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Half marathon training

R

rookayj

Member
Messages
9
Hi,

I’m currently training for a half marathon, but have started struggling with managing my blood sugar whilst out running.

Does anyone have any recommendations for what they’ve used whilst running? So far I’ve tried glucose tablets (difficult to chew whilst running and trying to breath), gluco gel (didn’t work as fast as I had hoped) and carrying a bottle of Lucozade, which is my favourite option for now but won’t last a whole half marathon and I don’t think I can manage carrying two bottles.

Thanks
 
Before I migrated to a pump, I always drank weak fruit squash when exercising. I drank this in the same way as I would drink water and it kept me going all the time. My focus was to maintain my levels rather than treating them when they went low.
Instead of putting it in a bottle, you could use something like a camelback if you want to carry around more. The water/squash sloshes around but the pack can be pulled tight so this is no more than an annoying sound. Or, if the organisers are providing water along the route, you could carry one of those small Robinsons' Squash'D thingies in your pocket that you can squirt into the water you pick up.

Good luck with your training and race.
 

Thanks for that, I was thinking about trying a camelback but thought the noise might make me want to go to the toilet! I have managed one long run where I seemed to do a good job of maintaining a good level, but have had hypos on every one since
 
I would suggest a combination of both fast release and slow release carbs. Have both flapjacks and lucozade on the go. You can adjust your time expectations by a minute, to stop and intake the flapjack. This will slow release, whilst you maintain the rest of the run with fast release lucozade
 

Sounds good to me, thanks
 
I personally fill a squishy bottle such as the Osprey Hydraulics 500ml SoftFlask with High5 sportsdrikk and hold it in my hand while running 5 km. 2 such bottles and 2 hands for 10 km. No sloshing. Can be stashed away when empty.
 
Another important detail: Since July I managed to connect my Abbot Libre 3 CGM to my Garmin Forerunner 955 so that I get my blood glucose on my watch. I can then fine tune my blood glucose by drinking High 5 sports drink. Last time I did this on my Triathlon Sprint on Sunday. My watch had missed the connection to xDrip on the bike ride, and my glucose was lower at the start of the run. But I kept it up by drinking 500 ml on the first half of the 5 km run.
 
marty313 said:
I personally fill a squishy bottle such as the Osprey Hydraulics 500ml SoftFlask with High5 sportsdrikk and hold it in my hand while running 5 km. 2 such bottles and 2 hands for 10 km. No sloshing. Can be stashed away when empty.
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Today I ran my first half marathon during my training. My plan was to run 10 k but then my form was good after 2 recovery weeks after my last triathlon for the season, so I made it a half marathon. Since I was in the US (Maryland) I had no mobile data, so no glucose on my Garmin Forerunner 955. Thanks Abbot for having such excellent Android software for my Libre 3 CGM! It turned out that my glucose was extremely high during the entire run - I only drank 500 ml water during the entire run.
 
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First of all well done

Why didn't you get CGM data, the connection should be between the watch and the phone, so that ought to log into the fit file, or am I missing something?

Interesting your comment about water, I've found I don't drink nearly as much as one is told one must drink per hour for long rides (unless it's particularly hot). Perhaps I should drink more, who knows!
 
The Abbot Libre 3 software is so stupid that is does not connect to xDrip on my phone. I need an Abbot LibreLinkup app login on the internet so that xDrip can pull out the data. I did not have a mobile data plan in the US, so no CGM data on my watch.
 
Ah, I see, and sorry for the long pause before responding, busy at work and I've not had a chance to check in on the forum.
 
marty313 said:
The Abbot Libre 3 software is so stupid that is does not connect to xDrip on my phone. I need an Abbot LibreLinkup app login on the internet so that xDrip can pull out the data. I did not have a mobile data plan in the US, so no CGM data on my watch.
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I am now in my third triathlon season. Last week there was so much hype around the new Samsung Galaxy 7 watches that I checked options once more.
The Abbot software is hopeless as usual. No home screen widget that show you your glucose without having to log on the phone and open the app. No decent way of syncing the data. First uploading them to and Abbot server and then downloading them though an Abbot Link account is ludicrous. It does not work on intercontinental flights when Bluetooth is all you've got, and you need a data plan on international travel. And the connection drops out with 20 % probability on starting a workout - this problem is especially bad when changing sports as you do in triathlon: You may have glucose directly before and after your swim, but not on your bike. I tried to get in touch with the Abbot developers, but I never managed. I have concluded that they just don't care! There were more keen on making money with Libre2/Sapiens. (For comparison: Novo Nordisk is different. They never changed their products because of my input, but at least they listen and respond.)

