It's that time again.

My old shoes have well over 1000 miles on them. Check out my wear pattern. 
I'm now going to try these Nike Pegasus 28s. I haven't worn a Pegasus since '92 I think.

The Results

I got a new personal best, but still had a lot of room for improvement.

First the highlights: 1 hour 14 minutes 49 seconds for a half marathon (even if it is slightly downhill) is pretty good. 8th place overall is not as good but more on that later.

Here are the rest of the details:  I had eaten a good meal of carbs and protein the night before. On the day of the race, I woke up at 4:30 AM for a 7 AM start time. I usually like 3 hours to prepare but that is just too early. I had some water when I woke up and made sure my blood sugar was in range (it was 107 I think). I got my stuff together and got in the van and had about a half of a granola bar for 15 carbs. I had more water at 5:30.  I always stop drinking an hour and a half before the race. I turned off my insulin pump at 6:30 so there wouldn't be too much insulin in me during the run. My blood sugar was up around 140 by then but that was ok because I wanted it to be higher rather than lower for my first attempt at a long race. With 15 minutes to go I at a Gu Energy Gel for 20 fast acting carbs.

I warmed up a bit and the gun went off. Normally I warm up quite a bit but I figured I could use the first mile or so to get warm. I had secured a spot right on the starting line like I usually do and I went out with the leaders. 3 guys started pulling away almost immediately. I figured I would just hold back for a minute and see what develops. Those 3 guys kept pulling further and further away and by the mile mark they were 10 seconds ahead. I figured I probably couldn't keep up with them so I stayed in the pack right behind them. We hit the first mile at 5:35 and held that pace very steady for the next 3. Again, those 3 guys were pulling further and further away and so was one other guy who decided to try to chase them down. So I started to resign myself to just going for top 10 or something now that it looked like the podium was out of reach. That was my first mistake.

As the miles clicked by, I told myself to just keep going at the current pace and see how long you can hold it. I knew that after 4 or 5 miles people would start falling off the pace. Sure enough that started happening and by mile 7 there were just 5 or 6 of us running together with those 3 guys way ahead and on guy trying to bridge that gap.

At the first water station, I did not take a drink and a few of the other guys did. This caused them to slow down a bit and I got a small lead. The problem was that I didn't have the guts to take that lead and try to run away. Later in the race I realized my training was lacking a certain element. I didn't know how to drink on the run. I never practice it and since I never do races longer than 5 or 6 miles, I don't ever need to drink anything during the race. This time, I had already planned on drinking Gatorade at a couple spots to keep my blood sugar up but when I tried to take a drink, it was very difficult. I will have to practice that in the future.

Fortunately I didn't need it that bad, the Gu I had before the race had made my blood sugar rise to about 190 by mile 3. I turned my pump back on at that point because I was worried that I might have too little insulin in me to process those carbs. After a few more miles my blood sugar was coming back down and I turned the pump off again. I finished in the low 100s so the diabetic aspect of the race worked out just fine.

Each of these little things that I did like messing with my pump and trying to drink while running slowed me down a bit but that didn't cost me the race. The real problem was that I wasn't confident enough in my own ability to know how hard I could push it. Because of this I didn't have the guts to really push it to the limit. In my mind I settled for a top 10 finish and so that's all I got. It turns out that after all those miles, only 2 of those top guys could hold that pace and I could have had 3rd place by just running 84 seconds faster.


Note for next time: If you are going to put in all that effort to train for a race, make it count on race day and don't let anything stop you from giving it all you've got.

But for now, I'm going to go have a milk shake and enjoy a couple weeks of easy runs to let my legs heal up for next season.

Hope to see you out there.

New racing shoes

I've been racing in Pumas for the last few years but I needed something light and fast and they stopped making the one I was using so I got these Nike LunaRacer 2 shoes. They come in at about 7.5 oz in my size with just enough cushioning for a long race.

Race Day Approaches

I always get a little nervous as race day gets closer and closer and this time is certainly no exception. Normally I go over all the little things in my head and even practice some of them so that there are no surprises. This time though, it seems like there is more riding on it and for some reason I'm all worked up about it. It will be my first real competitive effort since diagnosis so I want it to go well.

