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.

011. When You Think You’re Going To Place… And You’re Not Even Close

For 2018 I’m trying to run a 5k every month. (Recap of May and June here) So today was my July race.

It was put on by a group called Run Michigan Cheap who are doing a ton of races all over Michigan this year. This was their 3rd of 4 events in Kalamazoo this year, on the Kal-Haven Trail.

There was no chip timing, the t-shirts were generic, the “official” race photos left something to be desired, and the medals weren’t super fancy, but for the price, I couldn’t beat it! (And I won’t ever pass up a finishers medal race).

The course was a down-and-back with a mostly flat scenic trail on crushed rock (thank goodness because we’ve been having insanely hard rains for the last three days). There was a 5k, 10k and half marathon, but there weren’t any mile markers until “5k turn” signaling my turn-around point.

It was humid, I wasn’t able to pee before the race started because there was only one potty and it was apparently super disgusting, and my head just wasn’t in the game… but I still ran a good, hard race. I knew there wasn’t a ton of people running the 5k so I actually thought I might place in the top 3 in my bracket. I worked hard to pass a couple ladies ahead of me and stay ahead of another one… only to find out they were all in older age brackets than me, and I was a full six minutes behind the next girl in my bracket. That was a bit of a bummer.

I ran in a new pair of leggings this time that I picked up at Ross Dress for Less for $15. They were advertised as having a cell phone pocket, however my phone would NOT safely and securely fit in them. But, my Tandem insulin pump and 4 rolls of Smarties fit in there perfectly. I decided to forego the FlipBelt and Spibelt and run with my iPhone in-hand.

I also recently picked up a pair of AirPods at the urging of my husband (because working out at the gym with headphones cords was difficult) and that was a great decision as well. No more cords bouncing all over the place while I was running!

My blood sugar started a bit high so I left my basal at my normal rate and by the end of the race, I was back in range. I had only just dropped low when we got to breakfast so it worked out perfectly. (And then I dropped low again right before lunch lol)

I did not PR this race, but I still beat all my race times from last year as well as my May race this year. Overall I’m proud of myself and my progress.

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.

009. Run for the Health of it

This past weekend I completed race #9 of my career, and my first for this year. It was the Borgess Run For the Health of It! run in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I trained for about two weeks at the gym on the treadmill, so my goal was to simply FINISH the race.

Of course, I had nothing but issues leading up to the race itself.

One thing I was looking forward to about this race was that the 5k gives you a medal. In years past, they did not do medals for the 5k, so when I saw they added it, I decided to sign up (because we all know that’s the only way I’m ever “winning” a race is with a participation medal) (but I am running the same distance as first place, just slower, so don’t we all win anyway?).

The other thing I was excited about is that this race does customized bibs with your first name on them!

When I went to packet pickup the day before the race, they handed me my bib with the name Tehya on it. Apparently there had been a problem with printing and a lot of the 5k ones were wrong. So I got a new bib.. with no name on it. I guess that’s better than running with the WRONG name.

The night before the race, my Dexcom sensor was being funky. It was 3 weeks old, so I knew it was going to be a little weird, so I let it slide. I did a site change and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up to a 296 blood sugar and a TON of bubbles in the tubing. So at 5am I’m attempting a site change and pushing insulin and fluids to bring it down. Luckily we had a long drive and an even longer wait before my event.

It was a bit colder than I expected, so I ended up running with my jacket that I had planned on leaving with Allen. But I got to see my Twinner (Alli) in the morning, and I knew my coworker Lona was there somewhere too. This race is HUGE so I wasn’t surprised that I couldn’t find her anywhere.

This race boasted their app and the live tracking it offered. Allen normally tracks my location via Apple’s Location Sharing on our iPhones. It normally runs about 1-2 minutes behind real time but is helpful in case I get injured or something happens. But since the race boasted about the tracking that is “the same app Boston uses!” he tracked me on there instead.

At the 1 mike mark, Allen texted me that I was averaging a 9:45 pace and to pace myself. That seemed REALLY fast to me, but I had just gone down a hill, so I shrugged it off. At the 1.5 mike mark, he texted that I only had 1 mile to go! I texted back “WTF, I’m only at 1.5 miles” and we realized then that the app tracking was horribly inaccurate. He switched back to our normal tracking instead.

