asthma / dare you to move / health + fitness / race report

run for diabetes 2012!: race report

• by kerri

Over the last few years, I have made friends with too many people who live with diabetes to count them all. These people have become my friends, both online and in real life [and some currently online and ABOUT to become real life friends!] and through Twitter and their blogs, I get a small glimpse into their worlds of living and thriving with a variety of types of diabetes. When I was searching for a Fall race to do, the Run for Diabetes in support of the Canadian Diabetes Association grabbed my attention and didn’t let go. Thanks to my generous friends who helped me not only raise but shatter my fundraising goal, and thank you to anybody who has supported me in the physical activity endeavours in the past couple months!  With tribute to Jay, we unofficially called our team “Good Things Run on Insulin!” and got to throw the phrase around and tell the story to a couple people today, which was super awesome.

My friends Sam, Danielle and Julia joined me today, and they were so much fun to race with. We got up at 6 AM (can you say early? I work at 10 AM tomorrow and 7:30 AM for the rest of the term, and my body is going to have no idea what to do with getting up at that hour), got ready, and drove across the city to the beautiful park where the D-run was being held. We preceded the race by visiting the bulk of the booths set up, where the people from Virgin Radio gave us free shirts, and tweeted and facebooked about us (this was the first time I told the Good Things Run on Insulin story!)

Love the tutus and the t-shirts – its team Good Things Run On Insulin! 

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Left to right: Sam, me, Julia and Danielle

Photo Credit to Virgin Radio

YES!

The actual race got rolling a bit late, and in the time we were waiting, literally seven people asked for pictures with us and our tutus. It was a little crazy (stay tuned for those, I know the Diabetes Association has a couple, as do the pharmacy people, as does the Manitoba Runners Association).

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Come on guys, I’m ready to go over here!

Finally, after a lengthy walk to the starting mat, and some sort of siren-esque interlude as the gun, we were off!

Being a walker in a race is awesome, but awkward. People cheer you on, but all the runners run past you all the time, and the half-marathoners have triple-lapped you, and et cetera. Also all the runners are super hardcore, obviously. Here’s some footage of the race, except minus the parts where we had to say thank-you four hundred times when people commented on the tutus. It’s super short, because video-ing is kind of distracting from the task at hand and such.

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You can’t see all the names, but you can clearly see that there are way, way too many people in my world who have diabetes.

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My first chip-timed race! Results TBA!

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How could you not want to walk in this? [Running Room! Want to make a deal and you can use this?]

Hmm… maybe the view literally took my breath away and it wasn’t asthma? 😉

Aside from some of the usual muscle-related off and on pain, my legs were totally awesome this race (and they’d be good now if I hadn’t stopped moving!). My lungs, on the other hand, were just true to the pattern that’s developed. I tried a new plan of attack on this walk, and it mostly worked until the last couple kilometers, and I was still able to amp up a run across the finish line at the end!  Today’s plan involved a neb treatment (a bit less than a 5mg vial of Ventolin–I got sick of doing the treatment, okay?) at 6 AM, the usual meds with an increased Symbicort dose to 2 puffs instead of 1 (I upped the Qvar to 3 puffs instead of 2 a couple days ago). Then, two-plus (with the delay) hours later I took two puffs of Ventolin from the inhaler.  Since my asthma is the most trouble after an hour, or 5.5K-ish, I took two more puffs of Ventolin and two of Atrovent early into the second lap. The pattern of the last longer walk held true, and over the rest of the second half, I think I averaged 1 puff of Ventolin per kilometer, but I didn’t start feeling really short of breath until we started kilometer 8, which was good! I need to stop trying to make sense of this exercise induced asthma pattern, but I really want to understand it so I can treat it better! (Really, I am doing all I can be, which sucks) I really feel that it’s taking me an excessive amount of Ventolin to get through these longer workouts, and I am not super okay with that. To prevent any rebound-flares later on today and to quell the dyspnea already developing, I did another neb when I got home. (The night of my first 10K, I had a really hard time breathing and if it wouldn’t have been for having access to a nebulizer at home, I would have had to go to the ER. Crossing my fingers that I don’t have a repeat of two years ago!)

