Today in Diabetes Blog Week is snapshot day. Last year I had a lot of fun with this when I was in DC. This year, I’m being a little more traditional.

Friends, I have been having the worst period of prolonged high blood glucose that I can remember. All the “rules” are wrong; nothing is working the way it should. Basal rate, bolus ratios, the effects of exercise—they’re all messed up. There could be any number of reasons: ineffective infusion set locations, lower training volume or intensity than before, no longer being overtrained and in glycogen debt, different eating choices, bad insulin, etc. Who knows? The result is that last night my 7-day average of all readings was 199 mg/dL (11 mmol/L). I don’t think it’s been this high since I was discharged from the hospital when I was diagnosed.

I’m working on figuring everything out again, almost from scratch. These snapshots are all from today, which was full of a lot of things that lowered (and occasionally raised) my blood sugar.

(You can click on any picture for a larger version.)

Today started with a interval workout on the track that actually raised my blood sugar. I’ve been using a foam roller to help keep my IT band in check, since it’s starting to feel a little injured.

After my run, a little stretching and the foam roller.

This is how Kitty spends the majority of his day.

Since I was still high, I decided to bolus and mow the lawn. I was wearing my heart rate monitor from my run, and I checked in from time to time. 120 BPM to mow the lawn. Ha!

After my run, it was time to mow the lawn.

Our irises are going gangbusters this year.

After lunch: housecleaning. It always lowers me a bit (supposing I bolused enough for lunch).

The carpets needed a good hoovering.

After vacuuming, it's time to clean the dining room.

Usually the vacuum cleaner makes him run for the hills.

Meanwhile, Lisa was doing battle with the shrubbery.

Lisa needed a tall person.

Different piece of furniture, same result.

Time to take the clippings to the transfer station

It was a warm day. That calls for ice cream before doing more housework! (Of course, we’ve also been known to go to the ice cream shop during a snowstorm.)

A Treat after all that yardwork

The office needs a good going through.

Lots of bike riding recently

I’ve been jonesing for a long bike ride for quite a while. Tomorrow is the day. We’ll see if that can’t knock these highs down a bit.

Tomorrow, I'm going for a little ride. Maybe that will help.

On the left is my new, super-nice pair. I really like the Boa closure, and they’re so light! The other pair are my tri shoes; the big velcro strap stays open and the loop at the heel makes these shoes very, very easy to get into and out of. (It also looks like they could use a bit of cleaning. :-/ )

What do you wear?

It’s been a busy year.

This morning I competed in the same race, the NE Season Opener in Hopkinton. What a difference a year makes!

Last year I did the 1/4-ish mile of swimming, 10 miles of cycling, and 5K of running in 1:16:34, good enough for 171st of 366. This year: 1:08:57, or 131/438.

As a “newbie” registrant in 2011, we had our own special start time and apologized for bumping into each other during the craziness that was my first open-water swim. This year, in the biggest starting wave, it was all fists and kicks for the first 30 seconds until we got ourselves sorted out. (Next time: start farther out.) I found some feet to draft off through the 58ºF water, did a great job sighting with my optically-corrected goggles, and was surprised at how fast it was over. In fact, it wasn’t until I was about halfway through that I realized my form kinda sucked and that I needed to remember what I usually do in the pool. “Ah right! Less flailing more pulling.” Still, I was almost three minutes faster this year.

Ah, the bike! After a relatively fast transition, I hopped on Speed Junkie (my Cervélo P2) for my first race on it. I must confess that I was nervous in the days leading up to the race. How would I do around other people? Would I be able to spend most of the time in the aero position? Would I be as fast on the bike as I had hoped, or would it be an expensive ride? Could I hold on over the bumpy roads? Would I have trouble with the tight turns? Would I crash? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Let’s remember that last year during my two triathlons as a newbie, I did all of the passing on the bike (and almost all of it during the run, too). I wasn’t expecting that this year, since I was starting among faster people, and there were fewer people starting ahead of me. I’m sure I would pass people, and I’m sure others would return the favor.

