Wimpy

So I skipped my run on Tuesday morning.

Not because I was tired. Not because I was sore or injured. But because it was just too damn cold out there.

Instead I headed downstairs, hopped on the trainer for an hour and cycled up a mountain.

Am I getting wimpy in my old age?

I used to run in cold much worse than it has been this year. Cold that make this Polar Vortex thing seem rather balmy. I have a coat that I only pull out when it's minus thirty degrees for heaven's sake and I haven't worn it yet this year.

And yet this year, anything under -15 degrees has me scrambling downstairs on to my bike.

Which means that, so far this year, I have only managed two runs per week rather than my usual three.

Doug assures me that I will be able to pull of my March half marathon because a) I am in good shape and b) I am cycling and swimming as well so my body is still moving and I'm keeping my fitness level high.

I don't know if I buy it though. I mean I can pull off a long bike ride even if I haven't been on the bike for a few months. It might not be pretty but I can certainly do it.

Running is a whole other beast and even though I have a good strong base and have been running for years now, I am still surprised at how quickly I lose my running fitness when I take a few weeks off.

Good news is that weekends have been warm enough to get my long runs in so I haven't lost much that way. It's just my weekday runs that are a little less frequent than I'm comfortable with. And that has made my weekend long runs a little harder than they should be.

On the other hand, I'm getting a lot more time in the saddle than I normally would this time of year. And my friend Jeff assures me that this will help me in my summer triathlons.

Still though, I do feel a little wimpier this winter than last. I wonder what that's about?

Supplement Overload

Remember a few months ago when I went to see a naturopath?

And he sent me for all sorts of blood tests that confirmed that I was NOT low in iron or B12?

And then he sent me home with a list of vitamins, digestive enzymes and fish oil to add to my diet?

Well, I added them. As instructed.

I even worked out a vitamin schedule to fit them all in without overlapping the things that should not be overlapped.

- one digestive enzyme tablet and a vitamin D with breakfast, along with a teaspoon of fish oil in my breakfast shake
- vitamin C (sometimes with iron) around 10:30am
- digestive enzymes, a calcium and a K2/D3 gel at lunch
- vitamin C in the afternoon
- digestive enzymes with dinner,
- and a multivitamin before bed.

I've been doing that since October. Every day.

I'm getting kinda sick of all the pills I have to take. I'm also getting kinda nervous because the supply I bought when I started this whole thing will be running low within a few weeks and the cost of replenishing is making me nauseous.

On top of all that, there have been a rash of articles lately in the newspapers and magazines as well as CBC interviews with people talking about the amount of money we waste on vitamins and other supplements that are often unnecessary and sometimes downright harmful.

I don't feel any different since I've started taking them. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to or not but I don't. No more energetic. No 'healthier'. I don't sleep better. My blood sugar doesn't behave any differently whether I take digestive enzymes before a meal or not. The only thing I've noticed is that I have not yet been sick this year. Considering the amount of cold germs I'm exposed to every day, that is a pleasant surprise.

Still though I'm beginning to doubt my regimen. And beginning to wonder if I really need to be taking all that I'm taking.

My diabetes doctor put me on vitamin D years ago. My naturopath agreed.

My family doctor put me on calcium late last fall after getting the results of my bone density scan back. My naturopath agreed.

The other stuff? My naturopath put me on it all and no one else has had any input to agree or disagree. So I don't know what they would say if I asked but I can guess they would tell me that most of it is unnecessary.

Does that mean they are right?

Why should I give one doctor's opinion more weight than another's.

Argh!

So I continue to take what I've been taking. Until they run out. And then I decide whether or not to get more. At this point, I'm leaning rather heavily towards not getting any more of any of it - except vitamin D and calcium.

We'll see.

Time Trial (aka Spinning Like a Madwoman)

You know, I'm kinda getting into this whole cycling on a trainer thing.

I usually reserve regular trainer workouts for those times when I'm injured and can't run for two months. Both times that happened I went from nothing to three trainer workouts per week. Once recovered I went back to running and the cycling tapered off again.

This time, I'm not injured. Running is going well. So is swimming. But I'm still managing to get two cycling workouts in per week. Sometimes three depending on the weather.

Some days I bend crank arms. Other days I ride the Bow Valley Pass which has me climbing up a rather nasty mountain for the better part of an hour.

This past Sunday, Doug pulled out a yet untried video and suggested we try it.

So we did.

It was called Time Trial and was created by CycleOps, the guys who build the trainers we use.

The workout was exactly one hour.

It started off with a warmup (of course).

The main workout involved three 5-minute power sets where we had to keep our cadence above 110 rpm (in a fairly easy gear). Spin, spin, spin like crazy until we're dripping with sweat and can hardly feel our legs. Between each set we had 5 minutes to recover but we still had to keep our cadence up at 90 rpm.

Once we survived the three sets, we moved into a 12-minute steady state where we had to cycle for 2 minutes at 95-100 rpm followed by 2 minutes at 80-85 rpm and back and forth for twelve minutes. It was supposed to keep us at our lactate threshold and get us used to pushing hard in races.