I had Gatorade at the first station (which I after realized was stupid because why the hell would I need Gatorade by the first stop) but it was also way too strong. I stuck with water for the next few (because cold water > the water from my bottle), threw back a few sips of Gatorade (which Julia described as Mr. Clean. Thanks, Julia ;)) and ditched over half of that one, and stuck to the gross water bottle the rest of the race. I tried the homemade gel at about 7.5K, I think. It worked really well, but it was just too freaking sweet. My pre-race nutrition was also crap, because it involved exactly two bites of some random protein bar that came in the race kit, and about four sips of some almond milk smoothie thing (complete with a carb count on the table! 11g per serving, y’all! I was actually surprised that was the only carb count sign I saw, considering Good Things Run on Insulin and all).

Finally we rounded into kilometer 9, where my friends refused to leave me to go run the last kilometre (I told them to go because I knew pushing myself any harder would be no bueno, but they’re just awesome and told me that we were all finishing together). Halfway through the crowd of people, we kicked into a sprint to the finish line about two-hours after we started, where were unceremoniously handed our medals over (there’s something about when they put the medal around your neck, you know?) to put on ourselves.

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Post race

We walked around for a bit, because when you stop moving is when you start to hurt. A guy gave us funeral home branded water (like “Good health choice doing that race! Now, time to think about when you die! Ouch?) Found the bathroom that had no line by the point we crossed the finish line (it had a huge line pre-race because the porta-potties were still being put up, so we stood around until the Gotta Go guy was gotta gone. Also we had nothing better to do but stand there and dance, really–I’m sure even with the dancing we stood around less time than if we’d have waited in the bathroom line).

Subway had a booth with free sandwiches and yogurt parfaits, so we went and ate free food and sat on a bench overlooking a similar view to this, where Julia ran away from wasps while we had snacks and then headed for home!

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I was happy to be a small part of making a difference today. With charity races, the making a difference is two-fold: the difference in yourself in not only working to keep your body healthy through training and racing, but in your thoughts in how you perceive the good things that these non-profits are doing for people, AND in bringing much-needed funds and support to these organizations that do so much to help ALL of us live the best possible life we can have! I can go out there and have all the fun I want, but it’s not as meaningful if I’m the only one benefiting from it. Just as a Canadian discovered insulin, my hope is that Canada can be an equally big part in finding a cure–and supporting those living and thriving with diabetes while they wait.

health + fitness / nutrition

home-made energy gel!

• by kerri

After tweeting and receiving a lot of exclamation about home-made gel, I decided to forgo delaying this to be part of the race report as intended (plus, I don’t know what I was thinking because it doesn’t really fit in there anyway). Here y’all go!

I know you aren’t supposed to do anything new on race day, but screw it. I tried a gel in my last race [a 5K last fall–I gotta get more races into my life]. The gel was awesome, it kicked up the energy, and I highly enjoyed my first CarbBoom experience. Also, the gel was free, so I was all over that. After trying my first gel, it’s easy to see why so many athletes use them. However, they come with a hefty price tag [$1.50 per pouch], so I set out to make my own. After a bunch of googling of nutritional breakdowns of things, I loosely based it on this recipe from No Meat Athlete, but did some additional googling and this worked out okay for me:

  • 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1 tsp water (can be omitted, I added it before the lemon juice and it is extremely thin)
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/8 tsp sea salt
  • 2 tsp raisins

It, obviously, worked out to just over a quarter of a cup.  Soak the raisins in a bit of water for as long as you are patient to (mine were in an hour and a half), but mine didn’t all blend completely, which is whatever. The NMA recipe calls for dates, but I don’t think those existed in my house. Also now my entire kitchen smells like raisins.

