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stuggling with pasta but need to carb load for marathon

flowet

flowet

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2
Type of diabetes
Parent
Treatment type
Insulin
diagnosed type 1 a year ago, and running the london marathon next week. have been told to carb load but struggle with pasta it tends to lower my levels even though i take ths correct amount of insulin does any one else have these problems with pasta?
 
I can’t help you with the T1 issues but carb loading for exercise has been blown out of the water by the very man that recommended it, along with the gel shots he invented.

Check out the awesome and humble Tim Noakes.
 
There is a very useful book - The Diabetic Athlete's Handbook, written by a doctor who is both T1 and an athlete. I used it when I was distance rowing.

If your event will take you about 3-4 hours I wouldn't worry overmuch. Make sure you have sugary drinks or glucotabs and use them, and go for it. You should by now be running almost the full distance in training. Have you been fine then? If so, I wouldn't worry.

The only time I made special adjustments was for an ultra-marathon of 100km but my consultant took an active interest and advised me about bolus reduction and the carbs I'd need, and that I should wake up in the night after the event and eat. I chose chocolate so munched a large bar of chocolate at 2.00 a.m. and woke up in the morning with my bloods at 7.2 which was OK, if not great. I burned carbs like the clappers the next day and had to keep eating to stay level, but after that it tailed off again.

Just for a normal 26 miler though, I didn't make any adjustments except to have glucotabs on hand, and to stay hydrated.

ETA I miss those days but not enough to make me start again!
 
Watch carefully to see if your ratios change. Mine did when I was rowing. I needed less insulin than I do now for the same foods.
 
WuTwo said:
and advised me about bolus reduction and the carbs I'd need, and that I should wake up in the night after the event and eat.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that sounds like really good advice. I'm a lot lazier now I'm in my fifties, but was fairly active in my younger years, ski-ing, sailing, cycling. It's amazing how much glut4 in muscles takes care of glucose uptake into cells even long after exercise, that whole "after-drop" thing.
 
I don't understand the science for carb-loading unless done shortly before a marathon to make glucose readily available and perhaps giving you high blood sugar. I would have thought storing body fat and training the body to burn it was the beet approach? I can't comment on the pasta issue.
 
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