• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Should you follow advice from T1 runners?

N

nickm

Well-Known Member
Messages
123
Type of diabetes
Type 1
I recently had cause to review the long-term outcomes of runners featured in my ~10 year old copy of Diabetic Athlete’s Handbook. Searching online, I found almost none of them maintaining performance 5 or 10 years down the track, even after allowing for their increase in age. Many had declined substantially.
Don’t just accept my informal review. Do your own analysis of T1s who were lauded years ago for what they did when young, from a variety of sources, and look at their decline with age.
Sporting performance in the young is strongly influenced by genetics and not necessarily an indicator of diabetic knowledge.
If you want the ability to be active when you retire, it makes more sense to look at as many older active T1s as you can find and study their strategies.
 
Can you elaborate?
When you refer to “maintaining their performance”, do you mean their running performance or do you mean diabetes control?
If the former, have you compared this with runners without diabetes? Is that what you mean by taking age into consideration?
Has the advice changed in the last 10 years? If so, would you follow the advice from runners with diabetes today from sources such as runsweet or would you still consider this only looking at more mature runners?
Sorry for all the questions: your post has piqued my interest.
 
Over 20 years ago my consultant, in Reading, lauded the achievements of an elite athlete rower with diabetes as a role model. At the time the magazine 'Balance' promoted role models, such as elite athletes, ignoring the plight of diabetics who had complications. The subliminal message was that those with complications were the cause of their own destiny. The reality is that the cause of many complications is unknown.

For me the opening poster is putting forward a sensible approach to managing diabetes and balancing it with life; don't just look at the attributes of an elite set of athletes, their diabetic management performance declines and being extremely fit may not be a good indicator of avoiding complications in the future. Instead, look at the attributes of long term diabetics and put more weight on how they have balanced diabetes and real life, avoiding complications. Learning from, and understanding their approach to diabetes and life management, will reap more reward.

I stopped subscribing to 'Balance' and have even forgotten the name of the charity who published it. The incessant 'superiority complex' overwhelmed me and I wanted to know more about balancing my life. Thankfully sites, such as this site, Diabetes UK, give a realistic reflection and insight into how best I can balance my life.
 
Last edited:
Stephen_T said:
Over 20 years ago my consultant, in Reading, lauded the achievements of an elite athlete rower with diabetes as a role model. At the time the magazine 'Balance' promoted role models, such as elite athletes, ignoring the plight of diabetics who had complications. The subliminal message was that those with complications were the cause of their own destiny. The reality is that the cause of many complications is unknown.

For me the opening poster is putting forward a sensible approach to managing diabetes and balancing it with life; don't just look at the attributes of an elite set of athletes, their diabetic management performance declines and being extremely fit may not be a good indicator of avoiding complications in the future. Instead, look at the attributes of long term diabetics and put more weight on how they have balanced diabetes and real life, avoiding complications. Learning from, and understanding their approach to diabetes and life management, will reap more reward.

I stopped subscribing to 'Balance' and have even forgotten the name of the charity who published it. The incessant 'superiority complex' overwhelmed me and I wanted to know more about balancing my life. Thankfully sites, such as Diabetes UK, give a realistic reflection and insight into how best I can balance my life.
Click to expand...

If you mean that Diabetes UK (as in the charity, as opposed to this website), then it is they who publish Balance magazine - unless there are mor than one such publications.

I'm not making any value judgements of anything, just trying to clarify.
 
Interesting.............When I was first diagnosed, back in 1976, I was given a copy of Balance, and it was full of horror stories, so I never read it again. I also have a bit of a negative attitude towards that charity. I was 18 at that time.

I think @Stephen_T makes an important point, that holding up role models who do things most of us can't, isn't very useful.

Fortunately, because of my long term boycott of that publication I missed that stage of their development. But I do sometimes have people mention Theresa May, as someone who copes really well with Type 1 Diabetes, and that really annoys me, she really hasn't had it that long.

Anyway, I think people have to do what's right for them, I tried jogging very briefly a few years ago, but my knees didn't like it, and I decided to prioritise their needs. But I do walk a lot, and I am a ten a day fruit and veg person, because I consider Type 1 diabetes to be an attack on my metabolism, so I give my bodies bio-chemical system as much assistance as possible. Also, I love fruit, so I eat a lot of it.

Other than that, we should try to do things we enjoy, if people enjoy running great, but for those who don't there are lots of other ways to keep active. Having a dance to a northern soul cd from a charity shop is, in my view, more fun than running.
 
I think I made a couple of paper planes to annoy a nurse with with the copy of 'balance' I was given to read at a clinic appointment delayed a couple of hours in my youth, the British Diabetic Association they were called back then.

As far as to the OP, Garry Mabbutt ( spuds & England) needed surgery to save a leg in later life due to T1,
 
Alison54321 said:
Other than that, we should try to do things we enjoy, if people enjoy running great, but for those who don't there are lots of other ways to keep active. Having a dance to a northern soul cd from a charity shop is, in my view, more fun than running.
Click to expand...

A bit of Dobie Gray & Kicks out on your kitchen floor perhaps? :p
 
Done 2 marathons as a T1 but it did not make me heroic or even fitter over the long term. I like exercise and do it for my job but always tell people that eating right is way for important and moving naturally in your daily life is better than driving to the gym twice a week..... Celebs on the cover of Balance etc. get the same good/bad advice as the rest of us and we should all be routinely cynical about that advice. Re Balance, as a teenage diabetic I was rather uninspired by seeing Harry Secombe on the front cover or Colin Dexter (creator of Morse) rotating with Gary Mabbutt of course.
 
Back
Top