Races & Places

I've been a little lazy with posting with so much going on of late.

First I'm going to give an update for the Philadelphia Marathon. This was a race where I thought everything was in place. It was, until I made a rookie mistake. I know that you're not supposed to change anything on raceday. I did, and I paid for it. The week leading up to the marathon I was going a bit low every day, so on raceday I decided to decrease my basal rate by 20%. The first five miles couldn't have gone better, it was about then when I looked at my pump to see what my CGM was looking like 220 trending UP. Normally I would have looked sooner, but everything was going so smooth that I forgot. I immediately took 2 units, and then continued to look every couple of minutes. It consumed me. The miles were going by pretty easy and I felt good, but I knew that each time I saw a higher number on my CGM the more I was going to pay. Still, the miles were clicking off pretty easy and I felt pretty good. I passed the halfway point in about 1:38:30. This is about where I started to come down. All told, I took about 5 units. As you might guess, I then came crashing down and was officially on the dreaded diabetes roller coaster. It was a battle from about mile 19 to the finish. Around mile 24 I started to feel a bit lightheaded and realized that I needed to walk and take in some additional carbs. I finished in 3:27:45 a new PR!

About a year ago, my (then) "internet" friend Marcus Grimm, told me about how Team Type 1 was forming a Running Team. I was definitely intrigued, and I applied. I ended up not joining them because they wanted a 2 week commitment to Run Across America and I couldn't do that. Fast forward a year and they've now completed the amazing task of Running Across America, and they are looking for additional team members. When they told me it wasn't imperative that I participate in the RAA, I jumped at the chance to join the team. They notified me that they were having their "Training Camp" in Tucson, AZ the weekend of December 10th & 11th and they wanted us to run in the Tucson Marathon or Half Marathon. My next post will be about Team Type 1 and my experience with the guys & girls of Team Type 1. Right now I'm going to give a recap of the Tucson Marathon.

The Tucson Marathon was exactly 3 weeks after Philly. I've never run 2 marathons this close together, so I really didn't know what to expect. Throw in the fact that the Tucson elevation chart was a bit intimidating, (starts at 4,800 feet elevation, and ends at about 2,600 ele.) I didn't know how my body was going to react. The bonus was that I was going to be in Tucson anyways, and I had the offer to run with my internet coach Missy Foy, and my best internet buddy Marucs Grimm, how could I resist? The plan was to run a 3:20:00 or approximately 7:37 pace, Marcus and I were both wearing garmin's and tried to keep our pace in check. Our first 5 miles we averaged around 7:35 pace. From miles 5-10 we closer to 7:30 and I could tell that these miles were a bit labored. It was a major net downhill, but there were some inclines and they seemed most difficult, we think because they weren't used to the higher elevation. It was around the 10 mile mark that Marcus and Missy were pulling ahead of me a bit, I told them I either needed to slow to a 7:40ish pace or they could go ahead. They weren't in any hurry so they said they had no problem slowing down a bit. It was around here that I realized the miles weren't going by as easy as the first half as Philly went. It was time to work!

Miles 10-13 consisted of a little out and back that had some significant roll to it. We had 1 really slow mile, 8:16, but over these 4 miles we averaged about 7:47. The rolling temporarily stopped at the half way point and we started a long downhill. Miles 13-18 were probably the most comfortable miles of the whole race and we averaged about 7:30's. Around mile 18 I noticed Marcus was leaning to his left, I asked him what was up, he had a side stitch, soon after this moment Missy was about 10 or 15 feet in front of us and she called me up beside her. I scampered up ahead and she promptly massaged my shoulders and told me to relax my arms and take a deep breath about every 5 - 10 minutes. She pulled me along from mile 18 - 21, but I was fading. Around mile 22 there was a waterstop and I took in a few glasses of water, and WALKED through. Missy kept going and I wasn't complaining because I was BEAT. Over the course of the final 4.2 miles I averaged around 8:30's, and it wasn't easy. I felt almost every muscle below my waist twitch to the point I thought at any moment my legs could completely seize up. I tried to keep my stride short and kept motoring ahead.

I finished in 3:24:39 a new PR. So many things were great about this one, most notably running with Marcus and Missy. My blood sugars were a bit of a problem but to my knowledge never really slowed me down. I had to disconnect from my pump from miles 9 - 14 because I was getting a little too close to the low 90's. Overall, I ran with new friends and PR'd! It was a great day!