Today we rode from San Francisco, around Tiburon, to Nicasio and towards the lighthouse at Point Reyes and back. The weather was cool and cloudy at first but sunshine broke through for the second half of the ride. I initially felt weak from low BG's last night and especially this morning before the ride, but I felt stronger after about an hour. I used the basal rates shown in the chart and decreased them throughout the ride. I was consistently eating about 300 calories per hour with a slight increase towards the end of the ride. Most interesting to me was how steady my BG was right around 80-100 despite the changing basal rates. And for the second half of the ride, the Dexcom was completely flat. It didn't seem to matter whether I ate something small (chocolate GU at 20 g) or big (40 g of honey fruit snacks). It was almost as if my body wanted to stay right there! But there is a more likely explanation, of course. Initially, when my basal rates were a bit higher (0.7-0.9) I was rising a bit after each snack and then falling again. But when my basal rate was lower at 0.5 for the second half, I stayed pretty steady after eating. So it appears that the glucose entering my blood from the gut was leaving at about the exact same rate there.The basal rates were a touch too high initially and need some adjusting; however, I want to make sure I don't start off high, since it seems to make things much more difficult to manage overall.
The ride was a great confidence-booster for Ironman Coeur d'Alene, which is approaching quickly!
3 comments:
I'd kill to keep my blood sugars right around 100 for exercise! I need to stay near 160 or I'm in a ton of trouble - awesome job on figuring out that basal rate!
I was just reading your stats for today (and GO girl!). I wanted to say...as an insulin-producing creature here, I just shook my head and thought, "Wow, I mean, I bonk and feel weak or just have an off feeling on occasion and it just must P!ss her off not to know if it's her diabetes or just a bad day....argh."
Just thoughts......
You guys are my heroes :)
M
I'm curious, what did you use to eat 300 calories/hour? Given you're riding, I assume it was some kind of goop. I'd love the details.
I'm slowly starting practice for a sprint triathlon. I need to figure out how to stop that plummet that generally starts for me about 40 minutes into a bike ride.
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