nope all makes sense. narrow down the variables, pinpoint cause, address cause to produce (or move towards at least) desired result. 
if iām heading higher in the morning anyway then my basal probably needs to titrate up a smidge is what iām hearing? and if not, then i should figure out why a fun 2 miler stressed me out so bad (without me noticing, as far as nerves or anything i wasnāt stressed to my knowledge). maybe i should stop reading the news in the morning, iām only sort of kidding 
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I have to take 1 unit (or sometimes even more) for a cup of coffee without any sugar in it!
This phenomenon is common with diabetics and I donāt know that anyone has ever given a reason for it or explained it.
It is not the caffeine, because I can drink Diet Cokes all day long without an issue. I can drink any other caffeinated drink and nothing happens. But coffee spikes me.
So if you are always starting the day with coffee (perfectly fine to do), you might need some insulin just for the cup.
Another test would be to try skipping the coffee on one of your running days to see what happens. If you know the coffee is doing it, then itās easy to fix.
Check out other discussion about this on FUD.
I donāt know that there is anything in these threads that will help you, other than to realize that coffee does cause issues for some people.
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got it! i will a/b test all of this until i dial it in. thank you for sort of helping me figure out what levers are likely choices to pull; iād be totally in the dark on my own.
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I used to have coffee every morning (decaf) and had to bolus for 20gms of carbs for just one cup with cream and Splenda. It was such a nuesance that i switched from coffee to Tea. Now I only have to account for 8gms of carbs. And its decaf tea as well. But, like Eric, I can drink Diet Pepsis all dqay long and they have absolutely NO effect on my sugars. There must be some secret ingredient in coffee that we dont know about. Maybe one day some brilliant nuclear physicist will figure out this conundrum
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that is wild!!! i guess technically if you think about it, coffee is made from beans, which contain carbs as well as fiberā¦? itās hot water filtered through finely ground beans. maybe that has something to do with it, in that it spoofs something somehow and confuses the system? no idea!!! too weird. and of course itās coffee that does it 
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now thereās a concept that never would have ever occured to me!!
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iām just spitballing and iām no scientist for sure! but it strikes me that tea is steeped from leaves or herbs or citrus rinds or whatever, diet sodas are flavorings and sweeteners dissolved into carbonated water, and coffee is water forced through finely ground beans. coffee seems like itās alone in being a filtration/press from a carb-containing origin item, so maybe that has something to do with it 
pure speculation on my part though!
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Hey, while you both are here - @daisymae and @panda, in case you have not met yetā¦introductions all around!
@daisymae has several really great threads on swimming and how she has conquered all the BG stuff.
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Yeah, ive got it all figured outā¦lol (Like that will ever happen)
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you know, i had a coach many years ago who would always say āpractice makes progressā. i have found that to be extremely applicable here 
and iāve read chunks of the getting back in the pool thread: @daisymae i donāt know how to say this without sounding like a cheeseball, but youāre an inspiration to me. (and sorry for being a creeper on your thread, itās nice to āmeetā you )
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Well thank you very much Panda! Its a pleasure meeting you!!
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Run #5: Tempo Three: 17 Days to Go
Sleep Hours: 7
6:00: itās Thriving Thursday!! letās get out and make it happen! BG: 150, Lantus 6u, NovoLog 1u, black coffee
7:00: BG 110 and dropping, dilute juice (5g)
7:45: BG 130, time to fly!
8:00: Tempo Three 3.5 miles @ 9:30 pace, Start BG: 133, End BG: 94
8:45: cooldown walk, BG steady ~90s CGM
9:15: BG 121 rising, 2u NovoLog
9:45: BG 114, 2 egg omelette with tomato/mozzarella/herbs, small slice wheat toast (15g) with butter, black coffee
9:50: BG 95
10:00: BG 86 and dropping: sometimes i get postprandial drops, today might be my lucky day for that 
letās see if it levels off before i hit the juice boxes
10:10: BG 76 and dropping i just ate and donāt want to overcorrect but i may have whiffed this
10:15: aha! we leveled off mid-70s, back on track
11:00: BG 85, 0.5 Clif bar (20g), 0.75 mile Dog Dawdle easy walking
11:30: BG 75
12:00: BG 97 trending up, NovoLog 1u
12:25: BG 132, NovoLog 1u
1:00: BG 75 going down, juice (15g)
1:15: BG 53, juice (15g)
1:30: BG 70, whole grain crackers (15g)
1:45: BG 130 rising, NovoLog 2u
2:00: BG 168, NovoLog 2u
3:25: BG 54 and dropping, juice (30g)
3:45: BG 90, almonds and cheerios (25g)
5:00: BG 94, NovoLog 2u
6:00: BG 90, brown rice/chicken/side salad (20g)
9:30: Lantus 12u, NovoLog 2u
10:30 BG rising, NovoLog 1u
11:00: BG 68, small apple and mini protein bar (30g)
12:00: BG 101, good night moon!
