The argument goes back and forth in my head about whether or not I would consider myself an Athlete. I know Team Wild would argue that I am. I guess it’s true. My definition of athlete though is different. Sadly I have been brainwashed to consider an athlete to be one of those famous people who actually make money for the skills they have or talents they exercise. I just muddle. Yes, I run. Yes, I try to go to the gym. Yes, I cycle. Yes, I play ultimate frisbee. Yes, I “play” basketball (though there are some questions about if what I call playing is that.) I am active, I do things. Yet athlete??? I guess I am. Maybe just not a very good one, yet I am a recovering couch potato of many years so it does take time to get that mindset out of my mind.

Last weekend I played in an all night Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. WHICH WAS AWESOME. I readily admit, I personally am stupid and need to plan my life out better, but that’s a later story. Playing Frisbee always confuses me blood sugarwise, because it falls into the category of anaerobic exercise, which is intense exercise with rest in the middle. I mean running you start and kinda don’t stop. This you play on again and off again. It’s erratic and at least tournament style there is more rest involved than one would normally face.

Daytime I would not have been so worried about my sugars, but at this tournament it started at 10:00 PM and lasted until about 6:00 AM. I had already been up since 7:00 that morning and would not be resting until 1:30 or so Sunday afternoon, so I was really worried about my sugars and what the heck I was gonna do. So I reached out to my fellow athlete and amazing ball player Scott K. Johnson. (It feels like you need to include the K. in his name when you write it down, else it is just not right and boring.) Anyway, I asked Scott how he would handle his basals for something like this. Seeking advice that I might follow. Anyway, apparently twitter does not like the word basal and corrected to nasal. This led to an interesting conversation with my “sister” and breathing through both nostrils.

Scott finally weighed in on the topic and told me I should maybe consider cutting my basals to 50% efficiency and hope for the best. But to TEST and to do it OFTEN. Good advice. So I thought about this and tried to see how things would pan out. I know when I normally play frisbee normally after a game I need to bolus as I spike upwards really fast. So I couldn’t really sort out what I should be doing. Each game would go for a half hour, but I would be subbing in regularly and would be inactive longer than I normally was. So praying to the glucose Gods to be kind to me I decided that Scott’s course of action for ball, which had more intensity and ongoing activity would probably not be as necessary for me and kept things pretty spot on to what I was already planning on doing.

At the end of the day I couldn’t really complain. My numbers were within my normal parameters for most of the night. The one spike you do see around midnight was from my visit to the ER. I wasn’t injured or passed out or anything. My friend Jess in our first game did something to her ankle and after waiting to see if the swelling went down, I took her to the ER. I didn’t have to, but I knew the area and well I figured I would be the best person and least missed person on my team. So I was paying more attention to Jess that I forgot to correct after the first series of games.

The graph for the rest of the day was pretty cool. I made it through my 8, 10, and 12 masses. I happily passed out after that for a 2.5 hour nap before getting up and having meetings. I was tired and the reward was well worth it. How’d my team do? Did we medal at the tournament? I can proudly say we didn’t lose all of our games. Just most of them. I wasn’t in to win, I was in to have fun.

This is a story and not advice though. We all know our diabetes and what happens when we exercise. My experiences are mine, not yours. In no way am I telling you to do my methods. My ways work for me. Yours work for you.