It doesn’t look super appetizing, but it tastes better than it looks. Also, it’s not full of artificial things, so that’s cool.

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Nutritionally, the issue is, it’s extremely high in sugar thanks to the syrup. I originally intended to use honey, which while higher in some vitamins, was much higher in sugar. Also the honey was granulated, thus the first batch of gel I attempted was gross. Plus I don’t actually like honey, but that’s beside the point. However, Maria pointed out that the point of gels is kind of the sugar. So hooray syrup? I’m also not expecting to down this all in just over two hours [the anticipated time it will take us to walk the 10K–fingers crossed for shorter].

Nutrition Facts 

Serving size: 90g

Total Fat 0.2g – 0% DV

Cholesterol 0mg – 0% DV

Sodium 242mg – 10% DV

Total Carbohydrates 58.0g -19% DV

Sugars 50.6g

Protein 0.2g

Calcium 6%   Vitamin C 4%    Iron 6%

Some rationale:

The majority of energy/carb gels are obviously simple carbohydrates for energy, salt to make up for what your body is losing through sweat, and potassium (the raisins contribute 70.1 mg!) which is used and therefore lost by your muscles during exercise. Obviously the more pure the carbs [this case, glucose in the form of maple syrup], the less work your body has to do to use the carbs [ATP holla!]. Some sites also said that maple syrup packed a more sustained energy source than others (but I can’t be bothered to research the validity of that information–I don’t start school till Wednesday, yo). Fat can slow down digestion and requires more energy to break down, so nutrition before and during exercise should be extremely low-fat or fat-free.

It tastes decent, and the lemon juice gives it a nice bit of a kick to take the edge off the maple syrup.

I’ll report on the actual use of it in the race report tomorrow!

Have you ever made homemade energy gel? What did you put in it, and how did it work?

asthma

medical id: my identity doctor

• by kerri

293063_10151992567335375_721240625_n.jpgSince my asthma entered a level of weirdness beyond control by the standard FloVent/Ventolin combination, I’ve worn some sort of medical identification (they started off with random ICE tags I got made at the pet store with the engraving machine, if you want me to be perfectly honest, and then i got a plain silver dog tag made at an American Wal-Mart).  I wear ID not with the anticipation anything will happen rendering me unable to speak, but in case it does. I’m as active as possible, and all over the place–whether I’m out on the road, at work or school, outdoors training for a race, indoors working out or hanging with my friends, not everybody around me is going to know my medical history. And while I don’t go to great lengths to “hide” my asthma, it happens often enough that people don’t know (that part gets kind of awkward when I’m playing goofy gym games in school and have some sort of coughing spasm/respiratory situation. Ahem). In reality though, you just never know what will happen, and being proactive is NEVER a bad idea.

Sidebar: I spent a year as a MedicAlert member, but I was not impressed when they jacked the prices up for membership into their database–and this is without mentioning that the Canadian system, which is linked to the same hotline as the American system, costs significantly more for IDs as it is. I loved the security of the MedicAlert system, but when it was going to cost $60 a year, I realized there were many more things I could do with that much money. They offered to lower my membership fee, but that doesn’t help anybody but me. So i didn’t renew when it came time to.

Additionally, I like to have options. I don’t have a choice that I have asthma. I choose to wear medical identification jewelry, but that doesn’t mean I’ll wear just anything. I have a necklace that looks like a guitar pick that simply says “asthma; organ donor” [the fact that I want my organs donated in the case that I die unexpectedly is so important to me that it is engraved on all of my medical IDs]. I have a RoadID Slim, which I can change the band colour on. The Interactive RoadID is an integral part of my medical ID, as the bracelet I am wearing in the picture on the right contains the information to access my Emergency Response Profile that is connected to my RoadID.

