had some fitness goals in mind.

I ran my first half-marathon last year in November and I'm pretty happy about that. I just want to continue making progress with the running and overall strength. The big lesson I think over the past year has been that I need to be willing to accept that progress happens in slow increments if I consistently do the work. That's the big thing. Work consistently and the progress will happen.

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Did 6.2 miles today. Will try to run farther tomorrow, I'd like to do at least 9.

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I had to shorten my run yesterday and take it very easy. The legs just didn't have much of anything to them. The past 3 weeks have been pretty hard work on my body, not with just the most miles I've ever run in a 21 day period, but also for strength training which now includes doing squats and deadlifts.

The plan for this week is to take it easy. I won't be doing any squatting or deadlifting, and will try to have around 15 miles of running through Saturday before going into Sunday when there's a 5-mile race in the area that I would like to do. I hope that'll be enough cut back to get the legs nearly fully rested by Sunday so I can give a complete and full effort, and maybe get a measure of how much progression there's been since my last race, a 5K back on the 30th of December.

I had hoped to make today a complete off day from any or all training, but the weather forecast for tomorrow is horrible. I'm going out for a run tonight, I'll try to go real easy and whatever the legs can handle I'll do.

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I suppose today's weather helped. Very comfortable for running.

7.5 miles and when I got to the park, I thought I might only do 5 or so. But I was able to find that really comfortable easy pace so I just kind of kept going. Still, I think I'll take the next 2 days to rest the legs good.

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I had hoped to go out today and with this run for the first time surpass 100 miles of running in a single month. I guess right now I'm glad this year's a leap year so I can go get a few more miles tomorrow to get that goal.

It was cold. And windy. That's what I don't like. The wind. As soon as I got out of my car at the park, I knew I'd be good for maybe 30 minutes of running but to try do an hour would hurt a lot. So I ran my fastest 4 park loops ever and went back to the car.

Tomorrow's to be warmer with less wind. I shouldn't have any trouble picking up another 3 to 5 miles and going up over 100 miles for February.

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Went out and did another 3.8 miles, little less windy, not quite so cold. Gave me 101.2 miles for the month. It felt good getting that milestone.

Now I hope to give a good effort on Sunday at a 5 mile race.

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Sometimes I really hate being a diabetic. Everything was looking good going into the 5 mile race today, blood sugar was around 140 mg/dl, I injected 1u of Novolog about 20 minutes prior to help with the liver dump from stress ahead. But the liver dumped like I've rarely seen, at the race finish my blood sugar had jumped up to 256 mg/dl.

I had hoped to get around 45 minutes today. The first 2 miles I was on pace, after that things just kept getting worse probably because of the blood sugar spiking like that.

Went quickly home, changed, threw the golf bag in the car, walked and golfed 18 holes this afternoon.

I'm hungry now.

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I took Tuesday off, although maybe I should have run considering how nice the weather was. But my head was still out of sorts after Sunday's race and the bad blood sugar, so I let that day go. Went out for 3.3 miles tonight, just kind of ran to run, finished up and went to the pharmacy to pick up the supplies needed for another month.

It might be worth noting that strength training has definitely become more emphasized. One advantage it has is that I don't have to be so fussy about the blood sugars and calculating how much to eat before going out to run. So even if I'm not running, the strength workouts do a lot of good to help keep my basal metabolism chugging along and my insulin sensitivity high. Sometimes it makes the running a bit tough though now, especially if I'm doing squats. But my legs need to get stronger and obviously as I've continued to train my overall work capacity continues to expand.

Maybe for the first time in my life, I'm beginning to think of myself as becoming fit and strong. It's been a lot of work, but it's been worth it.

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Weather and a tire problem, so I put together a crazy little workout that I just got over with.

10 minutes, exercise bike easy.
4 minutes of tabata interval protocol, 20 seconds hard as possible, 10 seconds recover, repeat until 4 minutes is done.
Then I got off the bike, went outside, and ran/walked about a total of 1.15 miles out and back.

I hope to run tomorrow. It's to be cold and windy, ugh.

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Pretty nice weather today. So that was no problem and I got out for 4.1 miles.

At least I know I'm making progress again towards a one-arm chin up. Yesterday morning, I did a 5x5 of pull ups with an extra 25 lbs. and that's new mark.

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First the good news. I went up over 200 miles of running on the year with today's run. Last year I don't think it was until August that I reached 200 miles.

But I think it's time to look at all the signs I've been seeing and realize the way I've been pushing my body the past 3 months with running and strength training has pushed me a bit beyond the limit. I've got to take 1 to 2 really really easy weeks here I think.

When I was out there today, it felt a lot like that 10K race I had back in September where I just fell apart after 3 miles. I tried to do a tempo run today and after about 10 minutes at tempo pace, my legs just started dying on me. When I finished up and checked my blood sugar, I was fine at 128 mg/dl. I just might be extremely tired now and I've been trying to bull my way through it.

