This week is diabetes blog week. Each day has a different theme. Today is “An Average Day in the Life of A Person With Diabetes”. Seeing as how I don’t often follow rules and logic to me says that anyone participating in this is going to tell of their average/typical day of diabetes, I wanted to step out of the box and share what it’s like to be a diabetic on the day of a race…In my case, on the day of a triathlon (In particular, yesterday).
5:30 alarm goes off. Wake up and groan because it’s 5:30 in the morning. Ponder snoozing a bit longer but bypass because I’ve got a race to get to and a transition area to set up and people to talk to.
5:35 stand up and look around the room. I still don’t want to be up, my bed was nice and warm. Grab a syringe and take 12u of Levimir to carry me through the day. Hop in the shower.
5:45 out of the shower, dressed for race, running down the stairs. Slide into the kitchen. Get waterbottles/food out of fridge and load race bag.
5:53 throw 4 sausage biscuits into the microwave. 46 carbs total. Nice blend of carbs and protein.
5:56 check blood sugar. 230. Frown because I screwed up the night before in my efforts to wake up with a decent number. Take 4 units novolog for the sausage biscuits and 2 more of the lame blood sugar. Normally would’ve taken 4.5 for the food and 3 for the blood sugar but it’s a race day and I can’t afford a low so I take less.
6:00 out the door.
7:18 250. Mouth is feeling cottony so I check my blood. little higher than I like. but it’s really only been 1.5 hours since I ate. My brain says it will come down. Drink some water, I really hate that cottony feeling.
7:46 300. Slightly freak out. this is not where I want to be with my blood sugar. My wave goes off in 45 minutes, I don’t have time for ridiculous numbers. Drink some water and take 1 unit of insulin. It’s dangerous for me to take insulin before running/biking/swimming or doing any kind of exercise because active insulin seems to work better when i’m exercising and I drop like a rock. I don’t like dropping like a rock.
8:12 303. It’s only been 30 minutes since the last check and shot of insulin…still i should’ve come down a tad…this isn’t looking good…I don’t want to take anymore insulin though, i’m about to run. Drink some water to take care of my cotton mouth.
8:35 My wave goes off and I run…I go out way too fast for me. I was running with the 7:30-8 minute a mile peeps. I made it a little over a quarter of a mile at that pace. So then I start walking…and from that point on I run 4 minutes and then I walk a minute all the way to the end (Gotta love having Team in Training peeps racing…they always have watches and we can keep time with them). I run for a total of 3 miles.
9:12 186. post run number is decent. Wonder why I couldn’t have started here but don’t have time to wonder long. It’s now bike time. I eat a Carb BOOM! and wash it down with some water for 23 carbs and an energy boost. I ride for a little over 12 miles at a decent clip. There was a decent headwind and hills too. It was work to ride, but it was a good work.
9:59 175. Post bike number is decent. It’s a good place to start the swim at. My mouth is still feeling cottony so I drink some more water. I run to the pool for a 400m swim. Swimming usually drops my blood sugar in a bad way, but at this point I can barely see straight anyways and my blood sugar isn’t low so I’m not to worried about going low.
10:24 161. Post swim number. Still doing decent. At this point I’m not expecting to drop any further. I’m done with my race. In celebration I drink a Rockstar Recovery. It has 2 carbs, it’s not carbonated and it’s basically lemonade (with all kinds of good stuff to give you energy).
11:54 152 lunch time. I’m hungry. I’ve just raced. I had a good chicken salad with bowtie pasta, chicken, chickpeas still in their skins, and grapes. I also had some chips and salsa and a brawt for protien. I’m full and happy.
1:30 I get home and know I didn’t take insulin for lunch. I grab a grapefruit Izze drink that has 31 carbs. I end up taking 5 units of novolog for the 50 carbs at lunch and 3 more for the Izze. (I’m lazy here and completely ignore the fact that I should’ve checked my blood before taking insulin. But I also don’t care too much at this time.)
1:45 I run water for a nice bubble bath. The Izze and a book come with me. It is here that I spend the next several hours. This is a mandatory post race tradition I have.
4:30 I remove myself from the bath and start to think about how dinner is just around the corner.
4:45 480 pages into my book I decide that I am bored with it and deeply start thinking about eating dinner. While I’m thinking I eat a fruit leather. It’s 12 carbs and not only did I not check before eating it, but I didn’t take insulin for it either. This is a very bad habit of mine. But don’t worry, I’ll eventually get around to checking and dosing.
5:13 205. Dinner time. Part of that number is the fruit leather. Mentally mark 3u for correction. I have some rice and 2 more fruit leathers for a grand carb intake of…drum roll please…114 grams. I take 2 units of novolog.
9:10 171. Bedtime. It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. No way I’m going to make it to 10pm. 1 unit novolog for correction and 12 units of levemir to hold me till morning.
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I’m glad the 480 relates to pages read and not blood sugar! I had to read twice.
Wow – I had some clue that keeping it all together was difficult but – this was fascinating. Lots of hard work and number crunching. I’m impressed!
Boy that soak in the tub sounds magnificent!