Finish with an 8-minute cool down and we were done.

And I mean done.

I really really liked that workout. I'm used to workouts where I have to power up mountains in the hardest gear. I don't do too many workouts that involve spinning madly for extended periods of time.

It was surprisingly hard.

It hurt my lady bits more than I care to say.

And, after our long runs the day before, it felt like the perfect 'recovery' workout.

I think I might add Time Trial to my basement cycling repertoire.

I just need to figure out a way to tie a pillow on to my bike seat...

Hips and Shoulders

Back in my university days, when I wasn't particularly active, I decided to sign up for a weight-lifting  workshop. It was a few hours and we were taught how to lift weights safely. We left with a list of weights for each machine and how many sets and reps to do. 

I even learned what sets and reps were! 

My biggest issue was to remember not to lock my elbows or my knees. Keep them strong but loose was something that took me a while to master. But master it I did and, almost twenty years later, I still make sure not to lock my elbows or knees if I'm doing any kind of weight bearing activity.

About ten years ago I decided to try yoga. As I slowly learned all the different poses, I also slowly learned how to keep my knees in line with my ankle so as not to hyper-extend. Again, it took a while but I still remember and still make sure that any stretch I do has my hips, knees and ankles lined up properly. 

My latest challenge is trying to make my shoulders and hips talk to each other. 

It's a swimming thing. 

See, when I first started swimming, I developed a very barge-like stroke. I plough through the water in a very inefficient way. Ideally, I should have a lovely body roll that lets the water slip by me and reduces drag. Kinda like this:

I've been working on it and was starting to get the feel for how my shoulders should rotate. 

Turns out that my shoulders now rotate very nicely. But my hips don't move a bit. As my coach says "I can watch your bum all the way up and down the pool. It doesn't move". 

So my next body position to master is one that is going to involve me learning how to use my core to keep my shoulder and hips moving in sync. I'm sure, like all the other moves, once I get it I'll get it. In the meantime though, it feels really awkward and is rather hard to maintain for any length of time. 

Practice, practice baby! 

Friday Fragments

Sometimes it just makes sense to end a week with a few bullet points.

• Doug asked me to spare for him on his Tuesday night curling team. A team made up of four pretty talented, experienced, men. They were playing against a team of four pretty talented, experienced, men. I showed up with my purple broom, purple vest, scarf and perky ponytail and announced that I was "Doug" for the evening. I held my own when it came to throwing and swept my heart out for them. In fact I was sweeping so hard at one point that my lip balm went flying out of my pocket and skidded down the ice. "Is that your lipstick?" one of the gentleman asked. No, that's my lip balm was my response as I stuffed it back into my pocket. I don't think they knew what to make of me but we did end up having fun. And, while we didn't win, we came darn close and held our own until the end. And, for the record, I was recruited to spare for the other team in a few weeks. 
• On Wednesday morning we had a pretty busy workout at the pool. From the minute we arrived we were given one command after another (pull 400m, swim 10x10, do this, do that). About fifteen minutes before the end of the workout, as I worked my way through 30x50m, I started adding it all up. OMIGOD I thought, she's trying to get us to do 4000m in 90 minutes. We didn't quite make it due to lack of time but I managed to do 3650m before calling it a day. That's a pretty big jump from our usual 3000m. "Today was a distance set" she said as we left. No kidding.
• I have had my new bangs now for two weeks. During those two weeks I have had several people ask what was 'different' about me. I answered them all with 'I used to be blonde' and their response was 'oh, ok, that must be it'. These are people I have worked with for years. For the record, I have never had anything other than very dark hair. I was also supposed to present at a meeting the other day but the chair didn't think I had arrived yet. I had to waive to get her attention and she was shocked that it was me. Apparently I look a little different now. 
• Oh, and I may have been asked to be the keynote speaker at a conference in April. It's a conference put on by Animas and it is geared to diabetes educators, nurses, dieticians, pharmacists etc. They want me to kick things off by telling my story and talking about how I use diabetes as a motivation to do all sorts of things. I'm so honoured that they asked and so excited to do it. Remember back two weeks ago when I listed my goals for 2014? One of them was to do more diabetes presentations. Looks like I'm well on my way.

Don't Shoot the Messenger

I love Dexter. He takes great care of me and warns me of any variety of impending doom. He's my sidekick in more ways that I can count on one hand.

On the other hand however, he's good at what he does and he's not good at what he doesn't do. If that makes any sense at all.

Dexter warns me when bad weather is approaching but he has no skills whatsoever to guide me safely to shore. Or, for that matter, to even tell me what the cause of the bad weather might be, what direction it's coming from or where it's headed.

He just knows that it's not good.

The other day, I woke up with a blood sugar higher than normal (10.0) but not horrible. That's fine, I figured, I'm going for a run anyway and that will bring it back down. I ran 8k and came home to a blood sugar of 6.0.

Perfect.

I bolused, as I usually do, and had the breakfast that I usually have.