On Friday, I hit upon Juggluco - this software is fabulous. It was able to connect to my Abbot Libre 3 sensor (that I had started with the Abbot Libre 3 Androit app 10 days before) and it has all features of xDrip and then some: A food database. And: lots of interfaces for sending the data to other devices incl. smartwatches. I set up a local Nightscout server on my mobile phone, and now it broadcasts real-time glucose directly to my Garmin Forerunner 955 (transflective color touchscreen), 945 (no touchscreen) and Instinct 2 (simple LCD - not recommmended as only the glucose data fields will work, no watch faces). I will need to observe some more, in particular how the system behaves with new sensors. The system was however somewhat finicky to set up. If there is interest in this forum, I can post what I found out.
 
I guess that means it works well with the Samsung Watch - there are some comments about slow updates and some watches don't work as collectors afaiu? Are you using it as a collector or just for display? There's more info and discussion here fwiw: https://github.com/j-kaltes/Juggluco/discussions

I also use Juggluco though alongside XDrip+ as I prefer the display and alerts XDrip+ provides - I'm interested to hear that there's a Food database, is this part of Juggluco these days? I'll have to have a dig around (I usually completely ignore the app except for initial pairing as I don't like the screen orientation.)

Glad you've found a useful combination, as ever it's a real shame that the manufacturers' apps don't share the data directly for use in other apps running on a user's phone (i.e. without the link to the "cloud" as you mention), this would remove the need to for reverse engineering/hacking and provide more opportunities for people to develop apps that use the data without the burden of needing to obtain it.
 
rookayj said:
Thanks for that, I was thinking about trying a camelback but thought the noise might make me want to go to the toilet! I have managed one long run where I seemed to do a good job of maintaining a good level, but have had hypos on every one since
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Are you on a pump, as I am training for a marathon and switch this off and hour before and whilst running which seems to maintain my levels at the moment but haven’t ran further than 15k yet.

I got recommended the glucose jelly sweets that you can suck, not tried them yet so don’t know what they are like.
 
Hi,

I use energy drink and gels when I run half marathon and in training. I use TORQ powder and gels, the powder is put into water to make drink which I drink during walk sessions and the gels I normally take one an hour roughly. They take about 15 mins to have effect. I use run/walk for that distance
 
Dear Simon,
I use my watch just as a secondary display attached to my mobile. Pairing a sensor to a smartwatch is of course the holy grail of CGM, but I'd rather bet on reliabilty. I have my mobile with me at all times anyway. (I use a buoy when I swim in open water.)
I agree that xDrip+ is at the first glance much more appealing than Juggluco. The Jugglugo interface is a bit ideosyncratic. BUT: It reads out my Abbot 3 sensor, it displays my data just as xDrip+ (if only in landscape mode) AND it has the food database. Now I can log my carbo hydrates. My blood glucose has been more challenging to handle in the last year or two: Sometimes meal takes long to absorb. Sometimes my exercise interferes. I try to make my management more systematic: I inject about 80 % of the insulin that I think that I am going to need, because sometimes even this conservative dose will pull down my glucose to about 5 mmol/l. Then I wait for the effect and look at the curve and inject a 2nd bolus some 1.5 - 3 h after my meal aiming for a preprandial glucose between 5 and 8. In order to guesstimate the appropropriate insulin dose I need to record the g carbohydrate in my meals. The food database is tremendously useful. It is exhaustive. You pick your favourite foods and they will be rememebered in a short list. Very effective.
I now tested the system for 6 days. I needed to change my sensor on Monday. I started it with the Abbot 3 app just to be on the safe side (the Abbot protocols are very propriety and you might fry a sensor if things go wrong. When it was online 60 min later, I then paired my new sensor with Juggluco - no problems at all. The sensor can only talk to one app at a time! My watch never once dropped the connection to my mobile when I was excercising, and battery life of my mobile has increased noticably. Using the cludgy cloudbased solution with Libre3 and xDrip my battery was often drained late in the afternoon even after a nightly charge. This left me in a number of stick situations when I was travelling.
I assume that there exist apps/watchfaches for Samsung Galaxy that will display glucose from a local NightWatch server, but I mislaid my Galaxy Watch 4 and could not test it. Juggluco even calculates Hb1a. The only bonus offered by xDrip + is glucose prediction and VERY powerful alarms (like alarms based on different glucose thresholds, even hyperglucemia duration, and a very handy snooze function with variable time periods).
 
A word of warning: I have chronic gingivitis: When I use an energy gel I get toothache at a level of 8/10 for 24 h. Energry drinks like High 5 are ok, though.
 
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