Running 26.2 miles is not an easy task. In fact, it takes months of training. Months of eating right, months of running in poor weather conditions, months of early morning runs and above all else, months of mental preparation. Running any event is tough, but 26.2 miles is a challenge. It is one thing to say that you are going to do it, and another thing to actually follow through with it. It takes a lot to run a race. Whether it’s finding the right shoes, finding energy gels that don’t upset your stomach, or finding the perfect set of clothes that’s going to make you stick out come race day. One thing that most marathon runners don’t have to deal with is their blood glucose levels.
Being a diabetic athlete is far from easy. A non-diabetic pancreas is fully functioning, and it is able to tell when insulin is necessary based on certain blood sugar levels. In type 1 diabetics, it’s a little trickier. I am on artificial insulin, and my pancreas is not functioning so it doesn’t have that ‘stop sign’ to tell the body to stop secreting insulin. Once it is delivered I have to compensate for it by eating carbohydrates, or I will face the consequences and experience a low blood sugar. Confused yet? In simple terms, I have to control how much insulin to give, and if I make a mistake, I can either get a low or high blood sugar. If I didn’t exercise that would be it, and life wouldn’t be too difficult. However, I’m not that simple. I enjoy making life difficult but in the long run (get it run, I’m a runner haha) it’s all worth it. A lot of factors can control insulin sensitivity as well as blood sugar levels, and one of those factors is exercise! In endurance (aerobic) exercise, the body actually requires less insulin. Being on an insulin pump, I have the ability to adjust my settings that work for me by telling this device to give me less insulin. Depending on the duration and intensity of the exercise different protocols will require different changes. For me, shorter runs and bouts of exercise don’t require any change but the longer runs is where I have trouble. I have to give less insulin 3 hours prior to my run and I stop insulin delivery completed during the run. It took me a long time to figure out what worked for me because everyone is different and there is not one formula to figure this out. To make things even more confusing, in anaerobic exercise there have been instances where I actually require less insulin. Due to the short duration of the activity, the adrenaline being used actually causes a spike in my sugar so I have to actually give more insulin prior to and after strength training. I experienced months of complications where I couldn’t exercise at all because no matter what I did I would have low blood sugars. Long story short, there is a lot that needs to be done before I am able to exercise, and there is a lot that I need to consider before exercise, and if I forget, trouble could arise. I never thought that I’d be able to run again. Racing wasn’t even on my mind I just wanted to get back on the roads. Being a diabetic athlete is difficult but is very manageable and even if it may seem impossible at first, just take it one step at a time, and it will all work out. I started off this post talking about how running a marathon is not easy. Speaking from experience, it is very hard to find motivation to run long runs when no one is there to accompany you. Even after running 20 miles by myself, I still hate to imagine not running with someone for longer workouts. As a diabetic runner, I don’t just think about marathon training but my ‘diabetes training’ as well. Diabetes definitely has its highs and its lows (but that's for a different post), but one thing I can say for sure is living with this disease has made me stronger both physically and mentally. I am not going to let diabetes win, and I am going to continue to get stronger and do the undoable. For me, what is the undoable? Well you’re going to have to stay posted in order to figure out, but one thing I can guarantee is that all of this is possible, but you just can’t give up and ‘throw in that towel.’ Trust me, I’m a runner. -The DiaRunner
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JacobMarathoner, diabetes advocate, college graduate, Certified Athletic Trainer Archives
December 2020
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