"Wow" what an experience. It seems each run I do the atmosphere and excitement of the festival grows. As the festivals continue to get better the size of the running group increases by one. For this one we had a crew of 4. Me, Anita, Shereen (Anita's Sister) and her boyfriend Chris took a trip down to Canberra to take part in the Australian Running Festival. The highlight of the festival for us was Anita's 10km time of 1hr. This was her goal time which she had been working towards for over 2 months. After missing the start she was able to get around the track in 60 mins. Well done Anita, I'm sure this is the start of many successful runs in the future. There are also rumours she will be aiming to complete a half marathon this year. 
After 2 months of preparation for this marathon I felt a lot more prepared. If anything over prepared. I had been running some big distances in my lead up. I now know a 50km week with a 28km long run the week before a marathon is not good. All this information is on the internet, but I never seemed to bother to check it out. Being a PE teacher I also know the basic training principles, and I broke these. I felt the more k's I do the better prepared I will be. In hindsight I was ready but it was far from the perfect preparation.
I knew I could make the distance, I now had a goal time of 4hrs to break, I felt this would be an easy achievement with the work I had been doing. I had been working hard to keep my diabetes under control. I was testing and monitoring my food intake, I was getting the rest I needed and I had created a race eating plan which allowed me to eat 15g - 30g of simple sugars every 30 - 45 mins and 30g - 45g of complex carbohydrates every 90mins. In theory this seemed like the perfect plan. In my race pack I carried 2 bottles of premixed Powerade with Glucodin powder added in, Powergels which are full of fast acting carbs, jellybeans and space food sticks all of these are great as they have high carb rating and are small enough to fit into my Hypo pack. I had banana's at certain drink stations along the way to give me the long lasting carbs for the end of the race.
Now, I ruined the 2 months of solid preparation the night before the marathon when we went out for dinner. I missed my insulin injection and ate a huge pasta meal with out even thinking about it. The idea was to load up on carbohydrates for the next day. After having a good night out with everyone talking about their races and how well everyone did I started to feel tired, dry in the mouth and I felt like I had run with them. It was like lactic acid was building up in my muscles. I knew straight away I was high. I then realised I had not had my insulin when I should have.
When we got back to our accommodation I was 26.8 mmol/L. This is very high, luckily I had no Ketones. I gave myself a big shot of insulin 20 units of Novorapid and My normal 27 of Lantus hoping this would settle things down. I drank quite a bit of water and then fell asleep. When I woke at 3am I tested again and I was 20.1 mmol/L . Now this is where I began to get worried as I knew there was no way I would get through a marathon if I was high like that. Again I gave myself a big shot of insulin this time I gave myself 16 units of Novorapid. I had some more water and went back to sleep a little bit nervous. When I woke I was down to 5.8 mmol/L. This was better but I knew this was too low for a marathon so It was time for some food. I hoped 1 Powerade, 3 space food sticks and 1 museli bar would be enough to get me to the start line. And it did.
Before starting I was 9.3 mmol/L which I thought would be ok. The race started and I felt strong I was trying to hang back and stick to the race pace I had worked out but I felt good and ran a lot quicker than I should have . . . again. While I was doing this I knew it was a mistake I was running 4.30 km's well ahead of my 5. 40 needed to break the 4hrs. The kms were passing with ease 2, 4, 6, 8 then at the 9k mark I started to feel tight and heavy. My sugars were down but I still felt ok.
I made it to the 10k mark in about 45 mins. I stopped and tested and my sugar was 1.3. This was not good. I drank a full Powerade mix and had 2 Powergels. Straight away I felt crushed, I knew i had stuffed up the night before and now I was going to pay for it. I tested again and was up to 4.1 I had 32km's still to go and my sugars were below 2mmol/L I was not in a good place. I ran the next km and stopped when I got to Anita. We tested again and I was 1.7 I went through the testing, glucose loading and this time Anita made me wait until I was upto 7.4 mmol/L this took 15 mins. This was the longest 15 mins I have felt for a long time.
At one point I felt I would have to pull out of the race, the smartest thing to do is to stop, any doctor would advise me to stop and have another go another time. I did not want to be a non finisher . . . that is what I pride my self on being the diabetic who finished the race. So I went on. I made it to the 22km mark in under 2hrs which I was very happy with but the rest of the race after that became an even bigger battle. My body was chewing up glucose like I can not describe. My blood sugars were rarely above 3.0mmol/L at the testing points.
