Returning To Form

Hello again, it's been a while since I've had the time to sit down and collect my thoughts.  Life at a start-up keeps you busy for sure, the frantic pace and constant need to move things forward keeps it interesting and fun but a 36 hour day would help things out quite a bit!  However, now that I'm finally settled into life on the West Coast things are returning to normal.

Late last week I decided to start training again.  My body needed some time to recover from training for CDA and well I overall needed to adjust to the move and new job.  I technically never stopped working out but I hadn't worn my heart rate monitor for a couple of months and really had no structure to anything that I was doing. All that was a nice change of pace but I was craving a direction and some hard core heart pounding work outs.  With that I finally turned the corner on Sunday and found my mojo to push it again.

Sunday was a rainy day here in San Francisco, but I woke up feeling a desire to run that I hadn't felt in some time.  My previous 5ish runs had been cut short because of blood sugar issues but for this run I made sure to prepare my nutrition and to load on carbs pre-run just like I do during normal training periods.  I left my house with a blood sugar of 238 ready to take on the hills of SF.  The goal for the day was to run more than 7 miles.

I headed through Golden Gate Park with fresh legs and a focus in my mind I hadn't felt in a while.  My blood sugar felt stable as I cruised with a really comfortable stride.  The miles began ticking off, my heart rate was staying in zone 3 and I was feeling fantastic.  I ran along the Great Highway cruising at an 8:30 pace, looked at the Pacific and smiled; this was my first real California moment, running the rain with waves crashing to my right - one of the exact images I had hoped to find when I so wanted to move to the West Coast.

I slowed my pace just a bit from mile 6 to 7 as I wanted to push the pace a bit for mile 8.  Mile 8 ticked by with my watch showing an hour and 9 minutes; which left me with a great mile cool down as I jogged back to my apartment.  My first "real run" since CDA, and better yet my blood sugar was a happy 140 when I got out of the rain.

The day after the powers that be at my firm gave the company the day off for a super successful product launch.  So I locked El Bastardo to the roof of my car and drove down to Santa Cruz for what was sure to be some great riding.  Made a blood sugar mistake on the way down as I started the ride with a bs of 392 - scones sure have alot of carbs!  The ride in Santa Cruz was in a word, perfect.

I started my 40 mile loop with a 10 mile beast of a climb.  The climb reached grades of 11% for short stretches and averaged about 6% for the entire climb.  The climb was longer than anything I had done in Virginia and was unbelievably challenging as I couldn't get into my biggest gears on my rear cog (need to make some rear derailleur adjustments).  But I kept a steady cadence (dropping to 45 at one point!) and kept the wheels rolling.  Close to an hour later I had conquered the first 10 miles and faced a crazy steep descent.

The amazing thing about riding in California is the drastic temperature swings.  I was pretty warm on the climb up in my merino wool jersey, warmers and bib shorts.  But I was cold to the point of shivering on the way down!  At one point I had to stop in a patch of sun light to stop my teeth from chattering and warm up a bit.  Once I finished the descent I was greeted by an unbelievable view of the Pacific Ocean and 15 miles of pure bliss as I time trialed it down US 1.  Sadly, my damn Droid didn't save the pictures I took of the ocean so the images are only burned in my mind not on film.

For 15 miles I jammed along at a 24 mph pace and my legs turned the pedals seemingly like they never forgot how.  Riding along the Pacific, enjoying the view was the happiest I had been since I moved to California.  I couldn't have asked for a better loop.

The ramp up in exercise has of course begun dropping my basal rates like a lead balloon.  One of the many reasons I hopped back on the saddle was an escalating basal rate and some blood sugar numbers I wasn't happy seeing.  The combination of commuting by bike and my daily workouts has me exercising close to 2 hours a day which has brought my basal rate from a high of 17.5 back down to 15 in a 10 day period.  That has translated to blood sugars that were hovering around the 160 mark to blood sugars between 100 and 120.  My basal rate still isn't as refined as it should be, the move and recovery took its tool.  However, slowly everything is returning to form.