Turns out, I’m fast on a bike. And the roads were very well controlled. There was very little traffic, and I was able to ride where I wanted on the road. I spent 85-90% of the ride in aero, worked hard, and only got passed by a half-dozen people, including one woman from BU with longer hair than anyone I’d ever seen on a bike and two of my Landry’s teammates. (That reminds me: must get a Landry’s tri-top so that I can represent . . . unless/until TT1 wants me to wear their colors.) I caught one of the Landry guys when an ambulance was attending to him along the side of the road near a rather rough patch of road. Poor guy.

All things considered, I did very well over the whole course. Small, wiry guys like me do well on hills, and I’m getting better at riding this little bike over open ground. (Almost 5 mph better.) I like passing people.

Finally, the run. I was feeling good today, but I was trying to be smart. I’ve had some IT band pain recently—which I’m watching closely—and over the last few days my right arch started getting cranky, too. Stretching, ice, the foam-roller on my hip and thigh, and self-massage for my foot should (hopefully) do the trick. I’m happy that this coming week is an easy one in my training plan.

So I decided to run hard but hold back a little, try to hold a good pace throughout the whole run, and not feel (too) bad about being passed. It was what it was, which was consistent but just okay . . . the only part of the event (including transitions) that was slower than last year, actually. Strangely, I’m okay with this. I had enough at the end for a nice finishing sprint.

My diabetes strategy most certainly did not work out well. Not well at all. In fact, I’m mystified by how bad it was. Diabetes is what it is, but I was hoping for something better.

In a perfect world, I would eat some breakfast before leaving the house, take some insulin for it, adjust my insulin before the start, and then take nutrition during the event (almost) like I didn’t have diabetes. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much insulin to take before a triathlon—because Insulin + water = scary—so I don’t really eat much, except a Greek yoghurt right beforehand. I don’t even usually need to eat before I swim at 5:45 in the morning, but when starting at 9:15, it seems completely different. It was also different than my normal multi-hour rides and long runs.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline from the anticipation of the event. Perhaps there’s something going on with my basal rate. Perhaps it was just sun spots. Who knows? What I do know is that I need to make it better. And I will.

At any rate, I had to take about a half-unit of insulin before the swim, and I didn’t come down much when I was in the water. Or during the ride. Or the run. Fortunately, I didn’t have much of that high BG pain in my legs that I sometimes get, but I could tell that I was high throughout the run. Next time will be better, I hope.

So, all things considered, it was a major confidence booster with some great experiences and a few obvious things to improve. Onward!

Oh, and Lisa took a bunch of amazing pictures.

Times and bikes change, but in essentials everything stays the same. (Photo of Scully by Becky Furuta)

“Well, I think I have some slides here.”

“What are slides?”

Inspired by Scully’s cycling photos from Texas on Facebook, I went back and found some of my pictures from the 1990 Casper Classic stage race. Enjoy!

I’ve been making the half-hour walk from my office to Natick Centre to watch the marathon every year since 1998 (except 2009, when I was hiking in Utah). It’s a wonderful workday diversion during a usually beautiful time of year in New England. The blue skies, new-green leaves, flowering trees, and warming temperatures all remind me that the last thing I typically want to be during spring is inside. And the marathon is a perfect excuse to get outside for a few hours.

I love watching all of the athletes, and I like showing up early to find an unobstructed spot and to be inspired by the push-rim wheelchair, handcycle, and mobility impaired athletes who start before the main field. By the time the elite athletes come through, I’ve remembered what I need to do to photograph runners and am really into the spirit of the day. Frequently I stick around to see someone I know run through before I feel the guilt of being away finally drag me back to the office.

One of the great things about the Boston Marathon is that it’s more than a sporting event. It’s one of the main social occasions of the year. It seems to have the same atmosphere as the great one-day cycling events, like Paris-Roubaix, that I love to watch on TV. It draws so many spectators, not just neighbors coming out of their homes along the course. And the route is totally lined from at least the 10th mile (where I watch it) all the way in to Copley Square.

