hill training

“Oh bloody hell”

Running

It’s time to come clean folks. I am not going to lie. I did not want to do these hills. I dreaded these hills. Secretly, I hoped, wished, silently begged for my critter-loving running chick to have a critter-style emergency resulting in her being a no-show. No such luck. I first saw the agenda for Tuesday’s hills about a month ago, when I was organizing the Sunday babysitting schedule. The second my eyes drifted past the workout, they nearly bugged right out of their sockets. What the frick? Are you kidding me? No! No! No! I am not doing those. I can’t do those. I will not do those hills. There is no way my legs, let alone my lungs, can withstand those hills. Ninety second hills should not be allowed. Eight times 90 second hills should never be spoken of. I spent a month trying to concoct the perfect […]

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Photographic evidence: death by hills

Running

She was sick! Sick! Like seriously sick. She had a cold. She had a flu. She had a fever, chills, nose red raw from wiping, stomach queasy, lungs feeling as though the weight of the world was standing on them. She had been bedridden for days and was only just recovering. And STILL she came out for a run. “Katie needed me,” she said. Wow. That is not only hardcore, it’s a big, huge slap in the face to the flu gods saying eat this jerk faces! And it was seriously pretty freaking awesome for me too! It was very much the kick in the butt I needed to get me and my sneakers out the door. I am LOVING my new running chicks! YESTERDAY’S HILLS: 6 p.m. BG before: 5.4 Carbs: 1/2 banana, no bolus Temp. basal: -100 per cent (too much) Workout: 8 x 75 second hill repeats

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The Pitchfork and the Punching Bag

Running, Training

Running in the darkness of night can seriously mess with your head. You can start to see things, start to think thoughts, start to wonder who might possibly be lurking around  corners, behind trees, under benches. I’ve been here before. Mostly when running solo in the early morning hours before dawn. But tonight, for hill repeats, that imaginative mind of mine went full boar ahead, even with my new group of running chicks all around me. It all started on the downhill, when out of the corner of my eye I saw an older fellow walking down a driveway towards us. I didn’t really think much of it at first, but that mind, oh, her wheels started turning, and fast. This hill, while decently lit, was still fairly dark, but not so much a black dark, more like a spooky midnight blue dark with traces of foggy lighting interspersed here

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Surviving diabetes Russian Roulette

Diabetes, Running

Okay, seriously, who actually carries around a backup insulin plan if their pump fails? Be honest. I don’t. For as long as I’ve had the pump, when I’m out, I’ve solely relied on the pump. I don’t carry a pouch with extra infusions or syringes and spare insulin for just in case (in this heat, would it really survive anyway). I guess you could say it’s almost like a diabetic’s version of Russian Roulette. And today, I nearly got the bullet. It was new infusion day, and as is always the routine, I changed my infusion first thing before breakfast. I also changed my CGM sensor, so I didn’t have access to an approximation of my blood sugars for two hours after doing so. It was a busy morning, I didn’t really have time to think about what my blood sugars were doing inside me until snack time three hours

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Goosebumps

Running

Today, there were goosebumps – good and bad. On a day I found out three little boys lost their mama to cancer (a fellow runner and friend to so many I know), a day my heart was silently crying inside for a woman and a beautiful family I hardly knew, a day I hugged my family even tighter than I normally do – my heart also experienced a gush of happiness for a woman I 100 per cent did not know. This afternoon, under the crisp, cool sun, I went for a run. I’d been trying out different routes lately, almost all that have started off with a 7-minute up hill. A couple years ago this hill would have been no problem; I loved hills. But after two years of no hill training (last season was fairly flat, and the season before I was preggers) I’ve really kind of gotten

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