I debated telling you this story. It makes me look a little less than smart. Then I remembered you might learn from my experience—you might learn that you aren’t alone—and that is what I want for you, so here it goes.
I went for a run on Friday after work. I had spent the afternoon high, so I knew I still had some insulin still swimming around in my body that would make me go low if I ran without modifying my plan. So I started a temporary basal about 45 minutes before I thought I was going to start running, and I had a bar with 16 grams of carbohydrate. The combination of all of this should have meant I had about the right amount of everything (energy, active insulin, carbohydrates) for the run.
Now, this is one of the hardest runs I do. I run about a mile uphill and then start a four mile loop that has about 6 of the most heinous hills in the area before returning to my car, parked a mile from the loop. I hate it, but it’s good for me. (I am running a trail 10k in May and need to prepare myself for those hills!) I also had plans for a pizza dinner when I got done. Pizza is a food I always enjoy that much more if I feel I have earned it.
I should also say that there are a zillion walkers and runners out on the loop. Knowing that I will not be alone affects how I plan and how I pack for my runs. On this run, knowing I was high before and knowing I had just eaten, I brought a bag of sport beans (24 grams), my car key and my phone. (I didn’t even have my Garmin Forerunner with me—this was bare bones running!)
I was about 4.5 miles into the run and I thought about eating my sport beans. Generally, if I find myself thinking “maybe I should eat”, I know from my years of checking while running that I absolutely should eat. Where is the down side if I’m wrong? Not that I am wrong often—running is a big glucose-lowering activity for me.
I should also mention that during the first 30 minutes of the run my CGM stopped working. Usually, I can’t count on my CGM to be at all accurate for me while I run, but it still makes me feel better to have it. I later discovered that I had dislodged the transmitter from the sensor when changing into my running shorts, but I didn’t know that while I was running and the little guy was alarming like crazy.
So here I am, out on this crazy hard course, my CGM is out of commission, I’ve worked all day and am just trying to get in a good hard run to round out a not-great work week, and I have the thought that maybe I should eat.
Dang.
I had one more hill after that one, so I ate a few sport beans and kept going. As I went up the final hill, though, I was still wondering if I had had enough beans. That’s it; game over. I’m still wondering, that’s enough. EAT.
Eat and walk. Great; that was so not my plan for the run nor was it the workout my psyche needed!! Sigh. Oh well, I got in a good 50 minutes of running and I was sweaty. I guess diabetes wins this round.
There is a little guard hut at the bottom of the loop, and I thought about stopping there and asking the guard if he had any sugar in his hut. I knew from my experience that my beans would bring me up if I gave them a chance, though, so I skipped the question and kept walking to my car.
I did call my husband and tell him what was going on and where I was and how I was getting to my car. (I hate to think how he would feel if someone else called him to let him know his wife had collapsed. I hate to think how he would feel if I disappeared someday and he would have to look for me. These are reasons I always let him know where I plan to run.)
He was incredibly sweet and offered to stay on the phone with me as I walked back to my car (taking a shorter route back). It was a nice chance to chat with him and to see a different route; I ended up walking alongside a creek and you would not have believed the croaking frogs!! They were so loud my husband asked me if he had just heard frogs through my phone chatter. When I was at my car, I checked and was 60 so I had some juice.
I don’t have a moral for this story. I’m just saying: we do the best we can, we make the best choices we can make, and sometimes we win and sometimes diabetes wins. I feel lucky and strong to know that I win way more often than my diabetes does.
Although, I’m considering giving the guard hut a pack of glucose tabs to keep in there.