A tale of two jackets

For almost the whole drive into the valley this morning I was cursing myself. What was I thinking wearing my orange jacket and not my red jacket? My orange jacket is for cold days not rainy days whereas my red jacket is for rainy days and today was most definitely a rain-riddled day. It’s still raining 🙁

That’s the downside of running 45 minutes away from where you live, you can’t just quickly jog back home if you forget something or make a silly mistake in your dressing attire. I try to be as prepared as I can, I always ask Mario what the weather’s supposed to be like, how cold it’s going to be, etc., etc.. But this morning when he told me it would be 5 degrees and light rain, my brain zeroed in on the “light” part of the equation. See, I’ve come to loathe my red jacket, yes it looks super cute, and it’s a great brand (Saucony) but the thing is while my jacket – and seemingly all the other running/cycling jackets – wick away sweat, they don’t breathe so the sweat gets locked inside the jacket, soaking me from neck to waist. And really, it’s kind of gross having a flood of sweat droplets escaping out of your sleeves! And there’s no taking it off midway, it’s got to stay on the entire run whether you’re heating up or not, because you and your clothes are soaked underneath. So yeah, I pretty much try to avoid this jacket at all costs.

And that’s why I ended up in my warm orange Resolution Run jacket, which didn’t turn out to be such a bad choice after all. I thought it would be sopping wet and weighing 10 pounds and hanging off of me, but it actually repelled the rain pretty nicely, which was good, because I had infusion site irritation to deal with instead.

I’ve forgotten how selective I need to be in choosing where to insert my infusions while in training mode. When I changed my infusion on Friday, I put it higher up on my abdomen because I knew I’d be riding the trainer Friday night and didn’t want my bike shorts to rub against the infusion, which has happened before and hasn’t been pretty. But I didn’t think about today’s run and how the location I chose was exactly where my fuel belt sits. Needless to say, there was a lot of uncomfortable rubbing going on!

TODAY’S RUN:

• 8 a.m. BG before: 6.0 (granola bar no bolus)
• Temp basal: -50 per cent (set for two hours before the run and during the run)
• Distance: 13 km (LSD)
• Average pace: 7:06 min/km
• Average heart rate: 158 beats per/min
• @45 minutes: GU gel
• Time: 1:32:28
• 10:15 a.m. BG after: 12.0

TODAY’S BREAKFAST:

• 6 a.m. BG before: 4.7 (temp basal: -50 per cent)
• Insulin to carb ratio (I:C) 1 unit per 24 grams carbs
• Raison toast: 42g
• Peanut butter: 0g
• 1/2 banana: 8g
• 1/2c. smoothie: 15g
• Total carbs: 65g
• BG correction: -.20 units
  
• Bolus: 2.50 units
  

Unlike last week, today’s calculations weren’t near perfect at all. I would have much preferred to start my run with a higher blood sugar, but because they were 6.0 just before heading out, I got nervous and decided to eat a granola bar with no bolus, which I’m sure, along with the gel I had, added to the higher post-run blood sugar reading. Mind you, I think the problem first stemmed with my morning BG which was 4.7, a little lower than I like to wake up at. And so even though my blood sugars rose a bit, they didn’t rise enough. Had they started out anywhere from 5.2-8.0, I probably would have been good and not needed the granola bar. But that being said, would I change what I did, would I not eat the granola bar given the results of today? No. Because who knows if my blood sugars would continue to go up or down. A 6.0 BG is a grey area before a run, you just never know. And I’d much rather a higher BG post run than a low mid run. Oh the joys of a non-mathematical diabetic trying to figure out her disease!