ironguides

After a few years of coaching, it is clear to me that if the athlete has done his training, he will perform well at a race. Period. End of story.

People usually loose their mind on race week, it seems that there are so many factors that can totally blow everything you’ve done, all the fitness you‘ve built. Be it lack of sleep the night before a race, pre-race nutrition, getting the time of that day off right, be careful with how fast you do strides the day before. Those are only details, of course they are important and you can go much slower if you get everything wrong, but what really is going to dictate your pace on race day, is the work you have done in the past months.

With diabetes is the same. It took me a while to realize that, but what really matters is how you blood glucose level has been managed in your daily routine, what happens on race day (as per described below) is only a detail that although can have an impact on race day, it won’t be as big as you think if you follow some basic guidelines.

Since there are not many triathletes with diabetes racing ironmans, I had to figure everything on my own. First idea is always the books and medical articles on the internet. When it comes to BG (Blood Glucose) levels, in theory, you are not even supposed to do any exercise if your BG goes above 250mg/dl – which I agree it is a pretty high level and you are doing harm for your health by even keeping that for too long. Your body’s first reaction is getting rid of some of that extra sugar via urine. But unfortunately, not only water and sugar is flushed away, there is a lot of sodium and potassium that goes out in the mix. So right there you are on your way to become dehydrated, and if that level stays high for too long, it becomes chronic.

Now, every diabetic out there knows that on race morning, you nerves will completely mess up with your BG levels. The adrenalin will shoot it through the roof, and it is normal to get reads of 300+mg/dl at a race start.

But if you have really managed your BG well for race week (and the ones before that) does a few minutes of high sugar levels really matters? If you had your breakfast and didn’t consider that you would need more insulin to cover that same amount of breakfast that you have everyday, then your BG went past 300mg/dl from breakfast time up to a few minutes before the start of your race. Did you really loose much performance here? Not at all. Especially if you take care of that as soon as possible.

1) If this is not your first race and you are aware that your BG will raise and is likely to stay high during the race, use some fast-acting insulin (or pills if DM2) to get your BG levels to healthy levels again.

2)Remember that insulin+calories+water+electrolytes are all linked together, so if your BG is high, take advantage of the power of insulin (and the extra glucose) and replace some of the electrolytes lost. Potassium is the most important in this process. The combination of these 4 ingredients will really “recharge” everything (if any) you lost with the rapid raise in BG.

3) Keep checking your BG during the whole race. If you learn how to do the tests “on the fly” – that is, without the need to stop, you can virtually do as many tests as you want and not lose any time at all to your non-diabetics rivals!

4) Think positive! Whenever had a higher than normal BG levels later in the IM race (later stages of the bike or early on the marathon) I would think that the combo mentioned above was actually “recharging” my batteries, while all other athletes out there, were just running out of gas.

5) Finish strong! This can be interesting. If you did your last BG reading at around the 30k mark into an ironman race, a few kilometers later, it is very likely that you won’t be feeling so great. Don’t forget that this is the nature of Ironman racing! Focus on your technique and aim to finish strong. Think that your BG levels are just perfect at that time!

6) Learn with the experience! As soon as you cross the finish line, take your time to get yourself together again then test your BG levels ASAP, you might be surprised that although being a bit too high or too low, you were still feeling great! Or even the opposite can also happen, your BG levels could be just perfect and you had a less then ideal day. Hey, don’t forget that on race day, the training you’ve done on the past months and how you managed the diabetes is what will really matters on your finish time.

Vinnie

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