My “everyday” bracelet is the one in the picture to the right. It’s simple, and while it looks like a medical ID, it’s not drawing a huge amount of attention to itself. [Oh, it also now has a cupcake charm on the opposite side of the ID plate]. I’m planning to at some point get another tag made so I can put pretty beaded bracelets on it, but I kind of suck at making those and stuff.

And, obviously it’s important that it coincidentally matches my guitar! I ordered the bracelet before I bought that guitar, but I am way okay that they match.

On recommendation from my friend Steve, I got this bracelet from My Identity Doctor. You’ll notice I don’t have the front engraved, which is for multiple reasons. I fit tons of information on the other side, so I didn’t need to use the front side. And while I’m open with the kids at work if they ask me any questions about my asthma, I really don’t want them staring at my bracelet all the time–“What’s your bracelet for?” “I have asthma.” “Oh! So-and-so has asthma too! Can you draw me a kitty? When are we going to the gym?” is much better than “What are all those numbers for?” “So can you do _____?” x 8000 other questions [those questions are fine infrequently. Every day not so much]. Other reasons include sketchy bus strangers and people I don’t know. If they really need the information, they can flip it over. Hopefully, though, the only time it needs to be flipped over is next time I have to play the casualty in first-aid training and the first-aid-knowing bystander finds my bracelet [it happened once. I was used as an example and everything].

The engraving on the back is black-filled and laser-engraved, and is super clear to read. Jon at My Identity Doctor does an awesome job, and I’d highly recommend checking out his store when you’re in for your next medical ID purchase. Available IDs feature a variety of colours and a couple different styles–they’re simple, high quality and a decent price. Jon also shared the discount code SSRJ which can be used for a 25% discount off your purchase until the end of September.

So, if you’ve got some sort of ongoing medical shenanigans, are you wearing medical ID? Why or why not? Let’s talk in the comments. [Perhaps I should start saying “ongoing medical shenanigans” instead of “chronic disease”. That’s academic paper material right?]

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Disclosure: As always, I never post about a product or service if I don’t believe in it wholeheartedly. I contacted Jon at MyIdentityDoctor after seeing the prizes/contest page on his site, and I may earn some swag from this post. Regardless, I dealt with him as a customer prior to the possibility of free stuff, and my experience from ordering to receiving my bracelet was nothing but positive. He even sent me a separate e-mail because I said “Hi” to his dog Burton in the notes of my order via Etsy. How cool is that?

health + fitness / kinesiology / life / stuff bloggers do

searchorama: blog craziness and answered questions

• by kerri

Jenny Simmons did a blog post earlier based off of the crazy stuff that brings people to her blog. I tweeted the other day a short list of more ridiculous search terms, but . . . here are some more crazy search terms and commonly asked questions that lead people here [with answers!].

Point of decision prompts: These are exactly what they sound like: signs that prompt a healthier choice at the time the decision needs to be made. Frequently, these signs are posted by elevators encouraging use of the stairs [I.e. Burn calories, not electricity], or in prompting healthier food choices [i.e. like sweets? Try fruit!]. They can be used in a variety of situations, and can be created to prompt a positive decision even within your own environment–just be creative! [See the image below for a point of decision prompt example about the stairs]

The MedicAlert conundrum: I get a surprising amount of traffic for people searching about the MedicAlert Canada price increase. I’ll post more on this tomorrow, but essentially MedicAlert increased their membership fees, and people are pissed off. The reasoning, from MedicAlert, is that it “costs more to run a business in Canada than in the US”. As a nonprofit, MedicAlert strives to make membership accessible to the “most people possible” [and offered me a slight reduction on my membership had I chosen to renew, which I did not, but only because I complained.] I also have beef with the fact that identification products that are exactly the same as the American products are 50-75% more expensive. What gives?

Giant Nutella: Yes.

