Endurance training

Hey looking for a bit of help please with endurance training. Looking at competing in a triathlon later in the year. 750m swim, 5k run 20k bike. At the moment having no probs if I train for individual events i.e. going for a run or a swim but when i start combining for brick sessions i.e swim followed by a run I’m starting to see my bg doing some fairly funky stuff. Seeing them start to drop off after run to only rise high post swim with no additional carbs. Bought the Diabetics athletes handbook just waiting on it to arrive but in the meantime would anyone be able to offer some advice.
thanks
Peter

Hi Peter,

It is a bit hard to tell from this without seeing your diary for your training. Does it happen every time? Are you able to share your diary with this thread?

For a sprint tri as you have described, I would worry more about lows than highs. The reason being that a sprint tri tends to be over pretty quickly (usually less than 2 hours), so any high can be corrected afterwards with QA. Lows, especially in the water are not desirable, so better to risk going a bit high than a bit low. Playing around with your BI (especially lowering it a little the night before a big training session) may also give you better control as you can then use QA to control the short-term nature of the event.

Have you had any issues in the past from going high - e.g. ketoacidosis? If not, then I don't think you need to worry about high BGs too much for training sessions of less than 2 hours.

I have the Diabetes Handbook and keep meaning to read it, but I do recommend ( a lot actually on this forum :-) ), this book here which will help you experiment to determine what works best for you:

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Diabetes-Science-Experiment-diabetes/dp/148106200X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390035270&sr=8-1&keywords=your+diabetes+science+experiment

For myself, I lower my BI the night before, and try and control the event more through QA if required. I tend to start a tri with BGs of around 13 having just taken in a load of sports drink. I carry a small packet of jelly beans in my swim cap in case I sense a hypo during the swim leg. Usually I exit the water with BGs between 5-6, and then take on about 4 x 750 ml bottles of sports drink on the bike. I then plan to start the run with BGs around 9-10 and take on regular sports drink.

(I should point out that this is for half ironman events - 2 km swim, 90 km bike and 21 km run, so it would differ a bit for a sprint tri like yours.) For a sprint tri, I'd still start with BGs of about 13 because I really don't want to hypo in the water, but I'd expect to need quite a bit less carb on the bike and run legs, and I'd be aiming for BGs of around 8-10 in both T1 and T2.

Keep your QA for transition in case you need it, but you shouldn't need to carry it on you while you are cycling and running.

I have a half ironman in a couple of weeks which I am very nervous about. The last four days here in Melbourne have had temperatures in excess of 40 degrees and I have no idea what a half ironman in such temperatures is going to do for my BGs. Some thing you just can't really find out in training :-)

All the best for it. Triathlons are awesome.

Warwick.

Warwick,
Thanks a million for the reply some detail really appreciate it. Only started using the diary with dafne past few days so not enough data points yet to make any sense of. See your points and was thinking along the same lines as what you are saying. Dont want to be going in too high just find you never get your ful potential out. Ill try your tips for training and see how we go. Thanks again really appreciate it. 40'C god we would be lucky to hit 4'C here in ireland. Ha ha all the best of luck with your upcoming events.
Peter