DAILY TOTALS: 18u Lantus, 11u NovoLog, Carbs: 190g, 3.5mile run, CanineConstitutional
Run #5: Three and a Half : 03/07/2024
Distance: 3.5 miles
Song of the Day: āThat Donāt Impress Me Muchā, Shania Twain
Run Time: 32:15
RPE: ~8/10
Location: Treadmill
Surface: Treadmill
Shoe: Hoka Torrent 2
Start Time: 8:05 PST
End Time: 8:38 PST
Start BG: 135
End BG: 94
Notes: BG spiked out of the gate, up around 165, then made a sharp turn and nosedived about 25 minutes in. ended in range and level in the 90s after 10min walking cool down.
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PS: the morning high culprit isnāt coffee, it appears to be my basal dosing. no workout today, so morning lantus and skipped my wakeup cuppa to watch BG and it rose anyway. lantus adjustments here we come!
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Good job!
The drop you had was most likely a combination of the Lantus kicking in, the 1u you took for the coffee, and maybe some from the run too.
It looks like the 1u covered everything pretty well. You leveled out nicely at the end around 90, but just make a note of how much dropped in a short time.
A 40 point drop in 30 minutes is something to be aware of. If your run was longer, it probably wouldāve been good to take something at that 94.
Nice work, @panda !
An additional note:
One of the easiest ways to tell if you are low when you are running is if you are not tracking a straight line. If you have a lot of left and right zig-zag, you are probably low. 
I think I have said this, but in case I have not, I will repeat it. (Apologies for repeating myself, but I canāt remember all the stuff I have already said. And this one is important!)
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Another thing you can do for the morning rise is the micro-dosing.
Now that you have your stuff, I will post a link to another thread with some instructions.
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The worst low I had while bicycling in the 40s and dropping caused be to be zigzagging from pavement edge to edge. My brain was so frazzled I thought something was wrong with the bike
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yikes lol!! i bet this applies to skiing, tooā¦ i will watch out for uneven tracking. on outdoor runs and in backcountry skiing/hiking, i do also have m keeping an eye on me, who gets underfoot and hassles me until i deal with the issue. but it wouldnāt hurt to tune in better myself also. i will use treadmill sessions to try and dial the clues for going low, so iām not quite as dependent on her helping me out. more redundancy for safety = better!
i feel like i can probably play a little over the next few weeks with lantus adjustments and microdosing to land in a happy morning place for race dayā¦ although gotta admit, the last thing i microdosed was shroomsā¦
and i think i have ruled out coffee as a spiker: i tested it today once i had ascertained the rise happened without it. so i checked sugar and drank 2 cups black without dosing. 2 cups didnāt raise my sugar particularly, i stayed in the same 8-point zone (around 150ish) with only lantus (12u PM and 6u AM) onboard. tiny blessings i guess if i donāt react to the black gold!
and @CarlosLuis man, we should be friends, i would have totally blamed the equipment myself!!!
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Okay @panda, here is an FUD thread on making diluted vials.
(You are on your own with the 
's though! 
)
Please note that this thread was written for somebody who was making diluted insulin for an infant. As such, these directions are seriously over-the-top about being careful! You can tell if your BG is dropping, but a little baby canāt. Thatās why these directions are written like this. But overall, these instructions are very detailed, and should get you through the process.
Also, the instructions were written for using an insulin vial. But for you, instead of using an insulin vial which you donāt have yet, you can actually use your pen to put the insulin into the mixing (diluted) vial. Other than that, itās all the same instructions.
The main thing to be aware of, since you may not have experience with vials, is that you need to remove air. Whatever you put into the vial, you gotta take out that same volume of air.
And vice versa. If you are taking 1 unit of diluted insulin out, you put 1 unit of air into the vial.
(Not sure if that is common-sense, or known by people who have not used vials. Just wanted to mention it, just in case.)
And before we get to the actual mixing instructions, let me mention that I think a 20% diluted vial would be very useful for you.
Since you now have the 1/2 unit syringes, you can use a 20% diluted vial and have the ability to dose almost anything you want!
Using the 20% vial, look at all the good things you can get!
- 1/2 unit from your syringe gives = 0.10 units of actual insulin
- 1 unit from your syringe gives = 0.20 units of actual insulin
- 1 1/2 units from your syringe gives = 0.30 units of actual insulin
- etc., etc., etcā¦
I think 20% is a great setup for you.
Anyway, here it isā¦
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roger! i was a certified cold chain handler/reconstituter for vaccines when we were making pushes for covid and i was on the response team, so i feel pretty comfortable with the lab science side of it! (pfizer especially was very touchy and the only one requiring reconstitution. temperature sensitive, physically delicate, and very tiny amounts and ratios that had to be just right.) i will deploy my speed reading skills and dig through this.
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(a totally unrelated aside, given what we know now about the apparent/possible relationship between diabetes and potential bad covid outcomes, i was likely risking more than i knew. i spent december 2020-june 2021 working front line full time in the trenches, including on-the-ground outbreak interventions and settings like ambulances and hospitals. i spent a ton of time in hot zones that year, including jails and nursing homes, and was diagnosed fall 2023ā¦ i was completely unaware of the pancreatic time bomb i was carrying until very recently. volunteering was probably way more dangerous than i realized at the time. 
i was maniacal about my PPE and to my knowledge never contracted it. once again it is smarter to be lucky than itās lucky to be smart!!)
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