I made it to the end in 4h 26min 47sec which was a PB by around 10mins. I was very disappointed but satisfied at the same time . . . I don't know if that is possible however that it what I felt. I had made a small improvement not as big as I had hoped but I was still moving forwards not backwards.
The Australian Running Festival was an amazing event, great atmosphere, great organisation and a modern course to run. Seeing some of the elite athletes run on the Saturday was awesome. The festival defenatly caters for the novice to elite runner. Again this is another event I highly recommend to anyone interested in a good festival feel. For me now its back to the drawing board to work on a proper training program and get my diabetes sorted.
I knew I could make the distance, I now had a goal time of 4hrs to break, I felt this would be an easy achievement with the work I had been doing. I had been working hard to keep my diabetes under control. I was testing and monitoring my food intake, I was getting the rest I needed and I had created a race eating plan which allowed me to eat 15g - 30g of simple sugars every 30 - 45 mins and 30g - 45g of complex carbohydrates every 90mins. In theory this seemed like the perfect plan. In my race pack I carried 2 bottles of premixed Powerade with Glucodin powder added in, Powergels which are full of fast acting carbs, jellybeans and space food sticks all of these are great as they have high carb rating and are small enough to fit into my Hypo pack. I had banana's at certain drink stations along the way to give me the long lasting carbs for the end of the race.
When we got back to our accommodation I was 26.8 mmol/L. This is very high, luckily I had no Ketones. I gave myself a big shot of insulin 20 units of Novorapid and My normal 27 of Lantus hoping this would settle things down. I drank quite a bit of water and then fell asleep. When I woke at 3am I tested again and I was 20.1 mmol/L . Now this is where I began to get worried as I knew there was no way I would get through a marathon if I was high like that. Again I gave myself a big shot of insulin this time I gave myself 16 units of Novorapid. I had some more water and went back to sleep a little bit nervous. When I woke I was down to 5.8 mmol/L. This was better but I knew this was too low for a marathon so It was time for some food. I hoped 1 Powerade, 3 space food sticks and 1 museli bar would be enough to get me to the start line. And it did.
Before starting I was 9.3 mmol/L which I thought would be ok. The race started and I felt strong I was trying to hang back and stick to the race pace I had worked out but I felt good and ran a lot quicker than I should have . . . again. While I was doing this I knew it was a mistake I was running 4.30 km's well ahead of my 5. 40 needed to break the 4hrs. The kms were passing with ease 2, 4, 6, 8 then at the 9k mark I started to feel tight and heavy. My sugars were down but I still felt ok. 
I made it to the 10k mark in about 45 mins. I stopped and tested and my sugar was 1.3. This was not good. I drank a full Powerade mix and had 2 Powergels. Straight away I felt crushed, I knew i had stuffed up the night before and now I was going to pay for it. I tested again and was up to 4.1 I had 32km's still to go and my sugars were below 2mmol/L I was not in a good place. I ran the next km and stopped when I got to Anita. We tested again and I was 1.7 I went through the testing, glucose loading and this time Anita made me wait until I was upto 7.4 mmol/L this took 15 mins. This was the longest 15 mins I have felt for a long time. 
At one point I felt I would have to pull out of the race, the smartest thing to do is to stop, any doctor would advise me to stop and have another go another time. I did not want to be a non finisher . . . that is what I pride my self on being the diabetic who finished the race. So I went on. I made it to the 22km mark in under 2hrs which I was very happy with but the rest of the race after that became an even bigger battle. My body was chewing up glucose like I can not describe. My blood sugars were rarely above 3.0mmol/L at the testing points. 
I made it to the end in 4h 26min 47sec which was a PB by around 10mins. I was very disappointed but satisfied at the same time . . . I don't know if that is possible however that it what I felt. I had made a small improvement not as big as I had hoped but I was still moving forwards not backwards. The Australian Running Festival was an amazing event, great atmosphere, great organisation and a modern course to run. Seeing some of the elite athletes run on the Saturday was awesome. The festival defenatly caters for the novice to elite runner. Again this is another event I highly recommend to anyone interested in a good festival feel. For me now its back to the drawing board to work on a proper training program and get my diabetes sorted. 
No comments:
Post a Comment