Training – even in my sleep!

I don’t know how they do it, I really, really don’t. I’m only in my first full official week of marathon training and I’m already freaking out about how the heck I’m going to fit it all in. I thought I knew what I was getting into, but really, until you factor it all in, and really register it, you have no idea.

The Running Room’s marathon training consists of five days a week of running, with distances that range anywhere from 6 km to 32 km. Add to that the one day of the week of strength training for my core, and the remaining day of the week for yoga to stretch out what I imagine will soon be extremely tight muscles, and there’s no more days of the week left!

I half jokingly told Mario the other day that he’s pretty much not gonna see me for the next 18 weeks, but I actually think there might have been some element of truth to it. I mean, when you factor in life, on top of running, you’re pretty hard pressed to find any added spare time, at least I am! Heck, Mario and I have already started a communication scroll of notes.

I know it can be done. Runners everywhere commit themselves to marathons every year, sometimes multiple times a year. Runners who work, runners who have kids, runners who go to school, they all make it work. But again, I ask you, how?

TONIGHT’S RUN***:

• 5:15 p.m. BG 4.6 (granola bar … didn’t start my run until 6:30 p.m.)
• Distance: 6 km
• Average pace: 6:30-6:45 km per minute
• Time: 40 minutes
• 7:25 BG after: 2.7 (Yowzers!)

***I was feeling pretty bagged today … it might have something to do with the fact that I was sleep walking last night! Seriously! I haven’t done that since I was kid, but at some point through the night, I pulled out a pair of pants and went and stuffed them in my towel hanger in the bathroom, and who knows what else … maybe I was sleep training! So yeah, finding the energy to get my butt in gear for a run was a bit of a struggle to say the least. I stopped in at my brother’s, which I usually do on a run day, but when I went to change, I came up with every excuse in the book as to why I couldn’t go for a run. I finally settled on the fact that my shoes were new, and I should really try them out on the treadmill before fully committing to them. So, off to my parent’s house I went.

Have I ever told you guys how much I hate the treadmill, and the fact that I would opt for a treadmill run over an outdoor exploration run just blows my mind. I tried to imagine that I was outside, as I gazed out the bay windows and into the overgrown farm fields. I tried to imagine a light breeze washing over my face, and the sounds of moo cows and buzzing bees. But it didn’t work. I was sweating up a storm, literally, my clothes were soaked, and my face was beet red! At first I thought, hey this isn’t too bad, the distances are just flying by, but then when I thought I was close to being done, just half a mile remaining, I suddenly realized, oh crap, that’s not distances done, that’s calories burned – I still had two kilometres left to go!

And then when I tested my blood sugars after the run, and saw how low they were, I realized that a) I had forgotten to retest them before getting on the treadmill, and b) I had forgotten to give myself a temporary basal rate to ward off potential lows. Bah. I think I need more sleep!

But, on the upside, I got to spend some quality time with my parents, that I don’t always get. And I got to give my moms a daughterly good hard time. When I got off the treadmill, before I knew what my blood sugars were doing, my moms asked me if I needed to eat, if I was okay, if I had emergency food stock in my car … some things never change. So I asked her how old I was. She said 32. I asked her how long I’ve had diabetes for. She said a long time. But then she turned the tables and asked me do you know who I am? Yep, you’re my mother 😀