Race report - Autumfest 8k

I wish I could run that fast. Nice placing in your a.g., too. Were there mile and kilometre markers
for this race? Interesting stuff about your blood sugar. If you report on your next races (all those
5ks!) I hope you'll also give b.s. data for them - do you measure your blood sugar after the race as
well? BTW - as an aside - it has been shown that dehydration lowers b.s. readings. So this has to be
factored into strategies for long runs. Jonathan

"Radioactive Man" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Autumnfest 8k Location: Knoxville, TN Time: 8:30 AM, Thursday, 11-27-2003 Distances 8k (4.972
miles) Entry Fee $7 with local club membership, advance reg., no shirt
# Registered 675
Time 32:26 (6:31 per mile or 4:03 per km)

This race was run on a mildly hilly course mostly on the UT, Knoxville campus. Maximum elevation
change over the course is 68 feet, mainly in the middle miles of the course. Weather at race time
was good - high 40's (F) and the rain held off until it was over. Despite the turnout, the lines
at the various porta-johns and indoor bathrooms weren't too bad.

Before the warmup, I had to eat a bit in order to deal with a mild case of low blood sugar (49),
due to some mismatch between fruit juice and insulin. Normally, those of us with type 1 diabetes
inject a fixed ratio of pre-meal insulin to carbs. For some reason, this didn't work out with the
fruit juice - either because the carb count was wrong or the insulin requirements for fructose are
different than for other carbs. After this point, I didn't have any more blood sugar problems,
even with the small plate of post-race junk food I ate.

I finished this one in 32:26 - a PR by about 1:15 for this distance. I was shooting for 32:00 or
under. My mile splits were, for once, reasonably even with the fastest at 6:14 (the last mile) and
slowest at 6:48 (mostly uphill). First mile split was 6:32 At this level of effort, I noticed that
I was passed by many people in the first 1/2 mile, and then gradually passed most of them in the
remaining 4+ miles. The point here is that I believe that most people, most of the time, end up
spending too much energy in the first 10 - 20% of the race distance. I am no exception to this,
but today, I think I handled the pacing pretty well. I finished 40 out of 650+ overall and
4/54 in the 30 - 34 male age group.

Going into this race, I had been running ~25 miles per week for training and also swimming about
10,000 yds per week in the master's swim program. My next races will be 5k's. As the weather gets
colder and crappier, I will soon start using treadmills and going outside only for speedwork and
occasional long runs on warm sunny days.

Jonathan Sydenham said:

I wish I could run that fast. Nice placing in your a.g., too.

Thanks.

Quoted message said:

Were there mile and kilometre markers for this race?

Just mile markers in this case.

Quoted message said:

Interesting stuff about your blood sugar. If you report on your next races (all those 5ks!) I hope
you'll also give b.s. data for them - do you measure your blood sugar after the race as well?

I have measured it many times after races and training. At that point, it is almost always in the 60
- 90 range (slightly low to normal range). For that reason, I no longer check it every time after
exercise, since I normally eat a meal or snack immediately afterwards, while also using a smaller
dose of insulin (~60% of what I would normally use for a given amount of carbs). For me, the most
critical times to check blood sugar are right before exercise and an hour or two after eating meals
where I had to guess at the carb content.

Quoted message said:

BTW - as an aside - it has been shown that dehydration lowers b.s. readings. So this has to be
factored into strategies for long runs.

Do you mean that dehyration actually causes low blood sugars during exercise, or just skews the
readings to show lower than actual? My greatest concern with dehydration would be if I went into a
high-intensity exercise with a high blood sugar (180 being a good example), and then deyhrated
quickly, thus increasing the concentration of everything in my blood, including sugar, by lowering
its overall volume. Add in the counter-regulatory effects of high-intensity exercise and I'd have a
recipe for disaster - the liver dumping glucose into blood that already has too much.

Quoted message said:

Jonathan

"Radioactive Man" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Autumnfest 8k Location: Knoxville, TN Time: 8:30 AM, Thursday, 11-27-2003 Distances 8k (4.972
miles) Entry Fee $7 with local club membership, advance reg., no shirt
# Registered 675
Time 32:26 (6:31 per mile or 4:03 per km)

This race was run on a mildly hilly course mostly on the UT, Knoxville campus. Maximum elevation
change over the course is 68 feet, mainly in the middle miles of the course. Weather at race time
was good - high 40's (F) and the rain held off until it was over. Despite the turnout, the lines
at the various porta-johns and indoor bathrooms weren't too bad.

Before the warmup, I had to eat a bit in order to deal with a mild case of low blood sugar (49),
due to some mismatch between fruit juice and insulin. Normally, those of us with type 1 diabetes
inject a fixed ratio of pre-meal insulin to carbs. For some reason, this didn't work out with the
fruit juice - either because the carb count was wrong or the insulin requirements for fructose
are different than for other carbs. After this point, I didn't have any more blood sugar
problems, even with the small plate of post-race junk food I ate.

I finished this one in 32:26 - a PR by about 1:15 for this distance. I was shooting for 32:00 or
under. My mile splits were, for once, reasonably even with the fastest at 6:14 (the last mile)
and slowest at 6:48 (mostly uphill). First mile split was 6:32 At this level of effort, I noticed
that I was passed by many people in the first 1/2 mile, and then gradually passed most of them in
the remaining 4+ miles. The point here is that I believe that most people, most of the time, end
up spending too much energy in the first 10 - 20% of the race distance. I am no exception to
this, but today, I think I handled the pacing pretty well. I finished 40 out of 650+ overall and
4/54 in the 30 - 34 male age group.

Going into this race, I had been running ~25 miles per week for training and also swimming about
10,000 yds per week in the master's swim program. My next races will be 5k's. As the weather gets
colder and crappier, I will soon start using treadmills and going outside only for speedwork and
occasional long runs on warm sunny days.