August 13, 2009
Karen L.

I know some of you have been waiting with bated breath to hear how my rehearsal race went after the disastrous blood sugars in my Olympic triathlon recently. Okay, maybe not. Anyway, following some suggestions from Dr. Matt I was able to keep my blood sugar between 70 and 334 during my 6:20 effort (I did the 1.2-mile swim, the 56-mile bike, and a 10K run during this practice race). That might not sound good, but it was a lot better than the previous race, and now I have more data to work with…


Should I mention strategies? Those who aren’t diabetic can skip ahead to the next paragraph. I had breakfast 3 hours before the race, and bolused 70% for the carbs in that. 1 hour before the race start, I set a temp basal for 75% to continue through the anticipated end of the race. I checked again and ate just before I disconnected my pump and got in the water. At T1 I hooked back up, and set a square wave bolus for 150% of the basal insulin I’d missed, to be taken over 90minutes (and ate again). Here’s a key thing: at every 30min riding time, I made myself STOP and check my blood sugar and eat. My mantra for making myself stop is the title of this blog entry, and I think I’ll use it at other times to make myself mentally tougher while racing. I took a 33% correction bolus each time I was over 225. I didn’t explicitly take any insulin for the carbs I was eating (although based on this race, I will for the T1 carbs I eat in the next race; I’ll also be reducing my basal even more starting an hour before the run). I continued this strategy through the run.

I took in 243 grams of carbohydrate from immediately before I got in the water until the end of the race. I know, it sounds like a lot, and after awhile my belly got pretty sick of it all. Ramona, who was visiting for this race, had some giant Fig Newtons and generously offered me some of her stash. I must say, those chewy cookies were the closest thing to real food that I had during that greater than six hour period, and were by far the most delicious thing I ingested (no, the water in the Boulder Res is not more delicious than a giant Fig Newton, although I sampled some of that as well.)


It was also a wonderful weekend of teamy goodness for the Colorado contingent and our two visitors from the coasts. It was fantastic to meet Sandria and Kathleen, and to share diabetic stories and race plans with other members of the team.

Last weekend I volunteered at a half-Ironman race, and our aid station was along the 2-loop running course. I saw plenty of people who weren’t looking so good, but I did NOT see the vomit and fainting that I was half expecting. This gives me hope for our goal race! But if I _do_ feel vomitous or vaguely faint during our race?? Well, hopefully I can follow the title of this blog entry…