I want to train for 10K runs but I have asthma: Go for it. Asthma may modify how you do things, but it shouldn’t modify what you do. I have trouble running, so I walk, but that is a choice I’ve made, just as choosing to train to run 10K is a choice, too. Start with a slow pace and work yourself up. If you haven’t yet, starting with a 5K is probably desirable, and I know many people who have been successful doing the Couch to 5K plan. One of my favourite fitness-weapons, however, is dailymile.com — add me as a friend! Make sure to take your inhaler with you, and if you’ve been instructed by your doctor, take it about fifteen minutes before you head out to work out. Also, ensure you do a long, gradual warm-up [walking, for example] and some stretching for about 10 to 15 minutes before you run–a long warm-up is imperative to success running with asthma because it allows your lungs time to adjust to the greater demand on them more gradually then if you just go out and start running hard right away.

Jay Greenfeld [and variations of his name, and references to his guest post]: Jay is a counselling psychologist and university professor, and is the author of My Choice – My Life: Realizing your ability to create balance in life. He also wrote a guest post about living with type 1 diabetes. I was fortunate to have the experience of having him as my Physical Activity: Promotion and Adherence prof last Fall. [If you’re googling “Is Jay M. Greenfeld awesome?” the answer is yes, googling student — and don’t worry, I pre-google my profs too, sometimes.]

Playing in leaves: Jay told us to. Legit.

Literal exercise: Literal exercise is the opposite of figurative exercise. I.e. literal exercise is the exercise you are actually doing, whereas figurative exercise is exercise you could be doing but aren’t and are instead sitting on your couch eating Cheetos? [I don’t know. I’m not an English major here, I am majoring in the literal exercise that is kinesiology. I may have had to look up figurative in three dictionaries.]

Cute edges of a cube: I have no idea what this is about.

Taking the stairs: is always a good idea. I made this slide on the subject for when I talk to grade elevens about asthma and physical activity sometimes. It tries to make a good point in pretty colours. Oh and look, a point of decision prompt!

10 flights of stairs a day can equate to 3.1 pounds of body fat lost over a year

Run stairs instead of escalator: You should!

Is physical activity important for a young child: YES! First, play is the way kids learn, and active games and play help to engage kids physically, affectively [socially and emotionally] and cognitively. Physical activity not only helps a child’s body become stronger and more efficient, but also builds thinking and problem-solving skills and helps build motor pathways. Playing in groups helps kids to work together as a team cooperatively, develop moral understanding of right and wrong, and in turn, helps kids to understand their own emotions and feelings, and those of their friends. Physical activities present a host of potentially new experiences for a young child and should be encouraged as much as possible!

AND . . . one of my favourites:

Sphinx wearing a tutu: I can’t even explain. I love the stuff people Google, for real.

asthma / health + fitness / race training

9K training walk: lungs, legs and hydration = less than stellar.

• by kerri

Things are looking a bit different around here!  I won a copy of Standard Theme for WordPress by 8BIT from Chris from Canada, so thank you to both parties of that awesome partnership!  I am in LOVE with Standard Theme so far! Next on the round of thank-yous is my friend Andy Darnell (also a Standard Theme user) for pointing me in the direction of Pixlr so I could make that snazzy header up there. I’ve been without Photoshop since I got my Mac over a year ago, and was doing limited projects using trial versions (I am a student, read: I am cheap). So there we go! Site looks different thanks to a bunch of awesome people!

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Yesterday Danielle and I did a long training walk in preparation for the Run for Diabetes on Monday. I will be completely honest and say that this was one of the hardest walks I have done, and I am hoping things go smoother on Monday. For the first two kilometers, I had some pretty bad pain in what i’m going to assume was my tibialis anterior on both the right and left shins and some of the flexors of my right foot. I’m really unsure what the deal was, and I am really hoping that it doesn’t resurface on race day. I stretched it out the best I could around the 2K mark, and it didn’t bug me too much more for the next 7K.  I obviously have some biomechanical oddities going on here with the discrepancy between my right and left legs, but it should really be nothing I haven’t adapted for by this point in my life.  Kilometres 3 through 5 were fine.

