type 1 diabetic sportive nutrition help

They say that your blood should be between 7 and 14 before you start. Have breakfast and about half your normal insulin. So I reckon you did that ok to make sure your muesli ended up in the right place.
I always take my measuring kit and insulin on a sportive and measure half way round at a feed stop, probably put in another half dose and take it from there. It is obviously important to eat but surely no more than anyone else. I reckon you didn't eat enough. The key is to balance the need for insulin against the level of exercise. Remember whatever you are doing you need the insulin to get the glucose from your blood to where you need it and the only place you can get it is from an injection. Incidentally I am on Novorapid/Levemir.

carrock wrote:

I nibbled a few jelly babies, had a gel and a banana during the 5 hour ride, and my BS was fairly stable throughout, although my performance tailed off after the first 30 miles or so and I felt quite heavy legged.

That happens to me sometimes too and I'm not diabetic!

A couple of things that spring to mind when reading your post: as has been mentioned, it definitely sounds like you could have done with eating more. To be honest though, if you have a decent breakfast, I would not expect to take massive amounts of food on a 100k ride, but an energy bar or two would definitely help. The other thing is, depending on the QA insulin that you take, assuming that the insulin lasts somewhere between four and five hours, you would have ridden the last two(-ish) hours with only background insulin (assuming that you had taken some). This would impact you, as your muscles would have no (or very little) mechanism to get fuelled. I suffered something similar the first time I rode a 100 mile sportive. I took QA insulin with my breakfast, but did not take any during the ride - for exactly the same reasons you did - and found my legs extremely fatigued for the last thirty miles or so - much more than I would have reasonably expected.

What I tend to do now is eat something like a jam sandwich an hour or so before the start, along with a minimal amount of insulin - one unit usually - and then stop to eat something at the main (or middle) stop and take another unit of insulin. I usually nibble on an energy bar or two during the ride. This seems to be enough for me, though it is worth mentioning that I am using a pump. I have the basal rate on my pump turned down to -90% for the duration of the ride as well. I have stopped using carbohydrate drinks after a bad experience with very high BC levels and find it easier to regulate my carb intake with bars.

Whilst this process seems to work quite well for me, it has been formulated over a number of sportives over a number of years. I would suggest riding as many as you reasonably can and come up with something that suits you. As long as you take more carbohydrate sources than you will need, and do not ride on your own (until such time as you are comfortable) you will be okay. More to the point, well done for getting out there and doing it. It is always good to here other diabetics getting out there and getting on with it !

Regards,
Gordon

I did the Great Weston Ride a few weeks back which was 56 miles and the food prep started the night before with a serving of spag bol. and lots of pasta, my insulin dose with it was normal and I ate normally through the evening till supper when I had more than usual and less LA insulin. Breakfast was an hour before I left home, 1.5 before the ride started and I ate more, cereal, toast and banana, and cut the SA insulin back to 50% and no LA insulin.
I did take my blood test kit with me and tested at each of the three stops. I had malt loaf and bags of haribo plus a couple of bananas and had to buy a snickers on the way too, in my bottles I had squash with a bit of energy drink mixture and the other bottle was the same but with Lucozade.
When my BS were low 4-7 I wasn't that fast but over the last 10 miles when I had been drinking the lucozade squash I was flying. If you know the symptons your body shows when your BS is low then you can react accordingly, be wary of eating too much in the final miles as you'll end up with a high BS reading after the ride.

Interesting reading the above. I have a habit of focusing on blood glucose levels and thinking that if they look OK then I'm fine, forgetting that I actually need to take on food even if my bllod glucose is healthy. Sportives aren'ttoo bad as you can stop and test whenever you need to. I also find that with that kind of long steady endurance effort my blood glucose stay fairly constant - as long as it is within range at the start, I can pretty much keep shovelling cake / bars etc down my gullet without any massive spikes, although there's usually a kick after the finish. Racing is a lot harder - something about intense efforts forces blood glucose up, and I have found that if I take on enough food during a race my blood sugars rocket - the energy doesn't reach my muscles so I end up fatigue and hyper. I have experimented with taking an extra shot of long acting insulin (Levemir for me ) immediately before the race and then seems to help stabilise things - it just isn't viable to test / inject during a race (for me anyway) so this seems like the best solution, so long as you don't forget to eat!

BigMat wrote:

although there's usually a kick after the finish. Racing is a lot harder - something about intense efforts forces blood glucose up

sprint finishes encourage adrenalin to be released into your system and as with any stimulant will increase blood glucose without consuming carbs.