A Couple More Biking Stories

I meant to blog about a bike ride on July 12/12 but I sort of forgot.  I also went biking today so I will share the results of both of these rides.

On the 12th I decided to go for a bike ride after dinner.  At dinner I was a little lower than what was ideal for biking (6.6 mmol/L rather than the usual 10-12 that seems to be safer) so for dinner I ate approximately 100 grams of carbs and did insulin for 15% rather than the usualy 25%.  I did the usual 25% basal running for two hours.

Right away my glucose was higher.  When I started biking it was 18 mmol/L, which is too high.  It went down to 15 mmol/L part way through the bike.  Knowing I was a safe level, I biked much faster for the last few minutes home, bringing my level down to 14mmol/L; about an hour later it was 18 mmol/L, which I decided to correct.  Finally, at 3am I went low (3.4 mmol/L).

Obviously this did not work.  I was too high for the bike ride (when I'm in the high teens I don't feel very good, which makes me not want to move).  It came down a little bit but jumped back up an hour after the bike ride.  Then the correction plus the lingering effect of exercise brought me too low later in the evening.

Even though the numbers were too high, this ride gave me some good information.  For one thing, I saw the same pattern as last time, just higher.  My glucose seems to go up a bit after dinner, come down a few points during the actual ride, then jump back up once I've stopped riding.  This means my glucose is remaining relatively stable, which is great during the ride.

I've also found that going faster means my glucose level drops faster.  I know this isn't rocket science, but there seems to be a significant drop if I'm exerting more energy.  That's something that I'll have to be very aware of (and which may lessen if I keep at this).

So now for today's ride.  Today I was heading to a friend's house.  I knew I wouldn't be active while hanging out there so I decided to bike there and home.  My friend lives a significant ways away from home; I was guessing it would take me 30-45 minutes to get there.  It ended up 45 minutes including two stops (the first stop was to check my glucose about 15 minutes in.  The second one was to check my glucose and to catch my breath from a hill that really killed me going up!)  This ended up a little further than I've gone this summer, plus it was uphill part of the way.  The other couple of rides I've done were mainly flat.  The other significant difference was that I would be biking home as well.  Going down the hill would be faster than up, but I expected another 30-40 minute ride anyway, making the total time spent biking potentially 80-85 minutes, split in two.

I had a really rough start to my day.  At 8am I was 4.1 mmol/L.  I had some skittles and a power bar at that time then slept for a few more hours.  I was planning on getting up to check on my glucose around 11:30am but that didn't happen; I got up at 1:30pm ish and was luckily 10.5 mmol/L.  That meant my glucose would be high enough to attempt this.

I ate two toasts with peanut butter and banana, which was more than I normally eat at that time but is carb heavy.  I did a bolus for 25% of that food, and started a 25% basal around that time (running for two hours).  I made sure I had some food with me (skittles, power bars and some goldfish crackers), as well as liquids (both water and juice).  I made sure someone would be able to come and get me if something went wrong somewhere along the way (thank goodness for cell phones!) and headed out at 3pm.  As I already mentioned it took me 45 minutes with two stops to get there.  But my glucose held just fine, being 13.0 mmol/L when I started, 15.1 mmol/L at the first stop, 14.7 mmol/L at the second and 12.5 mmol/L when I got there.  I checked again a couple of hours later and had gone up quite drastically to 19.4 mmol/L (although I had eaten a doughnut or two during that time which I may not have bolused correctly for.  Plus I may have had sugar on my fingers, which in hindsight I should have made sure they were clean!)  Anyway, as you can tell, other than the high a couple of hours later, this ride was a success.

Of course, I had to get home as well. 

I had thought we might get food at some point, but other than the doughnuts, no such luck.  So even though it was a bit late (almost 9pm when I left), I decided to bike and stop at Subway on my way home.  There's two Subways on the route I was going to use and one of them just happened to be right where I stopped the second time on my way there (making it only a 15 minute ride from my friend's house).  I was 12.4 mmol/L before I left.  I started my basal (25% again) about 30-40 minutes before heading out.  I got to Subway, ordered my sub, and was packing everything into my backpack, ready for the next part of my ride when I did glucose: 5.0 mmol/L.

At this point, I still had about a half hour ride to go.  A 5.0 mmol/L would not hold me.  If I ate the sub my glucose would go up but it would take quite a while, time I did not really have because it was late and the sun was slowly setting (I don't have a light for my bike).  So I called for someone to come and get me, sad the whole time because I didn't get to go down that stupid hill that killed me on the way there.

While getting home wasn't exactly a success story, it did give me incredibly important imformation: I can't go biking without eating some sort of meal beforehand.  If I'd picked up a sub on the way to my friend's house (say when I stopped beside the Subway to catch my breath) and eaten a bit before heading home I probably would have made it without a problem.  I would have had to do the same 25% bolus/25% basal and my glucose would have held.  But because I didn't have that carb-heavy meal, my glucose plummeted.  Next time I'll be more prepared.