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Ran 3.3 miles after work yesterday, decided to go out and run for about 30 minutes. Tomorrow I'll go for 40 minutes and I'll aim to do an hour run on Saturday.

My last tough workout was Saturday morning with lifting some weights, but other than that I've gone into cutback mode to let my body get some more rest and recovery. It felt like it made a difference yesterday, legs didn't feel so dead and it felt like I could have run longer, but I decided not to push things like that right now.

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I bagged Thursday's run because of wind, but got out today. Legs felt the best they have in a while and they should if the extra rest has been needed. No squatting this week, hardly any running the last two weeks, oh you mean my legs can actually feel like running again?

So I did 6.2 miles today. Some point I should look at the calendar and plot out how I want my weekend long runs to play out, hopefully I can make one 10 miles long 2 weeks before Broad Street and that'll help me feel confident about having the distance in my legs.

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3.1 mile run this morning, forced myself to push it and it gets tough when it's all by yourself and don't have racers in front of you to try to pull you along. It did result in me running 5K distance by myself in less than 30 minutes for the first time ever, 28:24. I've broken 30 minutes in 5k races with my best being 27:12, but never running solo.

So I'm thinking that I should be able to set a new 5K PR next time I get out to a race.

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Pretty nice day with the weather. Except for the wind, why does there always have to be wind lately? Started out with a brisk pace, eased up for the middle, then closed out strong.

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4.2 mile run this afternoon, no wind! Yay.

Legs didn't feel too bad considering I had taken on 20 heavy squats this morning.

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7.8 miles of hills and wind. That's my longest run in over a month, yikes.

[Dan Gato]

Did 6.2 miles today. Will try to run farther tomorrow, I'd like to do at least 9.

Scratch, If you run this much. are you losing weight?
or you eat a lot of carbs to maintain your weight?
Your exercise routine is amazing !

[Scratch]

Scratch, If you run this much. are you losing weight?
or you eat a lot of carbs to maintain your weight?
Your exercise routine is amazing !
I've had to cut down on the running this past month. I've been working a strengthening program as well, last month's running and the squats and deadlifts with the weight training really put the mosh on me. I'm only going to get around 47 miles of running this month, but I needed to let the body recover some.

But actually right now I've been putting on weight. Back in October and November, I was usually 140 to 142 lbs or so; this past week on the scale in the morning I've been weighing in at 148 to 150 lbs. Since I'm trying to put on muscle weight, that means I've been eating a lot more protein, eggs, milk, tuna. If I weren't eating all that protein, I'd probably still be down in the low 140s.

My concept and notions of fitness have changed some over the past year as I've done the training, the work, the learning. But I'm glad I've done so. It takes committment, but having done so has improved my diet and sense of physical well-being. It sure would be nice if I could do it without all the fuss and mess of type 1 diabetes, but that fuss and mess can be dealt with.

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Did the same 3.1 mile route I did last Sunday morning, did it 48 seconds faster this time. It's a tough run, it's mostly downhill to the halfway point out, so coming back is mostly uphill. Also pleased that I did it faster considering I ran more miles the day before and also back on Thursday I did a hard set of squats. Last weekend, my legs had felt very fresh when starting out, today I didn't have the same feeling of freshness but was still able to run with better pace.

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3.3 miles after work, on a day that has turned into a rather lovely spring day, sunny. It was dark and wet early on.

The run was a bit tough though. I got up early this morning to do a hard set of squats and my legs could feel it out there this afternoon. But I had to do the squats today -- tomorrow I'm going to the lab to get blood drawn, HbA1c and lipid profile, so for the lipids I need to be fasting. Didn't want to do the hard squats and not be able to eat. Thursday is no good this week for squatting because there's a 5K race on Saturday I'd like to do, I want my legs to be fairly fresh.

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I ran 3.4 miles after work yesterday, went pretty well although I was annoyed again by wind and after about 1.5 miles my legs felt the effects some of the heavy deadlifts I had done early in the morning.

Things are looking good though to run a 5K race tomorrow morning. I hope to improve on my last 5K race time and it should be fun I hope.

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The 5K race went okay. Beat my last 5K race time by around 5 or 6 seconds, legs felt a bit tired from squatting on Tuesday and deadlifting on Thursday. I also raced at my highest bodyweight ever, when I checked on the scale this morning it was 150.4 lbs. That's about 6 lbs heavier than I was back on 12-30-2007. I guess I have been putting on some muscle weight.

Blood sugar was 153 40 minutes before the race. Injected 2u of Novolog, at race end blood sugar was 164.

[Eddy]

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


After seeing your HDL, I just had to follow your signature links. :) FWIW, coffee spikes my BG. Depending how much coffee I drink, it'll raise me as much as 50 mg/dL or so per hour, for several hours.

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After seeing your HDL, I just had to follow your signature links. :) FWIW, coffee spikes my BG. Depending how much coffee I drink, it'll raise me as much as 50 mg/dL or so per hour, for several hours.
Yeah, I know coffee has some effect on me. It's not always exact and varies some, and I've read up on how it seems caffeine can lead to a bit of insulin resistance.

