August 17, 2009
Sarah

Ever since I went to DTC last June I have learned two things about biking and exercise in general. 1) That it is OKAY to eat and 2) that you NEED to eat! I used to go on 40-mile rides and not eat a thing. I feared I was going to spike from the food or drop from the insulin I had to give for the food. So instead I just ate NOTHING. And inevitably by about mile 30 I would start to bonk. DTC was a revelation for me and since I have done much better on long workouts.

Throughout this year of training I have never had too many issues with lows. I have figured out about how much carbs I need for whatever activity I am doing and have had pretty good results.

But the other day I headed out for a ride/swim. I started out at 121, which is lower than I usually like to start at, but still ok. I ate a shot block, filled my bottle with Accelerade and headed out. From the very start of the ride I felt off. Finally, about 20 minutes in I checked my blood sugar. 65. Okay, so I guess I didn’t eat enough and probably still had some insulin on board from breakfast. So I quickly ate 23g of carbs, kept drinking the accelerade, and kept going. 25 minutes later I still felt crappy and just didn’t have the ‘oomph’ that I normally have. Checked again. 69. Another 21g carbs, more accelerade and off again. At this point I thought about turning around. I couldn’t seem to get my blood sugar up and stay there and I still had 8 more miles of biking, 1 mile of swimming, and 20 more miles riding home. But I figured, this is a good learning experience so do what you can to figure it out and finish what you planned. Although I felt off, I wanted to keep going to see what happens and how I can work with it.

So I made it to the pool (slowly, but still made it). Checked BS again. 73. Ate another 20g carbs and headed to the pool for a 1-mile swim. The swim felt better than the bike had and I thought I had finally gotten my blood sugars up again. Out of the pool, checked BS again. 58! But I still had a 20-mile ride home and I wasn’t giving up now! Had another 38g CHO and started my ride home. The ride back felt a little better, but still not at my normal power. Got home, and finally after eating a total of 130g CHO and about 600 calories worth of food my blood sugar was 104! At least it was above 100 =).

So, although it wasn’t an ideal ride I learned how important it is to figure out what you need to keep your blood sugars at an optimal level. Although now I probably won’t head out on a 3 ½ hour workout with a lower BS and insulin on board, the lessen was valuable and I’m glad I stuck with it and pushed through. I learned what my body needs and can hopefully avoid rides like that in the future!