Often I go with my coworkers, but for some reason I was by myself this year. So I found an open spot, between a family with small children and a couple of twenty-something young women. I was prepared to mind my own business for a couple hours and just immerse myself in what was happening on the course, but the two women were talking about running and asking each other questions that I knew the answer to and generally doing their best to crack me up with their banter. Eventually they asked an important question they couldn’t answer by themselves—when would the elite women and men go through?—and we casually got into a conversation. (It probably helped that I asked them whether they were students. I meant grad students, but they seemed to think that was just the nicest thing ever. I’m really not a flirt. Honest.)

The only “awkward” moment came while I was waiting for Team Type 1 runner Marcus Grimm, whom I gave a hearty cheer when he arrived around 11:30. As I looked at the runners streaming by to see if they were wearing a TT1 singlet or had a name that I could shout out for encouragement, I saw a familiar name: my name.

Me: “Hey, I bet that woman’s last name is ‘Mather.’ That’s mine, too!”

Nice woman, probably joking: “You should totally run with her for a while.”

Me: “I could say, ‘Hey there. I saw that you had my last name written on your bare midriff. So I thought I’d just jump in here and say hi and run with you.’”

Woman: “I guess that might be awkward.”

Me: “Definitely.”

Sadly I have no pictures of anyone mentioned in this post—the lawyer, her friend getting an M.Ed., Marcus, the running Ms. Mather, or myself—but here are a bunch of photographs of the rest of the action.

I’ll write more about the trip itself soon.

sigh

Anyway, here’s a few pictures and some updates . . . bullet-point style!

• Last Saturday Lisa and I went to New York for the day to visit a few galleries. The “Calder 1941″ exhibit at Pace’s 57th gallery was amazing! And Nan Goldin’s “Scopophilia” show at Matthew Marks is worth a trip to Chelsea. Our day-trip occurred 52 weeks after the trip where we met Kim, Gina, Caroline, and Allison. Time flies!
• Sunday we traveled into Cambridge to see “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” Lisa had been looking forward to it for months, and it didn’t disappoint. It was our second trip into Cambridge in as many weeks. The previous weekend we attended an alumni event there, and I got a shout-out from the new president of the college. Evidently, we engineers from liberal arts schools are rare beasts.
• I haven’t gone for a run since last Thursday, when I tested the waters with an easy three-mile treadmill workout. The next day my foot was a little cranky again, so I’m taking some more time off running. I’m still riding and swimming, but I miss my long runs and my speedwork sessions.
• Speaking of swimming, I got a bit depressed Monday and yesterday when I realized that the “really good” triathletes in my races cover the same distance in half the time it takes me. So I talked to my sports psychologist (Lisa) who helped me with some perspective: I’m not a super-fast swimmer—as long as Dara is at the pool, I’ll never be the fastest—but I shouldn’t worry so much as long as I’m still making progress. If I put too much pressure on myself, then I won’t have any fun. And, even though it’s really hard for me to seek assistance, I need to ask some of my of peeps and/or a coach to look at what I’m doing and give me some pointers. (I find it difficult to work at something for a long time and not be as good at it as I believe I can be. It’s good that it keeps me motivated, but I’m trying to work on managing frustration.)
• When I went to the pool this morning, I decided I was just going to swim without worrying about times or how much progress I am (not) making or other people’s abilities. Part of this involved changing the way that I talk to myself while swimming; if I can’t make the voices in my head say positive things, perhaps I can give them something else to talk about. My inner boatswain kept me going with this conversation: “We’re going to do three things today: stop dropping my glide arm so much after entry; roll from side to side better during the stroke; and pull through the whole stroke farther. Bup bup bup!” That seemed to work. Even though I wasn’t worrying about times, I was encouraged by the splits I saw. Turns out, I swam the fastest ever by almost a minute per mile. Yay!

What’s new with you?

