"Activity" is not the same thing as "Exercise": Allison's Running Trial

Nah. I wonder if you ever haven’t. :slightly_smiling_face:

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He hasn’t done either about hair or hormones. I find him severely lacking in just those two categories.

You cannot even Fathom the extent of my frizz halo in this humidity plus running (which is admittedly indoors). I look insane on FaceTime…especially if I’m backlit. Yikes.

On Pod Day 3 after the run yesterday, I needed +0% basal when I’d typically expect a change of -10%.

I changed pods last night (8:30PM). Before bed I started -10% basal after seeing slow drops before bed. After two overnight lows I changed to -15% and that held me level.

My old pod site looked fantastic which is why I let it go three days. There weren’t obvious signs of site deterioration.

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How do you count cadence? I have never tracked it before. I just checked my Apple Activity for today’s Workout and it shows an Avg. Cadence of 164SPM. I have no idea what that means, nor how it is counted. Does the trail/terrain make a difference on its number? Can one count this in their head while running or are you relying on a device? And from what you say, it sounds like my number is extremely low? I feel my stride is proper for my body, at least I rarely get sore or injured, and shoe sole wear looks quite even, but I have never really analyzed it before either! It sounds like it is important to track.

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Yes, me either!! In years past, I’ve had people come up to me and ask if I was alright! I didn’t realize I wasn’t running in a straight line! :frowning: Thankfully that rarely happens now.

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Yes, it can make a difference

Either way. If you count it manually you just need to time it for 15 seconds or 20 seconds or 30 seconds or 60 seconds or whatever, and then do the math.

You are probably in the right ballpark at least. It will come up a bit at faster speeds. Your cadence at 5 mph won’t be the same as it would be at 7 mph. The number is not an absolute.

The elite distance runners are in the 180-185 ballpark, but they are running a lot faster than we are!

As long as you are not taking overly-long lumbering strides, you are probably okay.

You can try to bump it up a little bit for short intervals, to something like 170, and see how that feels.

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Week 3 Run 1: 30:00, 2.36 mi., 5.5 RPE
alternating 2:00 run, 1:00 walk intervals
5.5-6.0 mph
ZB 30:00 prior, 3:00 after breakfast bolus
Starting bg: 139
Ending bg: 139

BG was pretty stubborn overnight. Not terrible numbers, but not great. Corrections budged it some but I didn’t want to rage bolus overnight. I’ve had too terrible of sleep the last several nights to be too aggressive with it. I was tired and needed to sleep through. So the 139 pre-run wasn’t a huge shock is my point.

I worked on a shorter stride today and that seemed to help a lot. I may need to unprogram habits instilled by my high school softball coach who was in charge of winter conditioning (when we did endurance runs quite a bit). He was all about using energy most efficiently…which translated into telling us to have as long of a stride as possible to get the most out of each step, and telling us to keep our arms down rather than wasting energy by holding our forearms up with any kind of bend in the elbow. So looking back, he was essentially coaching us all to run like we looked like some benevolent version of Slender Man.

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Imagine running out to your mailbox in the morning. The grass is wet and you don’t have shoes on, only socks. You want to keep your socks dry, so you run with very light small steps so that you don’t plunge down deep into the grass.

In your mind, run light like that.

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No, I definitely do not do overly-long strides! I will test out an increase tomorrow for a bit and see if I’m able to recognize the difference… :slight_smile:

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@Trying, I count cadence by counting the number of times my right foot hits the ground in a minute. Yes, terrain will affect it as will pace. When I’m running at a 10 min mile, I might count 93 times in a minute. When I’m running an 8 minute mile, I might count 97 or 98. I’ve counted as high as a 102 but only a couple of times, and I’ve also only rarely counted lower than a 90–and often use that as my indicator my blood sugar is dropping. Even when I’m tired, I’ve always been able to hit a 92 but have found myself struggling for an 80 when my blood sugar is falling fast. Most of the time I already know I’m dropping, but there have been a few times I’ve used this to determine if I should test—only because I really wasn’t sure. Oh, and I count it in my head and also look at my Apple’s average, which is always lower than my own checks. I think the Apple is using even my slowest steps, bringing that number down.

