Tomorrow I embark on my 16 week journey to the Chicago marathon on October 12, 2008. I’ve combined three schedules into what I hope gets me a sub-4:00 finish. I had three requirements for my training plan: three 20 milers, a mid-week long run in addition to the usual Saturday long run, and one day of interval/speed work/tempo/hill training a week. It was hard to find something that had all three (that was also at my fitness level) so I combined some of my favorites and came up with my own. The only downfall with the schedule is that I have an 18-miler the weekend Kyle and I are in Chicago for Lollapalooza, but it will be a good simulation of race day and should pump me up enough to push through the rest of training. I just hope it doesn’t make the summer go by any faster than it already is. Our weekends are already filled with activities, and the end of June is fast approaching. Time is a precious commodity around here.

I changed my sensor for the first time on Saturday and nearly passed out. I am a needle-phobe, and despite the daily desensitization I go through as a diabetic, they freak me out. The needle the sensor is encased in has a substantial gauge and it stung on the way in (that’s a nice way of saying that it hurt). I had a hard time getting the needle back out and it felt like I hit a muscle because every time I tried to ease the needle out, it sent a twinge of pain that made me bite my lip to keep from yelling. The longer it took to get the needle out, the more I sweated, and the darker the room got around me. I finally got the needle free and yelled for Kyle because I thought I was going down. He got me to the couch, fanned me back to consciousness and made me promise to do all future sensor changes in the presence of company.

All of my sensor readings have been in very close range of my finger-stick readings, and my personal best on Saturday night was largely due to the up to the minute info I was getting throughout the run. I just have to figure out my post-run high phenomenon. My sugars skyrocketed to the 250 range immediately after the race, which I am speculating has something to do with an adrenaline surge (this could have been my downfall during the half also). I’m going to pay close attention to this after my future runs and see what I can figure out.

At this point, I would take passing out at every insertion over going a single day without this sensor embedded in my abdomen. I look at it this way: the cost of an insulin pump…$6000, the cost of the continuous glucose monitor…$1000, the yearly cost of supplies for both…$12,000, having real-time knowledge of where your blood sugars are and the means of keeping them “normal”…priceless.

(This post was not paid for by Mastercard or any of it’s affiliates. However, if they would like to pay for it, the hand-out would be greatly appreciated, and desperately needed since the above numbers are not exaggerated and shockingly accurate.)