Lessons learned from an oldie

On Saturday, Mario and I headed up to Seymour Demonstration Park for my first bike ride of the season. We chose that traffic-free destination as I hadn’t been on the Zing (my bike) in like 7 months and I think Mario was a little nervous about taking me out onto the busy Vancouver roads. I was quite aghast at the suggestion at first, I mean, sure I hadn’t been on Zing in 7 months, but I had been running for like six of those months, that had to mean something didn’t it?

Apparently not.

Route: 26.76 km
Trip time: 1:20:24
Average speed: 19.8
Max speed: 47.7

My legs felt like lead for the first three to five kilometres; I was huffing and puffing, struggling for air up the hills; and dealing with major blood sugar dramas, which may explain the excessive huffing and puffing.

We parked the car a little ways out from the parking area to tack on a few more kilometres. I checked my blood glucose (BG) just before heading out, and it was 15.3 mmol! It was about two hours after lunch, so I still had about 2 units of insulin on board (IOB), but because they were so high, and I knew I’d be feeling like crap if I didn’t try to bring them down, I gave myself 0.20 units of extra insulin to somewhat counteract the high BG, but not so much that they’d bottom out half way through my ride.

It’s quite a fine line getting the perfect reading before exercise, I find, as I do like my BG to be a bit higher, around 10 or 12, but not so high that I feel lethargic and ill – 15 is definitely too high.

It was a really hilly route, and while I love climbing hills while running, not so much while riding (I love going down them … my fastest speed is over 60 km/h!!!).

When I stopped at the top of one of the hills to grab some air and guzzle some water,  an old man, who looked to be in his 70s or 80s, casually rode on by me, slow and steady. At first, I’ll be honest, it pissed me off. How the heck was this old guy speeding on past me, a young fairly fit woman, and I’m the one gagging on the sidelines? But as soon as I was able to rid myself of that nasty thing called pride, I took a cue from the old dude’s book, and suddenly, I was good to go the entire way. And after awhile, I was even climbing those hills with great gusto – no problem.

By the end of the ride my BG was 7.0 – near perfect! But when I got home, I noticed that the canula inserted into my stomach for my insulin pump was filled with blood. It was my first ride with the insulin pump, and I’m thinking that maybe my tights were rubbing up against the site when I was pedaling, but I’m not too sure. Either way, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t such a good thing.

On Wednesday, I’m going to an event featuring Canadian cyclist and type 1 diabetic Jonny White, who’s also on the insulin pump – maybe I’ll ask him 🙂

1 thought on “Lessons learned from an oldie”

  1. Katie,
    You are such an inspiration, in so many surprising ways. This blog is the latest and wildest and most exciting to date. Good on ya!! You are so CREATIVE I’m gonna be sick!! All over my payamas!! Great goddam idea!!

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