I’m really probably a little obsessed over numbers, but that’s just who I am. So I count my cadence every mile for a number of reasons… sometimes it’s just for the distraction or to break up the monotony, but sometimes it is the only way I can get my stride together. The more tired I get, the more I tend to lumber down the road, so by counting my cadence, I’m tightening up stride and form, and it actually helps decrease pain—and probably means I’m not being as hard on my hips and such. I’ve had the thought quite a few times that running when I’m low probably is really bad for my vulnerable spots because it all kind of comes undone. When low, I’m back to duck walking foot pounding, and my hips and thighs light up. So I try to slow down and regroup until my cadence starts to increase again—which is how I know I’m ready to start picking it up.

That’s the short answer. :wink:

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Once I move from the “I wear yoga pants as tactical mom gear” phase into the “I wear yoga pants bc I run and am totally fit and milftastic”

This somehow reminded me of this video:

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This is so helpful! Thank you for describing it so well. This makes sense, too. I’m pretty sure this happens to me, too, when low. This is a good test to remember when unsure of BG. Well, not the numbers specifically, but I certainly slow down without even being totally aware I’ve slowed down :frowning:

Thunderstorms today but hopefully clear skies tomorrow to try this cadence count out :slight_smile:

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@TiaG, that is hilarious!

And scary accurate.

:scream:

:woman_facepalming::woman_facepalming::woman_facepalming:

My old running guy told me to try to be as quiet as possible when running. Now assuming he wasn’t really just asking me to talk less, I think he was talking about lighter feet and quieter breathing. Every time I think that way, I realize I’m not as tired as I thought I was. Because it gets me back into good form… of that makes sense.

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I’m late but :wave: @T1Allison. Love what you got goin on here and love the progress so far!!! Big congrats on getting the exercise started and absolutely crushing it already!

I’m thinking of running a 10k in August and have been increasing my distances. Agreed that exercise definitely makes a huge difference!! Maybe I should start a thread and recruit @Eric too :thinking:… but nahhh, all the numbers and abbreviations are gibberish to me and my dense skull. But anyways, major applause to Allison for having the :soccer::baseball::volleyball::tennis: to get it going!

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It’s easy to get brought up to speed on all the lingo. Lemme know.

As long as you don’t send me a letter like you did the 670G.
:open_mouth:

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Perhaps a wiki?? Or I can make one if you teach me how all you kids communicate these days?

It’s still too fresh :pleading_face::sob:

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Thanks, @LarissaW!

Btw, I’m your ghost of Christmas Future. Don’t ever let yourself get out of shape. It’s a long road back. Trust me on that one!

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So today is Week 3 Run 2 (7/24).
22:00, 1.67 miles, 5.5 RPE
ZB 23:00 prior, 2:40 after breakfast
Starting bg per Dex: 145 (I had done a fingerstick 20 minutes prior and Dex was accurate)
Ending bg: 141

Cadence: 170
I was supposed to count my cadence on the 6mph minute of each set. Out of four sets, I mostly successfully counted my cadence on the last two sets. The first set, I had music playing and I could not count my right foot strikes with music playing to a totally different beat. So I turned my music off. The second set, my left foot strikes (that I don’t count) were super distracting…and then I was getting behind in my count. The third and fourth set, I was able to mostly accurately count my strikes (probably +/- 3 steps total).

@Eric, don’t read this part, because it does not exist in your world:
So far I’m not seeing a huge dampening effect from consistent exercise on my hormone-driven insulin resistance. I’m approaching my most resistant timeframe and my bg is acting stubborn accordingly. I was running a flat 145 all night long…so I probably need temp extra basal but that feels dicey to add with exercising. And my bg was SUPER stubborn yesterday and then I got the pod scream of death on Pod Day 1 as soon as I got out to the woods to go hike, etc, yesterday afternoon. So between the pod failure and exercising, I’ve been careful to keep everything basic before complicating the picture with temp basals. But since my hover point is in the 140 range right now, I’m at least not decreasing my basal after exercise today. I don’t think that would be the right move for me. Fingers crossed.

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