As my fascination grew, going to see local cemeteries became something that Lisa and I could do together on a whim. As I walked around with my pen and paper looking for names, Lisa would look at dates and ages and try to piece together family relationships. It’s been a while since I posted any of the more interesting names or headstones here. That’s about to change.

This headstone has it all: death with his scythe, cherubs, devils, crossed bones, an hourglass, scroll-work, the sun, and a snake eating its own tail to signify the unending cycle of life and death. See below for many more headstones.

Through this new crop of photographs, you can see similarities within regions and times, the effects of mass production, differing regional concepts of piety and sense of style . . . not to mention the role of wealth, the presence of master craftsmen, the concept of personhood, and so many other things.

Many markers are memorial stones—not actual headstones—and are often very simple. Many of the dead only got initials on their marker, if they had a stone at all. Some markers were added decades (even centuries) later, usually in a moment of civic pride.

The earliest remaining headstones with names and dates tend to be very ornate and were for extremely important clergy. There are vastly more 18th century headstones remaining, and they tend to be more simple. Unfortunately, machine-carved and die-cast stones signaled an enormous change in the interestingness of grave markers. By the late 19th century, everyone had a headstone, but most of them had no pictures at all. Almost 150 years after mass-production changed them, it’s interesting to see machine-etched pictures starting to return to stones in the late 20th century.

By touring cemeteries, you can see the transition from early Puritan to Georgian and Federal styles and themes. The macabre and religious iconography gave way to the secular and harmonious. In later stones, you can see hints of Transcendentalist sentiments (such as practicality and comity, symbolized in shaking hands) as well as the Second Great Awakening’s self-satisfied piety in skyward-pointing fingers exhorting you to look for the buried in Heaven. You can even occasionally see Art Nouveau and Art Deco stylings in New England.

Throughout the entirety of American grave markers, Bible verses or short secular poems appear. These usual implore the living not to mourn the dead but to seek to follow them into heaven. Indeed for a long time after the English first appeared in America in the early 17th century, images on headstones were one of the few acceptable forms of public art. Despite Biblical exhortations against the graven image, you can see the shape of a body in some of the early headstones. There are the shoulders; there is the round head. Eventually the skull gave way to the cherub and then to the fleshy human face.

Numerous themes appear in New England grave artwork, often combined together onto one stone:

• Skulls with crossed bones
• Skulls with wings
• Cherubs (or faces with wings)
• Faces and the “memento mori”
• Urns with trees
• Drapery, columns, arches, “false tombs” (This is a form of 18th/19th c. landscape art.)
• Scrollwork, vines, leaves
• Flowers
• Hourglasses
• Heraldry (Though this is usually very limited, very aristocratic, and very Tory.)
• Crosses, Jesus, Mary (These are almost uniformly Catholic.)
• Hands pointing toward heaven or shaking hands (These appeared during the Second Great Awakening.)
• Finials

A tour through a single large cemetery is often a fascinating way to see the generational changes in American orthography, typography, diction, expression, language, and style.

• “ye” versus “the”
• The ligature “s” (as f)
• The change of year didn’t always happen on January 1st. For example, you’ll see 1691/2.
• In the mid-19th century there was the same crazy typographical mishmash that you might see in a typical newspaper.

You can also see the change in tooling and craftsmanship that made these markers.

• Hand cut on slate by a local craftsman, often with visible guidelines — Until about 1820.
• Hand cut on marble by someone on a more regional basis, probably by mail order — Starting in earnest around 1840, just in time for the Civil War and its massive carnage.
• Cast from moulds. If you tap them, you can tell they’re hollow, and you can see the seams where they’re joined — ca. 1840s-1850s.
• Mass produced by machine with automated cutting tools — from 1860 onward.

I hope you will look at these photographs and start to see some of what I’ve noticed over the years. And I hope that, as you encounter things I haven’t noticed, you’ll tell me what you see.

Click on any photograph to enlarge it. Click on the enlarged photograph to move to the next one in the series.