Run - fail :(
I was all set this morning for a good run of around four miles or so up and down some of the local hills – blood sugar was at a good starting point (9.3mmol/l – 167 mg/dl), legs had recovered from Friday’s run, I had food in my belly and the weather appeared good, overcast and a little humid, but dry. However, within half a mile of setting off I felt absolutely awful! For some reason, as soon as I set off I felt a surge of adrenalin course through my body. Adrenalin is fine if you’re a sprinter, but for long distance, aerobic running it’s something that you only really want when you need to pass the runners in rhino costumes at the end of a marathon to save you from humiliation! The effect of this was to make my heart start racing, my breathing to become por and erratic, and the muscles of my legs to fill with lactic acid, making them instantly weak and devoid of energy. Within half a mile, I felt I had no choice but to stop running and try walking for a while whilst I recovered. By now, I was feeling very hot and light-headed. After I had recovered a little I tried running again, but very quickly the sensations came back and I took the decision to turn round and return home.
I absolutely HATE giving up on a run! It’s this stubbornness that has got me to the end of many a race, often miles past the point where something was telling me I ought to stop – most notably in The Hague half marathon in 2008, the year of my diagnosis. I’m sure that, had I known my blood sugar levels during that race I would have been flagging down the ambulance – but I made it! So what happened this morning? It has taken me a good hour or so to feel fully recovered, although I still feel a little light-headed. My blood sugar had remained largely unchanged at 9.6 (173) on my return so it wasn’t a sudden rise or fall in that. Thinking about it, I appear to have suffered all the symptoms of a panic or anxiety attack, but with no discernible cause.
The only thing I can attribute it to is that last night I took the first increased dose of my blood pressure medication, so I’m wondering if the symptoms were a result of a sudden rise then fall in my blood pressure at the start of my run. I’m tempted to go back to the old dose of medication, as I know my blood pressure has been improving and I suspect the slightly high reading the doctor took last Thursday was high partly due to the anxiety of having it checked. Given the huge changes in my blood sugars and insulin requirements over the past couple of weeks, it’s perfectly reasonable (in my head!) that I might also be getting a significant improvement in blood pressure that simply wasn’t indicated in the single test performed by the doctor. However, since I don’t have any equipment to accurately test my BP at home – I have a wrist monitor that invariably shows the same figures! – this can only be speculation. I’ll have to weigh up the options of whether it is worth ignoring the doctor’s advice and not increasing the medication.
So annoyed that I couldn’t complete my run!
