Train On

I finally had a decent day with my blood sugar. Maybe it was getting ridiculously high after all the food and birthday cake at Steve's last night. Anyway, I never once got low today which is amazing considering the week I've had. I actually followed all the advice from my doctor about cutting down my insulin levels before working out. Then just to be sure I ate the Hotpocket I found sitting out on the cabinet when I got home from work and took no insulin for that at all. The entire family went with me to the pool and to our surprise we found Steve's family there too.

Good things about swimming with Steve.

1. He has a glucometer and I left all of mine at home.
2. He made me swim really far.
3. I didn't want to look silly with him there so I didn't cheat and use a pull buoy.
4. Ashley, his wife, kept Emily and the kids busy while I swam for an hour.

My bs was at 170 when I started, then 140 at half a mile, and 101 when I finished.

I SWAM AN ENTIRE MILE. Steve says that's all I did but I swear he missed one of my laps, whatever.

Dudes, it was over a mile. A personal best. Oh and cold hotpockets hurt the belly.

I think I got this low blood sugar stuff back under control. Train On!

Lowboy wins a few battles

I've claimed that Lowboy won't stop me, but dang it's been a rough week. I'm working on adjusting my insulin levels and Lowboy has been attacking with a vengence. I haven't posted a blog in about a week, too low. I have barely worked out, too low. Well my definiton of a good workout has changed quite a bit since this whole Ironman Triabetes thing started. I had to quit a run early and have my wife and kids come find me after only 4 or 5 miles (26) I swam half a mile and had to quit(35). Same story on by bike trainer after half an hour on more than one occasion this past week. The only run I actually completed as scheduled recently was a short run with John. I started that one low(56) and never got my blood sugar above 65. I ate all his food and some of Steve's and If I was alone I would have ended up walking. Low boy likes likes company I guess. Anyway there's a ton of recalculating and testing going on. I need to hurry it up so I can actually train or at least pretend to keep up with everyone. I need to add a picture of Lowboy but he's no good at self photography. If any of you see him out there be sure to snap a picture and post it in the comments.

We're in the paper!
I haven't read it yet but this is cool.
Check out the article
http://www.wataugademocrat.com/2008/0121/0123runningdown.php

I Broke My Scale

Well I'm not sure if my scale is really broken but it's out of batteries for sure. It's not like I stepped on it and it blew up or anything. In fact I've been working my tail off. Michelle (the one responsible for making me and a bunch of other diabetics compete in next September's Ironman Wisconsin) told me they were going to send a film crew to get the fat dave footage as this whole process gets started. Well I hate & love to tell you this Michelle, but I think you may have missed your opportunity there. You will have to buy me one of those fat suits because there's no slowing me down right now. Here's a few things I learned recently; Snow is really cold-unless you're running. If your feet get wet, they get cold unless you're running. If you don't wear your coat, you get cold unless you're running. I honestly wish my scale was working for once cause it seems like I just keep getting bigger, unless I'm running. And I am running PLUS some. I'm running, biking, and swimming my butt off and it's pretty cool. By the way, Diabetes has been trying unsuccessfully to kill me my entire life. Even with all this extra exercise the disease doesn't seem potent enough to take me out.

Diabetes Sucks. It can't stop me.

More Lowboy Stories

I swear I will update everyone on my training progress soon, but Nate has some more Lowboy stories he wants to share. Tune in for his comments.

Lowboy

My brother wanted to tell a story so be sure to read his comments. He has such a different perspective on this whole thing.

7.1

7.1
after 5 or so years I finally went to see a doctor to start straightening all this diabetic stuff out.
My A1c was 7.1
I'm off to a good start.
so me and my wife, emily went out to eat to celebrate and the manager sent us a free dessert
so i ate it
then we got our meal for free.
yep, God is smiling at me right now.

Speed, well it was fast for me

I teach a jogging class on Tuesday afternoons. I signed up to teach this last spring to help me stay motivated to get into shape. that was before I got the chance to join the Triabetes Ironman project. Now as it works out Tuesday is a short running day on my training schedule. I have done most of my running at a ten minute mile pace. Very slow. today I was supposed to run for 30 minutes and I'm sure there were a bunch of drills that I didn't remember but that's besides the point. My class ran 2 miles and then played basketball in the park while I kept running circles around them. My first mile took 7:08. By far the fastest mile I have ever run. The second mile took 7:50 and my third took 8:26 I didn't quite finish the fourth mile by 30 min so I stopped and felt great about what I had just done. Just last May I ran in a 5k that took over 28 minutes and almost killed me. My life is changing fast.
Post Script- yesterday I was trying to swim with my sugar in the 30's. It doesn't work.

News Flash

I am going to see a Doctor for my diabetes on Wednesday! I haven't been in quite some time, like 4 or 5 years. I'm a little nervous, but I really think it's time. Last time I went I didn't even come back to get my a1c results. The doctor was just a family practicioner and didn't seem too comfortable dealing with diabetes, but the time before that the endocrinologist told me I had to go to a different doctor to get my a1c checked because he didn't do that. Needless to say I was a little frustrated and figured if I get low as much as I get high then my a1c is most likely ok. It's been a pretty lengtht experiment and this week I guess I have to check the results of my pathetic and heavily biased hypothesis. Data Analysis to come. Guess I had to become part of someone elses experiment to finish mine up.

Like Hansel and Gretel

So Thursday was supposed to be a pretty big workout day. I planned on Swimming for 45 minutes and then running for 45. It started off great. Using those pull bouys I think I could swim forever, and I am getting much better at staying afloat without them too. It just takes more work. Anyway it all started going downhill when I got out of the pool and headed to the locker room. I had no towel. No big deal. I dried off with my jeans and put on tons of running gear to head out into the snow and miserable wind chills. At this point I decided it might be a good idea to check my bloodsugar. 53 didn't seem too bad after all that swimming. Well I ate a Cliff bar and headed out. The bag with my keys, checker, and magic jellybeans was making a lot more noise than usual. I thought it must just be low on extra goodies so everything was just bouncing around more than usual. Nope. My bag had been open the whole time. About 2 miles into it I wasn't feeling great so I stopped to checked again and found the zipper wide open. This time my sugar was 40, crap. My keys and meter were there, but my magic jellybeans were missing. To make matters better it was also getting dark. Think, think, think. Ok-walk instead of run. Look for jellybeans along the path. Conserve energy eat everything you find. I found a pack of my contacts but no beans. I took a short cut off the path and through the snow, doh. Stupid birds must have eaten all my jellybeans. I did survive. I haven't taken a run since. Maybe tomorrow. At least I didn't get caught by a witch.

It's a New Year

My new year's resolution, run.

Well, I took care of that on the first day of the year.

I guess I could train for an Ironman or something, yeah that sounds good.

Check out the basement training pic. That trainer seems to get a little wobbly so I might have to put on that helmet. Huffing gas fumes while I train doesn't seem to slow me down too much but it might account for the dizziness. It might seem strange that I have on a camel pack while riding in the basement. However, after my first accident I have decided not to drink anything out of a bottle down there.

Yes I'm wearing dress socks, but they match. (miracle)

I've been training hard since my last post including a 14 mile run with John, Steve and my brother.

i swear its harder to run a mile by myself than 14 with some friends. Don't worry I'll get over it.

Happy New Year It's going to get crazy.