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Wednesday, July 4

Fear Sweat

My marathon training officially started on June 25, but you wouldn't know it from looking at my Google calendar: just white square after white square after white square. My excuses have been plenty, and plenty legit too (achy shins againareyouserious, heat + humidity double-teaming me, long work days and low energy). My High Park tempo runs, which were such an important piece of my winter training--nothing makes you faster quicker or feel more like dying--have been pathetic failures lately. I've been quitting 8k tempos at 4k, 5k tempos at 3k. I've been sweating out little ponds and stinking up the apartment. It's been rough.

But then there's this other thing that's been slowing me down, and does it even need to be stated? In the winter I started experiencing high blood sugars after each run, ended up pumping myself full of insulin and still losing. Now, a season later, I'm facing low blood sugars at every turn.

Really, really low ones. On Friday I had the day off and chose to get my long run in early--by 8k I was down to 3.2 mmol/L, and by 15k I was at 1.9 mmol/L, crying in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart.

Crying in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Crying in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Yes, really. That girl was me.

1.9 is the lowest number I've seen in a long, long time, and a terrifying one to see. I walked the rest of the route home--6k, sweating, gross--out of fear that any additional physical exertion would just do me in. Dead in a Wal-Mart parking lot. There was no reason for my blood sugars to plummet so drastically; I'd adjusted my basal rates, downed two gels, and timed my carbs right. I should have been fine. So why wasn't I?

I bark "WHY?" at my diabetes a lot, a dozen times a day, and it never gives me any answers.

I didn't run for a few days after that incident, convinced that exercise might kill me. A day later the fear gave way to frustration: I have to figure out how to do this all over again? WHY. WHY ME.

And then I ran on Monday, mid-afternoon, feeling not-so-terrible in the heat and pulling off steady blood sugars and an inadvertent 10k at tempo pace. And just like that, it's not so scary anymore.

This cat saved its owner by sniffing out a low blood sugar and waking her in the middle of the night. If only my furbags were as helpful.


(via The Star)