On basal: yes, I’m still just at 2u of Tresiba. Going to Levemir would give me a little more fine grained control, but it adds another shot and the amounts are so, so small (0.083u / hr). At the moment my total daily insulin use is below 10u, so I’m not a good pump candidate yet.
On being in the 70s, I don’t necessarily mind it although I run stronger in the 80s. But I’ve been fooled before about how many carbs I have on board. See Trial run 6 above, where this happened at lunch.
If I’m absolutely certain my last bolus has worked its way out, it’s a lot easier to “trust the carbs.” Unfortunately that isn’t always easy to predict. But I’ll post another trial from today where this strategy worked out well.
I had a little dental work done this morning (hooray ) so I had a no-carb lunch, hence no bolus insulin since breakfast (1.5u). I decided to run in the evening. Took 8g of glucose tabs at 4:53pm and went up to BG 132. Took my 15g Transcend and headed out.
Another warm night, mostly made sub-8min splits. At mile 2 I was around BG 138 and flat on the Dexcom so I took another 4g of glucose because I wanted to aim for 5 miles.
Fingerstick around mile 3.5 had me at BG 73 but I just kept on and a half mile later I was at BG 89. Finished my 5.15mi at BG 92. Only gave myself 1.5u of insulin to cover dinner since my ratios are around 1:25+ post-exercise these days.
So that’s a success, and as close to a “zero IOB” test as I can get with my current basal setup. The trick is still making sure my last bolus is out and then just fine tuning the timing and amounts of carbs to get to the distance I want.
I beg to differ on this one. My CDE said that my low Total Daily Dose was the reason I should be on a pump. It can be set to give as small as .05 units a hour.
At diagnosis I was on like 3 units Lantus a day and still going low during workouts and in the afternoon. Once I was on a pump I could just turn off the dang basal for a few hours when I could see it was not needed. Temp Basal zero was a game changer. Now that I’m on Omnipod 5 and not Dash it will do the turning on and off for me. After a couple of years I still only use 12 to 15 units total a day and LOVE the pump.
Not, as you might think, a Spider-Man webslinger (although it’s just as crafty), but a wristband mounted glucometer plus test strips. Just add the lancing device of your choice and, with a little practice, on-the-go BG checks don’t require breaking stride. It’ll take a while before I achieve that level of coordination, but looking forward to giving this a spin.
Yes, this wasn’t the full unboxing video! The docs were very comprehensive. Just gave it a trial run, using an old one-lancet Accu-Check attached to my water bottle. It’ll take practice for me to be more fluid, but the device itself incredibly well put together
I like this style of lancing device, because it does not need to be “cocked” before each use.
(I wish there was a better way to describe that! You know, most of them require you to pull it back before each use to load the spring? That’s what I mean.)
Anyway, they used to sell them on Amazon but they don’t have them there anymore. But it looks like you can still get them. Here is a link.
And I am not the only one using that phrasing! They say the same thing.
An example of how unpredictable this disease is, no matter how you plan.
At 11:41am was at BG 99 and took 8g of glucose tabs. By 12:07pm rose to BG 127 and took my Transcend (15g) intending to do about 4mi. That starting point plus carb does is my usual for that distance.
At mile 2, was at BG 89 (thanks to my handy wrist glucometer I got these values while in motion). Felt good, decent but not intense pace. By mile 4, however, I was at BG 111. That was surprising. I decided to do another mile and ended at BG 88.
I thought all was fine, but then after a shower, 20 minutes after stopping, I shot up to BG 123. Either I was having a hormone induced spike or I somehow overcarbed. I don’t see how the latter is possible, and the former is still pretty unpredictable for me. Gave myself a correction with my dose for lunch but as a result I had to wait since I don’t like to eat while I’m over 100.
No particular moral, just another annoying day with T1, I guess.
7:10am BG 105 took 4g glucose and did my pre-run warmup stretching
7:28am BG 133 took 4g more and started my run, planning on doing 3.5
7:40am BG 123 mile 1 – nice morning, but I was doing a slow pace
7:49am BG 115 mile 2
8:07am BG 111 mile 3.5
So that worked pretty well. My morning post-exercise ICRs aren’t the same as my evening ones, so that will take some fine-tuning, but the run itself seems easy to plan for. N.b., I didn’t eat before this, which isn’t ideal, but doing so means waking a lot earlier and adding the complications of more insulin.
Seems like you’re really getting on top of this, at least enough that you can be confident you’ll get a real workout in.
“Shot up” may be an overstatement. Every glucometer has some inherit error, especially combined with the hemodynamics at the end of 45 minutes of running. Its not 50 and its not 200, probably good enough!
Eating is not necessary for the easy stuff, but it definitely helps with hard workouts to have some type of meal a couple hours before.
If you want to have breakfast for a harder run, give it 2 hours between bolus/eating and running. That’s usually a good amount of time for most of the insulin to be gone, but for the meal to still be able to provide energy.
If I manage to ramp up training for the half marathon, I’ll start experimenting with this. (I am also working out a nagging muscle injury at the moment so I haven’t pushed beyond 5-6mi.) I would need to be very careful, though. I can drop extremely fast even if I’ve waited 4.5hrs after a lunch bolus of over 3u. Two hours might be cutting it close even with a small bolus.
I will tell you that I once tried to run a Marathon without eating any breakfast. My thought being that I would not have any insulin on board to worry about. (I was less experienced then, didn’t know any better.)
It was horrible.
If you run it easy, yes you can manage it without eating. But if you want to pursue a goal time, you need to practice managing your food and insulin.
You have enough muscle glycogen in your legs to walk for almost forever. At that pace, you are not using much of it, you are using more of your lipid fuels. The faster you go though, the more you are using your glycogen instead.
If you go fast enough, there comes a point where you run out of fuel. And without breakfast, you are not going to be able to perform as well. At some point in your training, this is a useful thing to work on.
Yes, I sometimes skip breakfast and lunch just so that I don’t have to deal with managing D. But I will have plenty of carbs with for lows that occur while running, easy or not! I take a couple of gels, usually a Huma, or Gu, (recommended here on FUD by Eric!!), plus 10 oz grapefruit juice. These days, I run very slow, so I’m not looking for a great time (pun intended!), just looking to complete the run, usually a 10+ mile route, and at my pace most would call it easy, but these days nothing is easy for me!! lol
Pace was 8:16, so pretty easy. I still don’t know my precise morning post-run ICRs but I had eggs, an English muffin w/ PB, and some blueberries afterwards.
I’d say that 18g with no insulin is a tiny bit much for that distance, but it’s still pretty close. I probably could have squeezed another mile out and landed where I started.
I have been able to raise BG by doing several intervals on the bike, a stress response. The steady decline is probably due to the long muscles drawing on glucose from the blood to make up for the depletion of glycogen stores.
The rise from stress is from the alpha cells secreting glucagon causing the liver to convert glycogen into glucose.
This is a perfectly balanced choreography in normals that they are unaware of. With us we have to enter the dance.
) so I had a no-carb lunch, hence no bolus insulin since breakfast (1.5u). I decided to run in the evening. Took 8g of glucose tabs at 4:53pm and went up to BG 132. Took my 15g Transcend and headed out.
You know, most of them require you to pull it back before each use to load the spring? That’s what I mean.)