July 16, 2009
Karen L.

It’s weird to think of myself as a hardcore athlete. I’ve never pursued something this doggedly at which I have no natural talent and little experience. It’s a humbling venture thus far, and yet rewarding in the improvement I’m seeing in myself. I’m also really grateful to have the time and energy to devote to training right now.

I’ve had a few races in the past many weeks. Twice I participated in the local Stroke ‘n Stride races, which are aquathlons much like Kathy described in a recent blog. In these, you can choose a one-loop (750m) or two-loop (1500m) swim, and you follow that with a 5K run. The swim is my weakest triathlon link, and so it’s not really surprising that I came in DFL when I did the two-loop race a couple of weeks ago. I was a little chagrined, anyway. I was waaaay behind the next-to-last person, but I tell myself that DFL > DNF > DNS, right?

So, I’m working on the swimming. I’ve gone to a bunch of open water swims, and I’m having some lessons with a swim coach, and hopefully we’ll get it all worked out so that there’s no need to freak out about the swim cutoff in our goal race.

Last Sunday I raced in the Boulder Peak triathlon, which was my first Olympic-distance race and thus a PR (woo!). It’s kind of known for the bike course, because it goes up Old Stage road:
Thankfully, I live very near the course and have biked this loop before, so am familiar with the big hill. Also, I have triple chain ring in front, which I _definitely_ needed.

When I did my first triathlon in May, a sprint, I’d gone really high on the bike ride and found my blood sugar over 400 in T2. Sadly, I found out that this pattern wasn’t just a fluke on that race day in May. Although my blood sugar did _not_ follow that pattern when I did the aquathlons, and I was _not_ dehydrated on this race (something we thought might have happened to cause the high in my first tri), at the Boulder Peak I found my blood sugar over 500 late in the bike, and confirmed that number with an entirely different meter/poker/strips combo when I reached T2.

This time, I can definitely say that the high adversely affected my race performance. Besides having to go to the porta-potty in T2 (Jenny, I just couldn’t do it – worried about squishy running shoes), I fretted about whether I should run at all, or maybe visit the med tent instead. That thought pissed me off, and I’d done what I could by taking insulin when I first discovered the high and then a little more in T2, so I figured I’d go to the med tent if I passed out (note: has never happened) and otherwise I’d finish the race. So I shuffled along at a pace that was really slow for me, with lots of walking and testing breaks and much water consumption. I felt pretty crappy.

My blood sugar came down 300 points between mile 1 and mile 3.1 on the run course. I was immensely relieved to see that trend, but coming down that much in that short a time is really exhausting, and I can’t say I had a stellar second half of the run. I did figure that I wasn’t doing much worse than the young guy with IT band problems and chafed nipples (my partner Tony helped with the latter problem by giving the distressed runner bandaids from his cheering spot near the run turnaround – he’s good that way). I also was doing better than the poor woman whose shorts had lost most of a cheek, replaced with blood; another thing to be grateful for – I wasn’t hit by a station wagon on the bike course!

So, I made it over the finish line and got my towel that had been sitting in ice water (best party favor EVER!!!) and my blood sugar was 186 (after having it be 130 at mile 5, then eating). It was really nice to stop moving. I had great numbers for the rest of the day.

I’m doing the CWW practice the weekend after next, so I’ll practice new control strategies in that ‘race’. My goal that day will be to have good blood sugars, with no crazy highs. Wish me luck.