At long last!

I did it! It has taken me more than a handful of tries, but today I succeeded in completing my swimming session without going low :-) If I had had the time, I would have been able to reach my goal of 30 laps, but one of the ph.d-students of our group was to defend her thesis at 1:15 PM, and if I was to catch some lunch before the talk, I had to stop swimming by 12:30 PM.

I started swimming on Friday noons about a month ago, as we are able to use the university’s swimming facilities for free at these times, and I thought it would be a nice supplement to just biking to and from work and only playing soccer once a week during the winter. I can’t say that I am happy about the time of our free swimming sessions. The choices are Monday-Friday mornings 7:00 - 8:00 AM or Friday 12:00 – 1:00 PM. I am not much of a morning person, least of all during the darkness of winter, and as I have got a 9 km bike ride to get to the university, the morning hours are so out of question for me. The noon time on Fridays is not ideal either, because it is usually during that hour that I will have lunch, but I am stubborn so I wanted to make that work anyway. Until today, however, my swimming sessions (usually 30-35 min, 22-26 laps of 40 m) have always caused me to go low. On the last few lanes my movements are hardly coordinated, my muscles feel heavy, and I have to give in to that stupid low. My approach so far has been to eat a small snack, accompanied by a small bolus, about an hour before going into the water. I used the same approach for soccer practise in the spring where I would also disconnect during the session, so I figured that it would also work for swimming. Apparently it did not though and I have been quite annoyed with that fact.

Today I had a low of 2.9 (52) at 9:15 AM. I treated it with ½ slice of rye bread and didn’t bolus but 0.3 U for it at 10:00. At 11:00 I had another ½ slice of rye bread and some veggies for a pre-swim snack (I have used fruit or müslibars for this beforehand). I bolused 1.3 U for this to cover for some of the carbs as well as the upcoming time off the pump. I tested at 11:45 AM before heading towards the swimming facilities: 10.5 (189). A little higher than I would like before disconnecting for 45-60 min, so I added an additional 1 U.

Due to my limited amount of time today I swam 26 laps in 35 min before having to stop if I was to attend the ph.d-talk. After showering and getting dressed, at 12:45 I tested: 5.9 (106)! When I got back to the office and P asked me how my swimming went today, I couldn’t help raising my arms in sign of victory. “Are you low?”, she asked, and I was happy to announce that for once I wasn’t. I had completed my swimming session in save range. Great! Heidi 1 – diabetes 0 :-) At least for now……;-)