It's Thursday - that means it's interval time again. Ten times 800m. Same as last week except this time I didn't dream about doing them before I actually did them.
I woke up to a blood sugar of 4.6. That's a wonderful number to wake up to but, when I have a hard run that I didn't wake up at 3:30am to adjust my basal for, it feels a little on the low side. Normally, for early morning runs, I have a gel and head out the door. My instincts told me to have a gel, a date and a big handful of raisins. So I did.
Doug asked how many intervals I had to do. I said ten. He said 'do six'. I said that I would aim for ten but listen to my body. He headed off to run Hydro Hill and I headed down the road to my interval spot.
I did six intervals and felt quite energetic. My calves and shins were feeling tight. I wondered whether I should push them or attend to their whining. I gave them a mini massage between each rep and, after a few rounds, they loosened up nicely.
After the sixth interval, I was feeling so good that I decided to do all ten.
Then I did the seventh one. Part way through, I felt my speed drop and my body seemed to shift gears. Nothing hurt, nothing specific was wrong, I just felt my energy level drop a notch. After number seven, I drank an extra gulp of water and took a longer rest before starting the next one. On number eight, I again felt that body shift and energy drop. Nothing significant but enough to decide that eight was the magic number.
I had two etabs, drank a bit more water and headed home. I ran slow and easy which was exactly the speed my body was able to sustain for the two kilometre return trip. As soon as I got home, I checked my sugar. It was 4.6.
Exactly the same as it was before I started my run. That part is impressive. But it also explains my gear shift problem. My sugar rarely goes below 5.0 during a run - I do what I can to ensure that it doesn't. Anything under four is a pretty serious problem and I like having a bit of a buffer. So I try to keep my sugar over five. On top of the dangers of going too low, I've noticed that as soon as I get near 5.0, I feel my energy start to drop. That's probably what happened back at interval 7.
I feel my best on runs when my blood sugar hovers between 6 and 10. That's probably where I was for the first six intervals which is why I felt so good and ran consistent times for each.
I'm glad that I didn't listen when my shins and calves started complaining. I took care of them but carried on with the run.
I'm also glad that I didn't push myself to run all ten intervals. If I had, I would most likely have had a low on the run home which is never a safe place to be.
It's all about knowing when to listen and when to ignore. When to hold 'em and when to fold'em.
When to walk away...and when to run.
I never count my money, when I'm sitting at the table...but here are my interval times, for anyone who is interested:
4:42
4:40
4:39
4:38
4:35
4:32
4:40
4:44
Funny, you can see my body warm up during the first few, settle into a groove and then, lose momentum when my sugar took a dive.
Another day in the life of a runner with diabetes. Which, as my friend John well knows, is NOT the same thing as a diabetic runner.
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