I showered and went to work. I kept checking Dexter and kept expecting to see a relatively flat line but, every time I checked, he had climbed another few notches. By 8:45am, I was 16 and climbing. Very odd.

I bolused and headed into a two-hour meeting.

During the meeting I kept checking like a hawk. I was high and still getting higher. I kept bolusing small doses (1-2) units every fifteen minutes, and finally got down to 12.0. By that point I was starving so I bolused twice the usual amount and then ate a Larabar.

I spiked to 20 within 30 minutes. I kept bolusing during the meeting and, by the time I was back in my office, I was down to 17.

I had 45 minutes until I had to head into yet another meeting. I did some math and decided to take a huge bolus (10 units) for lunch hoping it would knock me back into range. I entered that into my pump, hit go and listened to the sound of the insulin being delivered. As I listened, I began to smell the unmistakable smell of insulin.

Dammit!!

There was something wrong with my infusion site. Insulin wasn't getting in as it should. In fact, it was leaking all over my shirt! When I had been bolusing 1 unit at a time, it wasn't enough to notice, but a huge amount like 10 units was obvious. We had a faulty site and I was smelling rather gross.

Thankfully, I live two minutes from the office so I drove home, changed my site, replaced my insulin and headed back to work. I bolused a careful 4 units, not knowing how much from my original dose actually made it into my system, gulped down my lunch and headed to my next meeting.

Of course, I spiked again after having eaten but then began a slow but steady free fall over the course of three hours. No scary drops but a steady decline that had me going low just as I arrived home after work.

Dexter, who could do nothing about it, just beeped, buzzed and downright carried on for most of the afternoon.

Here's what the three hours after lunch looked like:

I almost went from one corner to the opposite corner. Pretty crazy. 

Even crazier, here is what the day looked like. I started off a little high, ran (notice the missing dots when I left Dex at home), had breakfast and then all hell broke loose. 

Worse thing of all was that this happened on the first day of my period. The day when I'm notoriously low all day. I arrived to a day of meetings armed with dates, Larabars and other snacks to keep me going. I left smelling of insulin, bleary-eyed and headachy from hours of high blood sugars. 

Thanks Dex, for letting me know what was going on. Too bad there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it.

Change in Focus

As diabetes-related paraphernalia evolves so do the things that I focus on in my diabetes care. 

When I started out down the diabetes road, I was armed with a glucometer that took 30 seconds to give me a blood sugar reading and two needles. One that I used twice a day to take long-acting insulin and one that I used up to 8 times a day to take insulin before meals and when my blood sugar was too high. 

My goal: avoid high blood sugar at all costs. By default that meant that I had a lot of lows. 

A few years later, I had a glucometer that took 5 seconds to give me a reading and I had an insulin pump that allowed me to fine tune my insulin doses and adjust for things like exercise and illness. 

My goal: avoid high blood sugar at all costs and try not to go low either. By default that meant that I would go high, bolus, go low, eat, go high, bolus and so on. Not always that up and down but I did go  through a lot of fast-acting carbs.

Today, my diabetes army includes a glucometer that tells me my result in 5 seconds and that I can use to remotely control my pump. I have a waterproof insulin pump that I wear every second of the day except when I shower (because even though it's waterproof, there is nothing to 'clip' it to when I'm in the shower). I also have Dexter who shows me a graph of what my blood sugar is doing minute by minute. He buzzes when I'm over 12.0. He buzzes when I'm under 4.0. He also buzzes when I'm climbing or dropping too quickly. 

My goal: avoid highs and lows but also, for the first time ever, try to keep a steady blood sugar as much as possible to avoid any unnecessary ups and downs. 

Avoiding high blood sugars at all costs doesn't mean that I never had them. Heck no, I had them all the time. 

Avoiding highs and lows was also impossible because I had those regularly too. 

The point was never to not have them - that is impossible and would only lead to insanity if I tried. 

There is no way I can avoid ups and downs. There is also no way I can keep a steady blood sugar for more than a few hours no matter how hard I work. Diabetes, by its very nature, makes that impossible. 

The difference is that, before Dexter, before my waterproof pump and my snazzy glucometer - it wasn't even an option. 

Now it is. Now I know by looking at Dexter that, if I wait fifteen minutes after bolusing before I eat, I actually can stop my blood sugar from spiking. Now I know that, by watching Dexter like a hawk, I can prevent a lot of highs or, if they do happen, I can deal with them much faster than I used to when I relied on blood sugar checks and 'how I felt'. And now I stop most lows before they happen because as soon as I start dipping below 5.0 or as soon as I start showing a fast drop, I deal with it. 

I don't feel any different than I did before Dexter came into my life. I can only guess that the more time I spend in a 'steady state' the easier it is on my body. I don't use any less insulin than I did before Dexter came to town but I don't go through nearly as many fast-acting carbs either. In fact I haven't restocked since he arrived. 

I am due to go for my A1C blood work in a few weeks. By then I will have been using Dexter for two months. I wonder if he will have made enough of a difference to affect my A1C. Even if nothing changes in that department, it just feels better to know that I'm a little less up and down that I used to be.