The race itself was great! It was weird running with SO MANY people and a lot of them didn’t know runners etiquette so I got cut off a lot. The course was a blast. I knew we kept trending downhill and I knew we’d have to come back up eventually, and boy, that hill was a monster. It really helped to see SO MANY people there cheering everyone on, and the funny race signs too.

This was the first race where I actively tried to run based on how I felt rather than what the clock said. And I think it paid off! I finished a little less than 2 minutes slower than my all time record, pacing faster than most of my races last year, even deep into the season. I felt great, my blood sugar behaved, and I did it!

008. My first 10K!

Last Saturday, I drove 3 hours to Chicago where I boarded a plane for a 4.5 hour flight to San Francisco to spend a week with my friends, sans husband.

After landing at 10pm local time (add 3 hours for my native time) and struggling to get a shuttle to the hotel, I crashed for a restless 5 hours of sleep before waking up to run my first ever 10K!

Elizabeth and I have been friends for basically forever. Well, roughly half our lives at this point, so close enough. She’s ran countless races including many half marathons, and has been wanting to do a race with me for years. So the week before I boarded the plane, she signed us both up for the 10K, knowing full well that 1) I’d never gone that distance before and 2) that I’m super duper slow. She was willing to take one for the team and run with me, and I “trained” by running with my friends Michael and Chris to prepare for the race.

We were almost late because of construction. And by “almost late,” I mean Elizabeth had to jog to the starting line and reached me right as they told us all to GO so I don’t think she got to stretch at all, and I maybe got 3 minutes of stretching in. I definitely felt that later on in the race!

The half marathon that was happening as well had started about 30 minutes before the 10K did, and the courses were largely the same. The half broke off from the course somewhere around the 2 mile mark and went for a large loop before meeting back up with the 10K course only a short ways further ahead, so when we were in mile 2, the half was at mile 9 or so. Of course, I had to get a funny picture.

The course was very flat and Alameda looks largely like something out of a Michael Bay film. I kept thinking I’d see explosions or people jumping out of the buildings or something because of how unique they looked. It was cool and so different from the scenery I’m used to here in Michigan.

Mile 2 was, as always, my biggest struggle! I wanted to quit. I was tired, sore, and irritated that we were getting passed by the 1:30 pacer for the half marathon, and the group that was with him were all super ripped and looked like it was nothing whereas I felt like I was about to die. But I pushed and got through it, with plenty of walking breaks.

I didn’t push my body to run, I was patient and listened to it, and allowed myself to focus on the distance and not on the time. Of course, there were a few race volunteers who were “trying to be helpful” by “encouraging” us to run. Please, if you see me out there, don’t encourage me to run or I will cut you. I am pushing my un-athletic body to do something unnatural for it, and telling me “you can do it! Don’t walk, run!” is not only annoying but also ignorant of what I’m actually achieving out there.

My blood sugar actually cooperated for the race! I was in shock, and it was literally the only time my blood sugar cooperated for my ENTIRE trip to California. I had set a temp basal of 1/4 my normal basal rate for 1 hour and that seemed to do the trick! I had 3 glucose gels with me just in case and luckily, I didn’t need them.

My official chip time was 1:37:11 and I am happy with a 15:40 average pace because I did 6.2 miles when earlier this year I could barely do 1.0. It’s a start and now I have a time to improve upon!

oo7. Virtual run, real miles

I’m a HUGE Detroit Red Wings hockey fan. I only discovered hockey in 2013 when Allen took me to a game for my birthday, but I was immediately hooked.

Of course, this year the Red Wings are finally getting out of the ghetto Joe Louis and will be playing in their poorly-named new arena, Little Caesars Arena. Last year, the organization held their first annual Hockeytown 5K, to celebrate the final year at the Joe. My friend Morgan did the race and it looked like fun. So when I saw it advertised this year, I decided to sign up.

Unfortunately for me, I misread the dates, so I thought I wouldn’t be able to actually run it in Detroit, so I signed up for the virtual 5K. Turns out I totally could have made it work to do it for real, but it was too late by then.

The actual race was held on a Sunday, but I ran my virtual miles a few days later. My friend Elizabeth signed me up for a 10K the weekend after the Hockeytown race with only 5 days to train, (more on that in a future post), so I linked up with a couple friends to pound out some miles. My friend Michael and I ran 2.3 miles on Tuesday, and my friend Chris and I ran my “Hockeytown 5K” plus a few more on Thursday.

