On Tuesdays, I like to run a medium-long run because I have the time that day to make it work. For the past year and a half or so, I’ve tried to make Tuesdays my Treadmill Day and head to the community center down the street from my house for some interval and sprint work on the treadmill.
Because I’m gearing up to run the Silicon Valley Marathon in October with Run the Coast, I have been gradually increasing the length of my runs. On Tuesday, that meant I wanted to get in eight or nine miles.
However.
If I tried to run the type of intervals I enjoy for that long, I would be exhausted and unable to continue at the speed I want. If I skipped the intervals and just ran on the ‘mill, I would be so bored I’d slow down.
So on Tuesday, I decided I would run 5 miles outside first, then go to the community center and spend the next four miles doing intervals.
Whatta plan!
Except for that 65 meter reading at mile 3.5 of my outside run. Hmm.
With that reading, I had some decisions to make. I could have just stopped my workout and walked home (I basically did a strange loop that kept me somehow within about a mile and a half of my house at all times), or I could keep going and skip the treadmill workout, or I could cut the outside run short and figure out how to do the treadmill workout, or I could do what I did: I walked the remainder of the outside run and also ran on the treadmill.
Of course, there were some other things in there, too.
I ate two “servings” of carbohydrate for the low at 65. If I were going to walk home, I would probably have only had one. But of course I was at the base of a big hill when I checked, and I wanted to keep going on my planned route. I know that if I keep walking at a moderate effort when I’m in the middle of a run and low like this, I will continue to go low. So I had two servings. (I think I had about six with me, left over from my recent 13 mile run on the weekend.)
And then I checked again after the crest of the hill. Oh yeah. 48.
So you and I know by now that a 48 isn’t going to get me running sprint intervals on a treadmill. Which is perfectly fine, except that I just haven’t gotten to enjoy a Treadmill Tuesday in a few weeks and I plain and simple wanted to do it. Harrumph.
And this is when genius struck. (I love when genius strikes me at 48.) I recognized that I have been carrying this $5 bill with me on every long run I have done for the past two years. I decided today was the day to spend it. So I walked to the grocery store that was in between where I was and the treadmill. And I bought a Gatorade.
Now, I had Gatorade in my fridge at home, but home was 4 blocks past the treadmill. I knew I wasn’t ever going to get over to that treadmill if I set foot inside my house, though, and since I had that $5 bill, I essentially gave myself permission to call my situation an emergency.
Right; a running emergency. I had to buy that drink in order to keep running the way I wanted to run.
By the time I got to the community center, I was 94. Woot! I hopped on, ran my sprints for another 35 minutes, and walked home. When I got off the ‘mill, I was 136.
I also bolused as soon as I got home. I had been on a drastically reduced basal rate for an hour and a half and knew that all of the carbs I had consumed to get me through the workout would need some help after I stopped since there was pretty much no insulin remaining in my body.
I think the highest I got was 226. Not bad, considering all the jockeying I had done with basals, boluses, fast carbs, slow carbs, liquid carbs, intervals, and steady-state running.
And best of all, I declared a Running Emergency and spent that $5 bill, and it all worked out pretty well. Yay!
Now I’ve got to go find another $5 bill…
