Friday, March 29, 2013

Training For Boston

I qualified for the 2013 Boston Marathon prior to being diagnosed as diabetic.  I'm not training for a PR, but to learn what I need to do to have a safe and fun marathon.  Fortunately between my low carb diet and a solid fitness base, I don't tend to have low blood sugar when working out.  I've discovered that this is true until my workout goes beyond 2 hours.  Unfortunately I can't run a 2 hour marathon, so I've been working out what I need to do on race day.

In the days before my diagnosis I used Gu packets on long runs, but that is more sugar than I need or would feel safe consuming now.  On my 20 miler last week I tried some of my homemade sunflower butter and it went quite well.  Maybe not the fact that I was licking it out of a snack bag.... but since it seemed to work well I ordered some Barney Butter 90 calorie snack packs - which have 2.5g of carbs.  I'll be test driving them this weekend.  

The other thing I'll be testing out on this weekends run is the SideKick blood sugar monitor.  It is a disposable meter about the size of a film canister that also contains the test strips.  While I'd like to make it through the race without testing, I want to be able to check in, and I feel like this will be easier to carry and handle in the race. 

It has been a cold, wet, and miserable spring for training, but tomorrow looks to be in the 50's and sunny - good day for a long run!!

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