I know some of you have toyed with the idea of starting to run… but how?  You see my mentions of these crazy-sounding 15-20 miles and two of your friends just ran a 10k… but you’re feeling stuck at the thought of running down the block!!!

First of all, it is critical for you to realize every single person you see running started running by taking a step or two.  It was someplace a heck of a lot slower than what you see and a heck of a lot harder than it looks like now.

Which is all good information to have: we have all been there. 

Second point: some runs are good ones and some ones aren’t so good.  Don’t go out expecting to feel fantastic each day… that’s not the way the cookie crumbles.

Third point: running requires self-motivation.  I can’t make you enjoy running if you hate it, and I can’t make you lace up your shoes and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  That stuff comes from YOU. 

Last point: learn from others.  You will have to figure out what works for you and your diabetes, but overall, there are a ton of knowledgeable runners out there.  No need to (ha ha) reinvent the wheel.

In keeping with that last point, I post here an excerpt from Jason Karp, Ph.D.’s newsletter.  You can find Dr. Karp at www.runcoachjason.com

For beginners, the most important part of running is to make it consistent.  The focus should be on getting out the door every day to run.  Once you have developed a running habit and have a solid base, it’s time to add some quality to your running to increase your fitness. Start by adding one quality workout per week.  Do that for a while and then you’re ready to train using a planned training program.  Rather than follow a generic plan, however, look for one that is skewed to your strengths.  If your strength is endurance, focus more on mileage and tempo runs and less on interval training.  Run longer intervals, trying to get faster with training, such as 1,000-meter repeats at 5K race pace, increasing speed to 2-mile race pace or decreasing the recovery as your training progresses.  If your strength is speed, focus less on mileage and more on interval training.  Run shorter intervals, trying to hold the pace for longer with training, such as 800-meter repeats at 2-mile race pace, increasing the distance to 1,000 meters or increasing the number of repeats as your training progresses.  Work your strong points and train using the whole continuum of paces, from slow running speeds to very fast speeds to enhance both your aerobic and anaerobic abilities.

I’m  going to try and run 20 miles this morning since yesterday’s run was a bit of a bomb (my foot, knee, and hip weren’t feeling like they had 20 safe miles in them!) so I’m stealing from Joslin since I won’t have time to write a blog today (20 miles takes a while).  This is good information to have in your brain when it comes to exercise… the more you know, the better you’re able to handle what life throws at you!

Low blood glucose is defined as a blood glucose level below 70 mg/dl if your meter measures whole blood, or 80 mg/dl or below if it measures plasma glucose (a plasma blood glucose of 90 mg/dl or below with symptoms is also a sign of hypoglycemia).

One of the most common causes of low blood glucose is too much physical activity. In fact, moderate to intense exercise may cause your blood glucose to drop for the next 24 hours following exercise. This post-exercise hypoglycemia is often referred to as the “lag effect” of exercise.

Basically, when you exercise, the body uses two sources of fuel, sugar and free fatty acids (that is, fat) to generate energy. The sugar comes from the blood, the liver and the muscles. The sugar is stored in the liver and muscle in a form called glycogen. During the first 15 minutes of exercise, most of the sugar for fuel comes from either the blood stream or the muscle glycogen, which is converted back to sugar. After 15 minutes of exercise, however, the fuel starts to come more from the glycogen stored in the liver. After 30 minutes of exercise, the body begins to get more of its energy from the free fatty acids. As a result, exercise can deplete sugar levels and glycogen stores.

The body will replace these glycogen stores but this process may take 4 to 6 hours, even 12 to 24 hours with more intense activity. During this rebuilding of glycogen stores, a person with diabetes can be at higher risk for hypoglycemia. Here are tips for safe exercising.