Kilometres 5-9 were brutal right up to the end, and I am hoping that there’s enough adrenaline coursing through me on Monday to have a slight beneficial effect. Once I hit 5-plus K/an hour-ish (slow? yes.) my lungs simply don’t feel okay anymore, and from kilometers 5-9 I felt like my breathing was just all screwed up [I even stopped at one point to see if that would help get things back in check]. This could be caused by a variety of things (more demand on my muscles = increased respiratory rate = increased inhalation of particulate matter in the air [aka “air crap”]; increased drying-out of the airways [obviously NOT helped by any degree of dehydration, which I was experiencing yesterday] . . . the list goes on). So, of course, I’m always trying to figure out what’s going on inside my lungs and how I can possibly mitigate it on Monday. I shot off a quick what gives! e-mail to my friend Steve, who’s a respiratory therapist who has severe asthma, and is an all around badass[matic], explaining the experience to him. Within this sentence conveys one of the many reasons this man is among my favourite people:

Hi Ms Lovely,

I think you’re having these problems because you’re an ASTHMATIC.

Damn it!

So, yeah, I just about killed myself laughing at his response. (And thanked him for the diagnosis.) He went on to say that it’s probably some degree of air-trapping caused by the prolonged exertion. [To get a better idea of what air-trapping is, take a deep breath and exhale only half of it. Inhale again on top of the air that’s stuck in your lungs. Repeat. That. Or go read Steve’s post about it.]

Anyways, so kilometers 5-9 included taking the inhaler multiple times to take the edge off of the dyspnea. It’s not preferable, and obviously I wasn’t stopping to take the Ventolin it’s not like I was giving my lungs a break to let it get in there and start working before continuing the assault. However, using the inhaler 3 times in 4 kilometers [six puffs — two of those right at the end] may have helped fend off any delayed stuff and certainly helped at least a bit during that last expanse of time on the trail.

So what am I going to do differently race day?

  • Pre-medicate with a neb treatment as opposed to 4 puffs of the inhaler. Getting the bronchodilators where they need to go is super important.
  • Somewhat prophylactically take the inhaler immediately when I start having issues breathing, not letting them escalate any. Will it help? Who knows.
  • Light warm up with some stretching pre-race time-dependent.
  • Carbs/protein, little if any fat to slow down the digestion thing. I’ve got some Gatorade Prime chews [and have fingers crossed for some free Gu!]
  • H-y-d-r-a-t-e.

The last one is important. I was definitely experiencing some dehydration during this walk, and that is obviously not performance enhancing.

And is likely the reason that the consumption of 1 litre (aka 32 ounces) of fluid followed within the next half hour at the Starbucks we ended up at, and then I didn’t feel awesome.

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Really, I couldn’t loose too much fluid in an two hours and fifteen minutes, right?

Apparently my body is not so cool with ingesting that much fluid at one time. But, I mean, it otherwise felt awesome to be drinking cold things [even after a refill in an en-route hotel bathroom, the water in the Dasani bottle was not cold. And also, screw the myth that cold water isn’t good for your body–about 12 seconds on Google with the more reputable sites will tell you otherwise.] [Also I got a wicked headache last night. Dehydration induced? Possibly. Things i only figure out in retrospect.] [Bracket ;).]

So I learned some stuff. Also I iced my legs for the first time ever [both anterior/posterior and some slight lateral], and they actually don’t hurt basically at all today, though they feel a little tired, so there is something to be said for that. Exciting. #kinwin. Etcetera.

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Finally, THANK YOU to everybody who has chosen to give generously and support the Canadian Diabetes Association through my fundraising page! I set that $200 fundraising goal feeling ambitious, and many of my amazing friends stepped up to the plate right away. Whether the contributions were simply to support my efforts or from a deep passion for the amazing work the Canadian Diabetes Association does for Canadians with diabetes, I am thankful that the money goes to support research and care of people with diabetes in Canada. The fun I’ll have at the walk is a bonus.