I've been tracking the running efforts mostly in this thread, but after Broad Street next month, I need to start up a new journal about the workouts I do. I started off mostly with running, but over the past few months I've adopted in a much more comprehensive working out methodology with a fair bit of strength training too.

[Eddy]

Yeah, I know coffee has some effect on me. It's not always exact and varies some, and I've read up on how it seems caffeine can lead to a bit of insulin resistance.


The max rate at which coffee raises me is about equivalent to what I'd rise if I had no basal. (1.29U/hr * 35mg/dL/U) Perhaps there is insulin resistance, but I suspect there's also more glucose being generated... maybe there's some truth to the "diet" products that contain caffeine.


I've been tracking the running efforts mostly in this thread, but after Broad Street next month, I need to start up a new journal about the workouts I do. I started off mostly with running, but over the past few months I've adopted in a much more comprehensive working out methodology with a fair bit of strength training too.


Cool. I'll be keeping watch. :)

Thanks for sharing! I, for one, am eager to get back to exercising... and first-hand stories and trends are exactly what I need. The motivation and inspiration don't hurt, either. ;) Thanks again!

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I did a short run last evening, legs felt tired some, maybe leftover fatigue from the 5K race on Saturday and the tabata squats I did Sunday morning.

The organization that handles timing of a lot of the 5K events I run at usually has a person snapping some photos and I actually ended up in one of the pictures on Saturday.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y147/xulfercirtsag/fitness/racepic04052008-1.jpg

I'm not exactly in the front of that picture, pehaps we should crop away some and blow up a portion in the background.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y147/xulfercirtsag/fitness/racepic04052008-2.jpg

I'm right behind the guy in the yellow shirt. IIRC I'd end up passing him after we had made the lollipop loop around Frawley Stadium.

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Put in 4.2 miles today, it warmed up so much and quickly it felt almost hot out there. Legs were feeling very tired, a heavy squat workout yesterday morning combined with deadlifts this morning took some of the starch out of my legs I guess.

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I just finished up the most brutal workout I've ever done.

It's taken from Crossfit and it's called Murphy.

First run a mile.
Then do 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, and 300 squats.
Then go run another mile.

It took me 58:31, blood sugar was 112 mg/dl before starting, I drank a bit of milk, blood sugar was still 112 halfway through and 137 at the end.

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I ran 3.4 miles yesterday, legs felt pretty decent after taking 2 rest days following the Murphy workout.

Also did some strength stuff with push presses, pull ups, dumbbell swings and bench presses.

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I did 5 miles yesterday. Felt a sense of overall fatigue yesterday, maybe from the deadlifting on Wednesday morning. Deadlifts are a brutal kind of lift when going heavy on them and basically trying to pick up as much as weight you can up off the ground.

Super nice weather yesterday. Felt almost a bit hot.

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Yesterday was an anniversary date. April 21 last year after some weeks walking and seeing how my ankle handled that, I ran a few laps around a high school track and embarked on a 7 month plan to run a half-marathon.

The only running I did over the weekend was on Sunday. I warmed up, then ran 10 400m intervals with 200m of recovery in between.

I'm unsure some what's going to happen at Broad Street in a couple of weekends. I haven't been running so much and that's been a result of the other workouts I've been doing along with some squatting and deadlifting. We'll see what happens. The important thing is that I am much fitter than I was this time last year and it's all about doing the working out with persistence and consistency. You need to take some breathers and breaks sometimes, but if you want to get in better shape, you just got to keep working at it.

Fitness has to be worked for and if there's one thing I'm **** sure of now, it's that the vast majority of people in this world aren't anywhere close to what could be their peak fitness. I know I'm still not there and I can do a heck of a lot more than most anyone I come across now.

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I ran yesterday afternoon, about 3.4 miles, legs were kind of dead feeling from a workout in the morning when I did a total of 45 reps of 65lb thrusters (basically front squats that go up into an overhead press of the weight, back down, repeat). So I ran the miles that I could.

This morning I did deadlifts, my last hard strength workout before Broad Street, time to back off and let the body recover as much as possible.

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Ran on somewhat tired legs yesterday afternoon, did my last hard strength training session Wendesday morning with deadlifts. Hopefully now I've got enough time for my body to get all recovered and recuperated for Broad Street, if there's one thing I've been getting to experience over the last two months is just how much an effect lifts like squats and deadlifts put a whomping on you. Those are the two lifts that a person can do to move the greatest amount of weight possible so that means they're a lot of work.

You do a lot of work, it can tucker you out some.

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I ran 8.1 miles this morning, an easy long run but they've been lacking the past 2 months, so I kinda needed to do one to help get my mind reacclimated to the situation of running well up over an hour.

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I went to the expo, registered and got my race stuff -- a bib, tee shirt, and timing chip. I'm kind of nervous about some things, but will try to have everything mostly prepped and hopefully tomorrow will go without any hitches.

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Wow, it was one crazy experience but it was great. I'll write up a longer report some point and post it to DF.