I definitely earned my shirt and medal! We had only planned on doing 4 miles but sometimes life has other plans and next thing I knew, we had done over 5 miles. It was awesome and I felt super prepped for my 10K!

The interesting thing is that I did the runs “blind” – meaning I wasn’t wearing my Dexcom. THAT was weird and kind of nerve wracking. At one point while we were running, Chris mentioned something about diabetes and how you can’t understand it truly unless you have it, and I said “Yep, you’d never know I’ve been spending the last half mile trying to feel what my blood sugar is, since I don’t have the numbers handy right now.” Luckily I tested frequently both during and after the runs and all was good, but that was insightful for him, and also gave me the confidence that I can survive running “blind” since I had never even tried it before then.

oo6. Holy Rib Cramp!

Today I ran my third 5K of the year!

It was a small local town race, so it wasn't chip timed, but it was inexpensive and I didn't have any other plans for that day, so I signed up a couple weeks ago and have been running a bit here and there to prepare.

What I didn't prepare for was the awful rib cramp that would hit me at 0.5 miles and never relented.

oo5. More like Longest Course Ever

Today’s “Longest Day 5K” was absolutely brutal. 

I knew it would be. Any course going through a nature preserve is going to be tough. Yet somehow I was shocked when I rounded the first corner and started my way up a big hill. 

And somehow I was still shocked when I had to tackle puddles, mud, narrow trails, rickety wooden bridges, stairs, and insane heat. 

It didn’t help when the water station at mile 2.3 was handing out warm koolaid instead of water. Really? Ew. 

However, Allen kept watch on me through me sharing my location via iPhone and continually texted me updates as I ran, which showed on my Apple Watch and kept me motivated. 

I had bought an arm band designed for some obscure MP3 player to carry my Dexcom receiver in, to free up some room in my flipbelt. It did the job, but I hated it, so I’m not sure if I’ll use it again or not. When I got sweaty it started to slide around my arm, and when I tightened it, it pinched my skin. It was nice having my Dex right there though, so I didn’t have to keep trying to flip through Apple Watch screens to get to the Dexcom readings. I’d recommend it if you’re wanting something to wear on your arm for Dex. It’s a tight fit to get the receiver in and it sticks out on the end a little but it was very snug and secure. 

My blood sugar was a steady 115 most of the afternoon. An hour before race time, I did a temp basal rate of 60% insulin for an hour because I knew once I started running, I’d drop. I was drifting down so I had a roll of smarties about half an hour before race time. I started the race at 108 and peaked at 140 around the 2 mile mark. I finished the race back near 110. 

So did I beat my goal time for the race? No. I was almost 6 minutes slower than last week. However this course was ridiculously tough, and I still did pretty well. I was 93rd overall for women and 187th out of everyone, out of 244 people. 

So I didn’t do amazing. But I didn’t quit, even when I really considered it at mile 0.75. I kept going even when i was completely by myself and thought I took a wrong turn at mile 2. Even when I thought I was going to puke at mile 3. 

The course was absolutely gorgeous, and that was awesome in itself. Also, this was my first chip timed course so that was a neat experience!

And I got a free beer at the finish, so that was cool too. 

Thanks Chris for somehow convincing me to do yet another 5k. I don’t know how many more you’re going to be able to talk me into, but so far, I’m having fun. 

oo4. Training? Who needs training?

This past weekend, I ran a 5k with zero training. In fact, I signed up for it only about two hours before the actual race began.

Crazy, right?

Diabetes limits my impulsivity (Is that a word? It is now, I guess) in so many ways. I don’t get to just grab a cupcake and eat it without a second thought. So much of my life for the past almost 5 years has been planning, provisioning, and preparation.

However, on Saturday when my friends Chris and Chad said they were running a 5K that night and asked if Allen and I were going to be there, I decided on the spot that I wanted to do it. I decided to be impulsive because, you know what, fuck diabetes!

Changes

Some things in my life are changing. I’ve never been very athletic. I played a couple sports and was mediocre at best. It just isn’t me. But this morning, I started running.

Every morning I was in California, Frank got up at 4:30am to go running. Every single day. I’ve never been that dedicated to anything in my life. But why not? If he can do that, why can’t I?

So this morning I got up at 5:30, laced up my Nikes, turned up Daft Punk on my iPod and started running. And it was hard, SO hard. I barely slept last night because I was so nervous. Would I be able to go more than a block without stopping? Would my blood sugar crash partway through? Would I absolutely HATE it?