012. Virtual Run with my Twinner!

For my August 5k, I decided to forego a real race and signed up for a virtual run instead. I did the Pride 5k through Badass Runners which directly benefits The Trevor Project, which is a 24 hour suicide hotline specifically for LGBTQ+ youth. This is a cause near and dear to my heart, as I came out as queer at Pride in Kalamazoo Michigan this past June.

A few months ago, my friend Alli (Also known as my Twinner) surprised me by mailing me an awesome workout tank top. She had gotten herself the same one. We decided we wanted to run a race together in our matching tanks.

Fast forward to this weekend when I am in Wisconsin for her daughter’s 3rd birthday. We decided this would be the perfect time to do our race, but there weren’t any nearby. So the virtual race was the perfect option!

Alli and I ran the first mile on our own before meeting up with her friend Victoria in the park for the next two miles. Then we walked home to finish out the remainder of the 5k.

Time wasn’t the goal for this run. We ran and talked and walked and laughed. It was an amazing time with one of my best friends, and totally worth getting up at 5am to do!

The only thing with this run is that I was running “blind.” Of course, when we left Indiana yesterday, my Dexcom sensor was working perfectly, but now it is totally on the fritz. My fellow Dex wearers will understand what I mean when I say that it keeps “dropping off” randomly – it’ll show I’m hanging steady and then suddenly drop 100+ points. I eventually shut it off this morning because it was showing LOW (which means below 40 mg/dL) when I was actually 165. I ate a roll of smarties as a precaution at mile 2. When we finished the run, I was 81. Next time, I’ll make sure to pack a spare sensor, even if the one I’m wearing seems to be working perfectly.

Thanks for inviting me to run, Twinner! Now to decide on my September race.

010. “Hey, look at those shoes!”

Last year I signed up for an inaugural 5k in my hometown an hour before it started. I ran it on an impulse with a couple of friends and no training. And I had a BLAST.

So I decided to do the same race again this year (this time with a little more training).

My training this time wasn’t the same as I’ve done before. I focused on my speedwalking since I’m still nowhere near able to run an entire 5k without walking. By walking but doing so quickly, I was able to maintain a pretty decent pace.

I’ve ran a race with my friend Chris before but this was the first time his wife Katherine ever did a 5k. She’s been training for months and she did AMAZING.

Since it was a night race, I bought these ridiculous light-up shoes on Amazon for like $15 for the heck of it. I had them set to flash super obnoxiously throughout the entire race and I kind of loved it. Although I paid for it later with sore arches, they were worth it.

I was in shock throughout the race at how good my average pace was, but I tried not to get my hopes up that I’d be able to maintain it. At the end I was really feeling my elevated heart rate and struggling to breathe. However, a lady that had been passing me back and forth came up behind me while I was walking, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Come on!” And that was all the motivation I needed to finish strong!

The course was 0.05 miles short. So my official race time shows 37:56, however if I calculate out my average pace on my Apple Watch of 12:29 min/mile to the proper race distance I get a race time of 38:42. I don’t feel like it would take me an extra minute to go 0.05 miles but I feel like the timing was goofy anyway so who knows. Either way I completely obliterated my previous Personal Record of 41:12!

The best part of it all? My blood sugar held steady (for the most part)! I started around 150 and hung out in the 140s until about 2.5 miles in when I started to drop. A few minutes post-race I was in the 90s but I had just eaten a banana so I knew I was good. It even behaved overnight!

I am so happy with my results and so motivated to keep doing races. Yeah, I only got 121 out of 159 people, but in the end, we all went the same distance.

I never realized I’d have to give insulin for…

Cold medicine! 

I’ve been sick for like, forever. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. Realistically, it’s been a week and a half. But that feels like forever!) And it seems like no matter how much Robitussin and Sudafed I take, I’ve yet to really start feeling better. 

Luckily, my blood sugar levels have been very normal throughout the entire sickness (which usually isn’t the case!). Instead I’ve faced a new quirk in diabetes-land: most cold medicines contain things like high fructose corn syrup, which is in other words, sugar! And I’ve seen noticeable blood sugar changes after having a dose of medicine. 

The black line above my graph shows my blood sugar before taking my nightly dose of Robitussin. The blue line is the peak of the increase after taking it, when I finally bolused for the rise. 

All is well now that I know this medicine causes a rise in my blood sugar, and I’ll be paying closer attention to the ingredient listings in the future!

Fellow diabetics, what is something you never even thought to give yourself insulin for?

002. Mud Run!

This weekend I participated in a 5k mud run in my city to benefit the local gym/fitness center. Myself and several coworkers signed up to do it together, and I received permission for my husband to follow us through the course to monitor my blood sugar via my Dexcom.

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

The Day I Vowed to Never Eat Another Poptart

May it go down in history that today is the day I vow to never eat another poptart as long as I live.

It’s a common misunderstanding that diabetics can’t eat sugar. Of course we can. Sugar saves my life on a weekly basis. Without it, I could easily die from a low blood sugar. So when I choose to enjoy something high in sugar (or carbs) I must take that into account and give myself the proper amount of insulin for it.

Enter this morning’s poptart. Seemingly innocent enough. They were on sale this week at Kroger so my husband, being a poptart addict, picked up three boxes. He got this one specifically for me because it’s one of my favorites.

I woke up this morning at 6am with a BG of 106. Lately I’ve been trying to curb my dawn phenomenon with some well-timed manual boluses to head off the rise so I did one when I got to work at 7am as I was at 139 at that point. Around 8:30am, I was approaching 180, having apparently failed at avoiding the high. So I bolused for my poptart and have extra insulin to help with the dawn phenomenon induced high. And I ate the crap out of those pop tarts cause they were delicious.

Then it all went to garbage.

A New Adventure in Familiarity

I haven’t blogged in almost a month. Wow! I admit it has been difficult to find inspiration in the middle of the most insane photo editing spree of my career, on top of my day job becoming crazier every single day. And also a touch of burnout. Diabetes awareness month is exhausting.

The Vacation Post, Part Two

For Part One, click here.

So far I’ve covered all the events that happened up to Friday night. I did this on purpose because Saturday was it’s own adventure.

The Vacation Post, Part One

I’m home from vacation and so overwhelmed with so many different emotions – happy to be home, sad to be back in Michigan, missing the Wisneski family (four legged members included, of course). I’m going to try to write a coherent post so, let’s see how this goes.

Accountability 8/15/14

Last week was great.

This week was terrible.

Partially due to completely incorrect sensor readings (showing 300 when I’m 190, or 50 when I’m 80). And partially other factors. Bad weeks happen, but I’m still pretty proud of myself. My average BG is right around 140, which is awesome!

I need to get in and actually get my A1C officially checked, but I just don’t want to. I haaaaaaaate getting my blood drawn… But if my average is really between 140-160 then that would mean my A1C is somewhere between 6.5 and 7.2. When I was on injections (and actually DOING the injections like I was supposed to, which is a story for another post) I pulled a 7.5 A1C, so anything better than a 7.5 is success in my book.

Narrowing the range

Recently, I began wearing my Enlites again.

I’ve been bad. I tried them for the first month or two I had my pump, but I just didn’t love it. The extra poke of inserting it was annoying, I didn’t have very good accuracy with it, and I have such limited real estate anyway that it just didn’t seem worth it. However now I’m back on the CGM grind, for a very specific reason.

On August 27th, my husband and I will be flying to Los Angeles for vacation.