Guidelines for preventing exercise related hypoglycemia

• Check your blood glucose before exercising to make sure your blood glucose is sufficient and/or consume an appropriate snack.
• Avoid exercise at the peak of your insulin action.
• Avoid late evening exercise. Exercise should be completed 2 hours before bedtime.
• Avoid alcohol consumption prior to or immediately after exercise.
• Avoid hot tubs, saunas and steam rooms directly after exercise. These continue to maintain an increased heart rate and may continue to lower your blood glucose.
• Limit your exercise sessions to 1 or 2 per day. Additional sessions increase the likelihood of hypoglycemia.
• In the past, it was believed that injecting insulin into exercising muscle increased absorption of the insulin resulting in hypoglycemia; now it is believed that the timing and action of the insulin are more likely to be the key factors.
• Check your blood glucose immediately after exercise to prevent low blood glucose from occurring hours after exercise. It may also be necessary to check your blood glucose more often for 2 to 4 hours after exercise. Moderate intense exercise may cause your blood glucose to drop for the next 24 hours following exercise

If blood glucose is less than 100 mg/dl immediately after exercise

• Follow post-exercise snack guidelines. If you are not scheduled for a snack or a meal for 30-60 minutes after exercise, 15 grams of carbohydrate should be sufficient to prevent a low blood glucose. If no meal or snack is scheduled for more than one hour, take 15 grams of carbohydrate and 7-8 grams of protein.
• Increase carbohydrates before exercise.
• Decrease the dose of active insulin for the next exercise session.
• Consider decreasing the insulin dosage following exercise.
• If your blood glucose at bedtime is still less than 100 mg/dl, double your bedtime snack, or if possible, decrease your insulin dose acting during bedtime.

Guidelines for unplanned exercise

Sometimes exercise or physical exertion occurs spontaneously or is unplanned. You may need extra food at these times in order to maintain the balance between your insulin or oral medication and the energy needed to exercise. A number of factors will determine if you need food and how much food is necessary.

• Snacks may be necessary for exercise beginning 2 hours or more after your last meal.
• Snacks may be needed for exercise lasting 1 hour or more.
• Long duration or all-day activities may require both a snack adjustment and an insulin adjustment.
• If you are attempting to lose weight, adjust your insulin or medication rather than eating extra food.

Be sure to talk to your diabetes educator for more information about how exercise will work best with your diabetes.

I received my registration confirmation in my inbox this morning.  It’s now official: I’m running the Silicon Valley Marathon October 31^st! 

I know I discussed this marathon months ago, but now that It Is Official I get to speak about it further.

I am running the Silicon Valley Marathon to support Run the Coast which in turn supports The Iron Andy Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sending kids with diabetes to camp.

If that doesn’t make you want to get up and run for several hours, I don’t know what will.

This will be a new one for me—doing something BECAUSE of my diabetes, ON DISPLAY in a way I’m not accustomed to ever in my life.  Cool.

Sure, working at Bearskin Meadow Camp my disease was on display and on the table all the time… but so was everyone else’s diabetes!  So this time may be a bit different.  Diabetes Outside has put my diabetes out there—where it hasn’t ever really been before.

Duh.  Start a blog and write about diabetes what on earth do you expect.

Still, this marathon will be very exciting for me.  Physically, of course, I’m apprehensive about the 26.2 miles.  Mentally, a part of me is dreading the challenge and the other part of me is so excited to see what happens I can barely stand it.  Emotionally, I’m split as well.  I’m thrilled to be doing something and speaking about my diabetes and my running and my fitness with my disease and I’m thrilled to do so in an effort to send kids to diabetes camp.

But you probably know as well as I do just how privately we each deal with our diabetes every day.  I don’t mean that we hide our numbers or are afraid to say something to someone else… I mean that there are simply a LOT of blood checks and a LOT of minute adjustments and a LOT of calculations.  To speak about all of them would leave little time for anything else!

So, the other side of my emotional response includes some trepidation about being a type one diabetic, running for Run the Coast and Team Iron Andy, and doing so AS a diabetic, FOR diabetics.  It’s just going to be interesting.  I wonder if it will even be an issue.  (Probably since I’m blogging about it now, it won’t be.)

But I’d best stop typing and get back out there and train.  I only have a few weeks left! 

If you’re interested in donating to either Run the Coast or The Iron Andy Foundation, you can find links to do so on their websites.  Better yet, join us out on the course!

