I bonked in the week on an 11.3km run, was laying down a good time until I hit the 8th kilometre and then ran out of fuel. Felt empty and actually needed to use my glucose tablets (that all good and bad diabetics should carry always) to get me home. I managed the run in 49mins (for an avg. of 7mins per mile) but did not feel good. I had a similar experience a couple of days later – on the gym bike the plan was do to 20km. I started feeling pretty weak and at 10km was much slower than normal for that distance. I carried on but only made it to 15km before I had to quit. That really got me down as it is not something I normally do – I normally will complete what I have set out to do even if it means not doing it as well as I liked.
Towards the end of the week performance picked up a bit and I was back to ‘normal’. So the analysis…..there are a couple of factors that might be involved.
- it has been incredibly hot lately and much hotter than normal – at midday the other day it was around 30oC
- I have dropped a couple of extra pounds quite quickly and without really changing much
- there was a change to routine with breakfast being rice krispies as opposed to the normal bran flakes. Not that significant on the surface except to consider that there’s pretty much nothing to rice krispies!!
After the two sessions I felt my appetite go through the roof which leads me to think that it was a mixture of all three. The drop in weight from not enough fuel and the heat contributing to a lack of power (relatively speaking!!) Thursday and Friday I definitely increased the calorie intake!
Friday saw a return to normal with a decent (if very short) bike ride at lunchtime and then a swim in the early evening at the lido. Friday night was to be a meeting for the team entered to the Cheltenham Triathlon. Only Nigel, Robin and I made it with Mark having work social commitments, Le Fassett responding to a mother-in-trouble and Tony MIA. The required 10 lengths were swum with times varying between 08:50 and 12:00. It looks like the team will have a split with a few at the 9minute and under and potentially 2 in the 11-12mins category. We get out own lane though so the traffic should be manageable.
Saturday was a rest day!
Sunday morning was an earlier than normal start at 7am. The 30minute difference making quite a lot of difference certainly to me! Normally I am awake before the alarm but not this Sunday.
The plan was the 55km bike route that we have used a few times followed by a 5km run. The bike course has taken us previously around 2hrs to complete and the run around 20mins. To finish before 9:30 we started earlier. The ride was great, the temperature was a little cooler first thing and I was glad of my arm warmers. I actually used them all the way round only rolling them down when going up the 2miles of Cleeve Hill. There were KoM points up for grabs with Nigel and Le Fassett battling it out with Nigel ultimately victorious! I was in my customary third but not before having to go past Darren who got past me in the early part of the hill. At the top we agreed that there would be no near death experience that is the sprint finish and so it was a procession back to the house. The bike time was around 1:55:00 which is an improvement of maybe 5minutes on that ride.
Quick change and out onto the run. Just the short 5km around Chargrove Lane, a decent flat course that is a good benchmark and ok for this type of training. There is a definite need for longer runs for stamina but to get rapid foot turnover this is a great loop. We started pretty much together. Darren dropped off the back with Nigel, Le Fassett and I keeping a fairly consistent pace. I resisted the urge to pull away although did try accelerate/decelerate a couple of times to keep Nigel on his toes. I could tell he was behind me as I could hear his breathing. To be honest I could have heard his breathing from about a mile away! He did say that this is how he always breathes on the run!! We eventually dropped Le Fassett and was we pulled back onto Shurdington Road I accelerated away from him and in the last kilometre managed to put about 45seconds between us. Le Fassett came in, in third spot with Darren coming in a few minutes afterwards.
This was a real good session and probably the training brick that has done me the most good in terms of more bike time and more brick sessions. This together with the nutrition and hydration education and changes is probably what has helped me the most this year in terms if not suffering from cramp in the way that I used to. Better preparation both physically and mentally.
After the session there was leisurely coffee with Le Fassett and Sue (Mrs. Bosano!) ahead of a trip to the Malvern Hills with the kids and a picnic!
It is quite a yomp up the Malvern Hills from the bottom and you see people struggling on the paths before they reach the hill proper! We went a different route to normal going up one of the smaller hills. The footpath wound its way up and about half way we reached a point where there was a steep path to the left or the normal gradient straight on. The kids wanted to climb the steep path and so we all did. Expecting that it would be a short cut across a hairpin of the path we were on. We were wrong. The path was a climb/scrabble for about half an hour straight up. Luca steamed ahead and with the top in sight broke into a run. Distance running will definitely be his thing when he is a little older! Amelie was with me and we continued on, for 6 years old she showed a lot of determination and strength to get up the path and never wilted – perhaps she has more in common with her brother than she thinks!! Sue was bringing up the rear although the kids were less worried about this as, as Amelie put it, “it’s a good job you have the picnic daddy”!! At the top we had our picnic, I did a blood sugar test and it was 4.1. I had a sandwich and some cold pizza and no insulin as with more walking to be done and a hard training session that morning I did not want to risk a hypo.
The weather took a change, the wind started to build and dark clouds loomed. Looking towards Cheltenham we could see rain falling. We picked a different path down the hill aiming for St. Ann’s Well and the café. Once off the top of the hill the wind dropped and it warmed up again. The dark clouds blew straight over and it was as if it never happened. We made it t the bottom but in the wrong place for the café. That meant another uphill through 3 or 4 switch backs to get there.
A coffee and a large piece of carrot cake was on the menu! I did a blood test and my blood sugar was 4.7. That was about an hour after lunch where I had no insulin. I ate the cake without administering insulin and when I got home did another blood sugar test and was at 9. That was without insulin since breakfast and highlights the effect of exercise. Without having trained in the morning I would have required insulin at lunchtime and either skipped the cake or had to administer more. As it was I ate sensibly and required probably less than half the insulin I would have normally used.
Needless to say I slept like a baby Sunday night as did the whole Bosano household ;)
