Now I'm not really one to go on about exercise and how fit and healthy I am. This is mainly because I'm not really fit, I'm certainly not healthy, and I don't agree with the government that everyone should exercise for a certain amount of time every week. People who seem to love making sure that you know how fit they are really get my irish up. Anyway before I go off on a tangent...
I used to go running fairly regularly, usually around 2 or 3 times a week depending on how busy I was. Then the excuses became more frequent and I'd only end up out maybe once every fortnight. Then I became ill and any form of exercise dropped way down the priority list. After a month or so of mild recuperation Christmas came, followed by work and before I knew it February was here and I hadn't been out for about 4 months.
One main reason other than the above was that I'd been slightly afraid of what would happen if I went out and hadn't managed my sugar levels properly. I've had hypo's just carrying things around with very little exertion so a run of a few miles seemed far more daunting than it should be. The main risk being that where I live there aren't many people around so If I did have a severe hypo (and also ran out of energy supplements) then I wouldn't have enough energy to walk the distance home and, very worst case scenario, pass out and wouldn't likely be found for some time.
This, of course, was me over-thinking the whole situation as usual. I decided to look at some diabetic forums online to see if I could find a starting point and any advice. Turns out, as I guessed, that everyone does it in their own way and that it's more trial and error than anything else. Who'd have thought?
In the end I went out with a small rucksack, took my phone with me, plus my blood monitor (so I could check it half way through) and a bottle of Lucozade. I was still quite worried as I didn't want a hypo so far from anyone and I wasn't sure how much energy my body actually uses when running.
The run went well but needless to say I was shattered when I got home, more than I thought I would be. Then the expected, somewhat overdue, hypo hit me. It wasn't a particularly bad one (my bg was 2.9) but the fact that I was physically exhausted certainly didn't help matters. It took me the rest of the day to recover. I was coughing, occasionally shaking (not actually sure why) and my chest felt like it was going to explode.
Why bother? You might ask. Why would bother going for a run if I knew I'd come back feeling quite ill?
Well it's pretty simple. It feels great to be out in the open air, actually feeling your body working (feel the burn!). There's also the feeling of being completely alone with your thoughts, giving you time to sort things out in your head, all whilst you're very slowly becoming slightly healthier. Well, hopefully anyway.
Loui
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