Enjoy!

One important and rarely mentioned aspects of physical fitness is body awareness.  I think those of us with type one or type two diabetes have a leg up in this arena because we have a heightened awareness of what happens inside our bodies.

I’ve used that heightened awareness to my advantage when it comes to physical fitness.  (Any kind of advantage counts in my world.)

You can move through any exercise you perform without a moment of thought—just do what you’re told to do or climb onto the machine and go.  But when you involve your brain and some basic knowledge of anatomy, you can use it to benefit the time you spend exercising. 

You put more thought in, you get more results out.

This is true about any exercise, but today let’s talk briefly about abdominal muscles.  I mean, when was the last time you asked yourself what “abs” are, anyway?!

The simple answer is that “abs” is short for “abdominals” and generally refers to the group of muscles that I simply (and entirely unprofessionally) think exist to keep your insides from falling out. 

When it comes to abdominal exercises, it’s good to understand what muscles are involved so that you can think about the move and stimulate more muscle recruitment. 

Just like any muscle, it is impossible to target just one area of the mass.  (Try using only your upper bicep muscle…) but you can do certain moves that recruit areas a bit more than other areas.  For example, a crunch when correctly performed stimulates the upper areas of the rectus abdominis than it does the lower areas.  Likewise, a crunch with your hips simultaneously lifting off the ground will stimulate and fatigue the lower areas of the rectus abdominis more than it will the upper areas. 

Try to feel the differences in your abdominals next time you are doing an ab workout.  Think of your anatomy and visualize the differences when performing a regular crunch and when you crunch straight up with your knees to one side (which will recruit more obliques than a regular crunch).

It is generally simple stuff, but the more work you can do to understand what is physically going on inside your body, the better results you will see from the outside.

Go to it!

I have been having a weird couple of weeks lately, full of transitions.  I am not a fan of transitions because I feel like my life works better when I can plan and I can’t plan very well for what I don’t know will happen.

I think my workouts and diabetes have both suffered a bit. 

My husband has been working really long hours and night shifts, so we aren’t seeing much of each other.  The problem I have with that is not only do I miss him, but he often makes dinner when I’m exercising.  Having dinner together means we eat vegetables and a full meal—I’m not so good at full meals when I’m randomly by myself.

I have also felt a bit of a slump as I come down from my post half-marathon high and see the full marathon ahead of me on Halloween.  Running has been far from my thoughts—farther that I would like, this close to a marathon!

And I have been busy mentally and physically planning to start a new chapter of my bootcamp life as I leave employment of nearly 5 years and go out on my own.  Scary stuff at any time, but with economic news what it is, I continually debate whether I am doing a smart or foolish thing.

Which is all to say, I am a bit worn out.  The effects of these kinds of transitions ripple through my daily life, of course, and it takes some stern focus to keep at it.  My highs and lows seem random, and I don’t feel like I can really divert my attention right now to get fully back on track.

So, I muddle through.

I also make sure to take time, even if it is 5 minutes, to do things that bring me peace and help me take a mental break.

I got some books from the library yesterday.  I bury my face in the fuzzy bellies of my two cats.  I play puffball with George and string with Gracie.  I listen to my bootcampers sharing aspects of their daily lives a little bit more intently. 

I try to escape completely, just for a little bit, from my thoughts.  I think I would be a mess of tangled nerves if I didn’t.

I scale back on my workouts, and lift lighter weights, do shorter workouts, and plan runs with friends instead of trying to push myself alone.    

I’ve been in these transitions before, more times than I care to list.  Like I said, I’m not a fan!  But knowing I’ve been through them before helps me to relax through this one and keep my focus.  Knowing that if I worry too much about my blood sugars or my exercise or my eating or whether I am arriving early or late each day I will only wear out sooner, and have nothing to show for it.  Knowing that the small things today are only temporary, and my recent blood sugars will quiet down, and things will work out in the long run.  And knowing how important it is to take those small moments of joy and really experience them for what they are—a moment of joy and relaxation in the midst of transition and what sometimes feels like turmoil.

Maybe I’m growing up a little.