I have trained for the last 3 months specifically for this race and it has all been going very well so I just don't want anything to go wrong. I have been doing long runs, recovery runs, intervals, and Fast Continuous Runs (FCRs) every week at varying distances and paces. I have hammered and re-hammered all of the body's different fuel systems. I have been extremely diligent in monitoring my blood glucose levels so that I will know exactly how to handle race day.

It turns out that I may be joining Team Type 1, a diabetic running team, and the sponsors will all be at this race so I really want to do well. It is a half marathon in Tucson AZ. I normally don't focus on such long races but I figure that I can always get back to speed work in the spring.

I wrote my own training plan so that is another source of my nervousness. Did I do enough long runs, or speed work? Did I over train? I guess we'll see.

So as race day gets closer, I do a lot of things that I'm not sure that other runners do. I start doing my Saturday runs at the same time that the race will start, in this case 7 AM, to simulate race day. That is even more important with diabetes because you have to really know what your blood sugars are doing that early in the morning.

I practice eating what I will eat the night before and the morning of the race. In this case, lots of carbs and protein the night before and just a power gel in the morning. I am going to use just 20 carbs before the race and probably another 20 at the half way mark to keep my blood sugars up. I hope it is enough.

Then I get online and go over the whole course on Google Street View so that I recognize different parts of the course when I see them. I will be racing against locals who know the course so I need any advantage I can get. I even scoured Google Earth to find some training runs in Boise that mimic the same elevation changes of the race course.

I even go over the previous years results and find anyone in the top 5 who is also registered this year so that I will know who my competition is.

I got some new racing shoes (Nike LunaRacer) and trained in them a few times to make sure they are fast enough. I ran a couple 5 minute miles and a couple long runs just to make sure they would hold together.

I should be all ready to go but that is why I'm nervous. Everything has gone better than I could imagine. My test effort 2 weeks ago was a 10 mile run at 6 minute pace and I nailed every last mile with energy left at the end. My blood sugars are doing great. My interval work has been faster and faster each week. I'm worried that if one little thing goes wrong on race day, the whole thing will be ruined.

Maybe I wake up and my blood sugar is too high and then I take insulin which makes me crash in the race. Or maybe I am too low and have to eat too much which could cause stomach problems. Maybe just the nerves alone will throw me all out of whack. And I haven't even started on that one problem that every racer knows about. You know, the one that keeps you in the bathroom the whole morning of the race.

Anyway, I guess all I can do is just do my best. If I don't win, I'll just try again. When I think about it, I was planning on trying again even if I do win, so what's the big deal.

Sorry for the long rant, thanks for letting me get this all out. I'll make sure to update you right after the race.

Wish me luck!

Now I know.

A few days ago, I found out something new. My pump can get blocked and insulin might not be getting inside me.

Here is how I found out. I was going along just normal and then one day my blood sugar levels starting showing unusually high numbers. I tried taking more insulin and it didn't seem to work. I was quite confused as you might imagine.

Here are some charts that show how it all played out.

The first chart is a Saturday and it is mostly normal. I had stayed up too late the night before eating snacks and playing Call of Duty but that is another story. By the morning I was right on track.

The next chart is Sunday and you might notice that I went very high after breakfast. I had just switched out my infusion set (that's the part where the pump gets inserted into my body) so I just assumed I had an air bubble or something so I didn't get enough insulin. But then lunch sent me too high and dinner sent me way too high. Now I was really starting to wonder what was happening.

The next chart, Monday, starts high where Sunday left off and eventually comes back down and is very choppy all day. It is choppy because some parts of the day I tried pumping like usual and other times I took an old fashioned insulin shot just to try to figure out what was happening.

By Tuesday, I had pretty much assured myself that the pump just wasn't getting enough insulin in me. The weird part was that it did seem to be delivering just a tiny amount. I pulled out the infusion and sure enough it had a small 90 degree bend in it so it was kinked. 

Once I found the problem, it all made sense again. Now that I know that is even a possibility, I won't wait so long to fix it. It was weird though, I started getting those same thoughts that I had just before I was diagnosed. Thoughts like "what's wrong with me" and "this doesn't make any sense" and "what if I never get better". It was certainly not fun but it was good that I learned about this problem now.

I guess that's life with diabetes, one challenge after another.

Bring it on.