This is a marathon, not a sprint

Before I even started writing this blog, I promised myself not to make it all about running; that being said, running is the one thing that keeps my anxiety at bay and keeps me sane, and so it wouldn’t be a blog about my life if I didn’t write at least one post about it.

I remember when I was little, my mum always used to run 5km, out to the nearest village and back. I used to go along with her on my scooter or my bike. It felt so far! I remember my dad running 10kms too, plus a casual marathon, and smashing both. Literally, unbelievable times. I didn’t quite understand it then, but I completely do now. I suppose, given all of that, I was always going to get into running at some point. I signed up for the cross-country team in year 6, and I did the Race for Life a few times with my mum when I was in primary school, and looking back on it, I actually wasn’t too bad (shout out to mum for finding a letter I wrote my granny, bragging about my Race for Life time – nothing like staying humble!) – I wish I’d stuck at it. But the main thing I remember is that it was always encouraged, and somehow, my sugar levels were never an issue. Maybe it was the chocolate bars I used to con my teacher into giving me after the running sessions, or the McDonalds breakfast we’d sometimes get after running around the Regatta Lake. Who knows, but whatever it was, worked! Like most teenagers, I was way to cool to go running much throughout high school. Drinks in a park on a Friday night? Yes. Running around Berry Hill park on a Saturday? I’m okay, but thank you. It’s really such a shame – I wish I could go back and tell little Melissa to stick at it, no matter how average I might have been! I started running again in 2013. I just loved it. So much so that I signed up for a couple of half marathons, and then a full marathon almost immediately. I loved it so much that I basically dedicated my Instagram page to being a training account for the London Marathon. It’s very cringe to look back on; I’m not sure anyone really cared. Side note – please don’t go looking for that. I’m deleting the posts as soon as this blog is published. Unfortunately for me, running and my diabetes just have never worked together. I feel like I’ve tried everything, and spoken to everyone who can help me. I just can’t get them both right at the same time. I remember one clinic visit, probably around 2017. I was training for the London Marathon and one of the clinic team actually said to me “do you think you should even really be running a marathon with your diabetes? It’s not a great idea”. I still can’t quite believe they said that to me – I have always been told, and have always felt so strongly, that this condition should never stop me from reaching my goals. How could someone who was meant to be helping and encouraging me to do better actually say that to me? If they thought my diabetes was going to stop me from doing ANYTHING, I was going to prove them wrong… you know, despite the high sugars. Probably not the best attitude.

Needless to say, I ran the marathon, and pretty much checked out when it came to listening to anything that person had to say going forward. So I’m now putting all of that behind me, and starting fresh with the Omnipod. A couple of days into having the Omnipod fitted, I decided it was time to get out of the house and head out on a run. I mentioned this yesterday, but we covered dealing with exercise when we went to have our pumps fitted. To try to explain it in simple terms, you turn down the background (basal) insulin – the constant drip of insulin being delivered 24 hours a day – for an hour before, the duration of, and a bit of time after, your workout. It seems simple, and I suppose it is – but you also have to take into account your blood sugar when starting your exercise. I let mine go up to 11.5 before I started yesterday – that’s a little high, but much lower than I usually would be when starting a run. Full disclosure; the only way I’ve been able to do any decent amount of exercise (I’m talking more than 20 minutes or so here!) for pretty much my entire adult life, I’ve had to let my blood sugar rise above 15 to stop myself from crashing down in the middle of the workout. Depending on what I’ve been doing (sometimes, I like to go for a run and then swim straight after), that isn’t even high enough to let me finish what I want to do. Disclaimer – I am not encouraging this - this is not healthy, but it’s the only way I have ever managed to get anything done. I’ve even tried starting a run whilst my blood sugars are, say, 12, and taking jelly babies with me. No luck; I still go hypo. It’s exhausting, frustrating, and to me just feels like a complete waste of time (and jelly babies). So to start a run on 11.5 was completely new for me, and actually, pretty scary. I decided to stick close to home, just in case I needed to be saved. As soon as I started running, I felt so good. I felt fresh, and had a completely clear head. Often, when I run and my sugars are high, everything feels a bit heavy and fuzzy for the first kilometre or so. It always feels very hard to get into a run, obviously because my body isn’t really up for doing strenuous exercise when my sugar levels are so out of range. But I knew straight away that the first run with the Omnipod was going to feel good. Pretty quickly, though, my sugars had dropped to 9.8. I knew a full crash was probably coming, so I started to head home after 2.5km. I had tried to tell myself I would only check my sugars every kilometre, but obviously I didn’t stick to that. I started to test quite frequently, and noticed I was dropping quickly. 9.8, 7.7, 7.3… and then I spotted that dreaded down arrow. Anyone who uses the Libre glucose monitoring system will know the down arrow. They’ll know all the arrows, actually. The Libre tells you what direction your sugars are going in – drastically up, gradually up, steady, gradually down, drastically down – it’s clever, but also pretty frustrating quite a lot of the time. Sometimes, when your sugars are high, the down arrow is actually a welcome sight; they’re coming down, hopefully into range. But often, when your sugars are already in range, it’s pretty much the last thing you want to see. It means you’re at risk of a hypo – a low blood sugar incident (and something I definitely want to talk about in another post!). I don’t want to sound dramatic, but hypos can be life threatening. You need sugar, fast. A hypo is literally the last thing I ever want whilst out on a run – I am not here for that kind of drama. Anyway, I saw the down arrow and realised it was time to head home. I reached the 5km mark at the end of my road; I’d done what I’d set out to do, at least! I finished my run on a blood sugar reading of 5.2 – literally a perfect reading, but it was dropping gradually still, so I couldn’t have gone any further. I’m not even sure it’s safe to exercise with a reading like that – I’ll need to look into this. Ideally, I’d have liked to have gone a lot further on that run, especially when I started out feeling like I could run forever. It’s slightly disheartening to think I barely made it to 5km without panicking about my blood sugars. But I am trying to remember that this is the first run I have done after my whole life has changed – and I am obviously very aware that any run is an achievement, no matter how far or fast you go! I think, over the next few weeks, my plan is to really nail running 5km or doing some shorter workouts, without panicking about a hypo. If I can manage that, I should be able to increase the time and distance. I hope I can come back in a few weeks with some tips on this for anyone who needs them. If you’ve stuck with me for this long on this post, thank you. What a bloody boring post! Hopefully my next one will be a bit more exciting. I’m planning to head out on Saturday for lunch and then the rugby… aka pints! I guess you can expect some ramblings about how a few drinks go down now I have a fake pancreas!