Coast to Coast… Day 3

I awoke on Wednesday morning with the same feeling you get the morning after something terrible has happened – that split second moment of consciousness where your brain acknowledges what’s happened, and you feel confusion and disbelief. That’s how I felt, waking up in a warm, dry, safe place on Wednesday morning.  As I slowly …

The Coast to Coast…Day 2

Day 2 was the day I’d been dreading. It was the longest day of the week and the one with the highest elevation. When I’d originally plotted out the coast to coast route, I’d tried to divide the days as evenly as possible in miles. Because of accommodation issues, I ended up having a shorter …

The Coast to Coast: Prologue & Day 1

Prologue The UK holds hundreds of Ultra events each year. The concept of them, I used to think, was baffling. But then, despite completing (and hating) the marathon distance, I still wanted more (runners are a weird breed). It just seems to be how this whole running thing works: you somehow relish the pain. When …

Marathon Training and an unexpected complication

Last week, I began training for the London Marathon. It started with a run and ended in A&E. Marathon training with type 1 diabetes makes a difficult task not only more challenging, but potentially life threatening.  So let’s talk about what happened.. and a rare complication called EDKA (Euglycemic Diabetic Ketoacidosis). Background: I’m a massive fan …

Alcohol and type 1 diabetes

Can you drink if you have type 1 diabetes? Yes! But if you choose to, it’s critically important that you take certain measures to ensure your safety. The combination of alcohol and diabetes is like boats and icebergs - it's possible to coexist but one wrong move and the results could be fatal. So here are a …

Failing exams and diagnosed with dyslexia… at 28 and during my second degree!

Aged 3, I had speech therapy because my words came out as gobbledegook. When I began to write, I would transcribe entire words backwards, and write my ticks back to front. I might've even convinced you that my name was 'nismaT'. When I would speak, I would mix up what I thought I’d heard. I would …

Week 2

So this weeks’ training took a bit of a nose dive. If you saw my second Vlog (in Week 1) you’ll have seen how much of a struggle Day 6 was… to the point where I was limping and had to catch the train home from work rather than run. Well, while the limp subsided …

Week 1

Here’s a summary of Week 1 of Marathon Training. Vlogs of the week are at the bottom of the page. I’ve included my cycle commute to show any extra activity I’m doing on top of it, and also my total basal insulin (NovoRapid - Medtronic 640g pump) for the day just to show how it …

How sprinting can treat a hypo

More often than not, I treat a hypo during my long runs by including a series of 10 second sprints into my run - usually 4 with short rests in between. Of course, I ALWAYS carry some form of glucose when I run and this is always the recommended treatment of a hypo. In addition, …

The Funk

I built myself up for a cry today. I’ve been in a bit of a funk for a couple of days. I was all systems go throughout the exam season – and I actually managed to look after myself more so than the last - both physically and mentally. But the final two days were …