10K - Help with basal

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ch1ps

ch1ps

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Type 1
Hi everyone,

I'm doing a 10k assault course in September. A few of the obstacles will involve being submerged in water. I am using a medtronic paradigm. I'm thinking I will have to come off the pump whilst on the course. I'm hoping to complete in around 90 mins maybe 2 hours, depends on the crowd, plus the others in our team.

If I come off the pump for say 3 hours (pre-race etc), should I do a basal injection? I have levemir in the fridge. If yes, should I take enough to cover 3 hours. I want to have some basal going through and not entirely sure how to tackle this.

Just wondering if any other pumpers had done anything like this and what they did.

Thanks
Pauline
 
Hi Pauline, good to hear from you 🙂 That sounds like quite a challenge! 😱 I'm afraid I'm zero help with your question, as I don't pump and I don't actually use basal insulin any more. What do you plan to do about eating and a meal bolus prior to the event? I know I am different, but when doing a long run I try to make sure that I eat/bolus around 90 minutes before the event so I have both food digesting and bolus insulin circulating. If you are doing something like this then I would not think that having any levemir would be necessary, and I would suspect that it would mess up your readings for several hours afterwards because you would have to estimate when to restart your basal after the levemir had run its course - which could be up to 12-14 hours. It would probably be a good idea to do a trial run - not the assault course, but a training run without the basal perhaps, so you can gauge what might be best 🙂
 
Thanks Northerner

I'm starting training at the moment, so have time to "practice" your bolus suggestion. I'm not exactly sure of the race time yet, but it will be in the morning and I will have breakfast.

Take on your point that if I do have to take levimir, it will be in my system for a while. I'm seeing my DSN in a few weeks, so can also ask for advice there as well.

So much to think about!
 
ch1ps said:
Hi everyone,

I'm doing a 10k assault course in September. A few of the obstacles will involve being submerged in water. I am using a medtronic paradigm. I'm thinking I will have to come off the pump whilst on the course. I'm hoping to complete in around 90 mins maybe 2 hours, depends on the crowd, plus the others in our team.

If I come off the pump for say 3 hours (pre-race etc), should I do a basal injection? I have levemir in the fridge. If yes, should I take enough to cover 3 hours. I want to have some basal going through and not entirely sure how to tackle this.

Just wondering if any other pumpers had done anything like this and what they did.

Thanks
Pauline
Click to expand...
If I were you I would do a few trials. Disconnect for a while & go for a run while testing at every opportunity ! Really good luck 🙂
 
Thanks Hobie

Haven't had the guts to run sans pump yet. Went out for a run yesterday was 11.8, also had a banana pre-run and went 60% basal. Got back home and was 6.5. Once I have got a bit more stamina, I think I will try running without the pump to see how things go.
 
I used to do a lot of Windy boarding Catamaran & Jetski days (all day). Have been around the Bass Rock on ski & British National champ on catamaran. No pump in them days but carbs available ? Using that much energy did not worry about insulin 😱. As you know there are not any perfect answer. Sounds good what you are doing 😎
 
Well.... I don't think you could do levemir basal for that short an amount of time. If you are concerned that you will be too long without pump basal you could try a mini bolus just before you start?

Having said that... the MM640G will allow 'smartguard' to act for up to 2 hours (so that is 2 hours of zero basal) so you might find with cautious experimentation that 0% for 90 minuts with lots of activity is actually just the ticket! As long as you have *some* circulating insulin my understanding is that your body should still be able to process carbs etc and with the activity your insulin sensitivity should be way up. If I was doing it and it was going on for longer than 4 hrs I'd be more concerned... but if you can remove pump closer to your start time I wonder whether actually it will work out well?

I user to discsconnect entirely at the gym for 30mins (45 with showering afterwards) and I still needed a 80% TBR for 30 mins before going to keep the hypos down.

Try a few experiments with disconnected pump and 45-60 minute runs and see how you get on?
 
Have a look at www.runsweet.com for details of exercise types, insulin responses, case studies of various activities etc.
I can't give personal advice, as precisely because of drawbacks of insulin pumps in mud, water etc, I have stuck with pens for orienteering, mountain marathons etc, plus my HbA1c is adequate, so I couldn't get an insulin pump on NHS, even if I wanted one.
Good luck with your challenge.
 
Thanks Everydayupsanddowns and Copepod

I've got a 554 so don't think I have smart guard. Anyway, the run is on Clapham Common. My other half will be there. We have decided to meet up at a given point on the course for a quick test and top up if needed. I'm also running with my sister who's on MDI. So think a stop off during the race will have to happen anyway.
 
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