Hello!
I am training for my very first marathon! I’ve been running for years and have done plenty of 5ks, 10ks and a couple of 1/2 marathons but never the full 26.2 miles. Well I’ve set my sights on the Denver Rock n Roll marathon on October 9. I will be running with Team First Descents. I am hoping to raise $500 for First Descents one of my favorite non profits. As a cancer, survivor First Descents helped me regain confidence in myself and take me life back after a long battle with colon cancer.
Please help me support First Descents and young adult cancer survivors by donating via my fundraiser page:
http://teamfd.firstdescents.org/2011/fd/denverrocknrollmarathon/semicolon/
As for the race, I would love to hear about anyone’s marathon experience and how they managed insulin and food before and during the race. Keeping my blood sugar in check might be as tough as running the marathon! Please share any tips you might have!
Thank you!
Brian
Brian,
Congratulations on signing up for your marathon. Balancing food and blood sugars is a challenge and should be an integral part of your marathon training. What you practice during training will pay you back on race day.
Two basic rules to keep in mind. First , you need as much fuel and food as the non-diabetic marathoner and second, you need insulin to use the fuel. Don’t skimp on either.
There are as many strategies as there are runners, so experiment a lot. One common strategy, if you’re a pumper, is to reduce your basal to half starting one to two hours before the run. Eat and bolus as you normally would. (Some runners cut the bolus depending on how much time there is between eating and running.). Keep a steady supply of fuel coming in. You’ll have to figure this out during training. Not only how much, but what - Gu, tabs, sports drink, other.
Resources: Glucomotive.org is a club for diabetic runners. Roy Caldwell in Eagle, CO, is the Captain for the Mountain region. He’s a type 1 ultra-runner and very knowledgeable.
Athletic Diabetics and Diabetics Who Run Marathons are two groups at tuDiabetes that have lengthy and informative threads on this subject.
The Diabetic Athlete by C
Sherri
The Diabetic Athlete by Sherri Colberg is another excellent resource.
Best of luck,
Terry
(Sorry for the messiness at the end of my first response.)
This Fundraising post has been approved by the Diabetes Hands Foundation.
Brian. I helped you before glad to do it again. I just donated $100 hope it helps. My nephew,Tom,is a seasoned Marathon runner done NY Boston Marine in DC and in Nov…St. Augustine,Fl going to have its first Marathon. Good luck to you. I know you can do it. Reed,the Seagator
Terry Thanks for all the great info! Emily thank you as well for lots of great info and for featuring my post! and Reed thank you so much for your generous donation to First Descents!!! Awesome! This is such a great community!
Ran the longest run I’ve ever done this morning 15 miles. My training has been going pretty well so far. I’ve only had to bail out of one training run due to low blood sugar. Managing that is definitely part of my training. For today’s long run I at my breakfast as usually (heaping bowl of oatmeal) and decided not to take any insulin which proved to be a good decision. Even without my morning dose my BG was 42 by the time I finished my run. I must have had some residual insulin leftover from last night. Between that and running 15 miles I ended on a low. Need to eat more before my next long run.