Saturday hike

Amanda and Natalia invited me to join them on an easy hike. They got tickets in the annual lottery to hike Half Dome in Yosemite, so they're preparing often. This hike was rated as pretty easy, 2.5 miles one way. We (and RunKeeper) beg to differ. You walk what's really a road at the tops of the hills along Steamboat Ditch, way up above the Truckee River. It was pretty warm yesterday, and we took a... um, scenic detour thanks to varying directions online. I checked my blood sugar about four times before we started and all the through. When I went on the hike with the Meetup group, one of the guides said her husband was diabetic, and the best solution they'd found to keep his blood sugar up was for him to snack as he walked, eating something like trail mix or dried fruit. That worked very well, but it's a little bit of a pain in the ass.

If I get the insulin pump, I'll be able to simply suspend its constant flow and maybe eat a little snack before I exercise. For now, I'm on a long-acting 24 hour shot, which has to be an average of what I'll need throughout the whole day- whether I'm working, running errands, exercising, or sleeping. I can't suspend or boost that when I need to. On top of that, I have to take extra shots for what I eat, accounting for corrections, carb counting, activity, illness, stress, and any leftover insulin from the previous shot(s). Do you see why there are such fluctuations in controlling diabetes with insulin?

I had to eat quite a bit to maintain my blood sugar on the hike. I love how the informative pamphlets on diabetes all say how you can still keep an active lifestyle, but that shit ought to come with an asterisk: *It's just a giant pain in the ass.

Cheese and honey (apparently a Russian thing) before the start
Granola bar before the uphill portion
Granola bar after the uphill portion
Apple during the last leg before the turnaround

All these choices were determined by regular stabs to the fingertips. My blood sugar sustained on the way back, propped up by the food, the downhill direction, and the sun setting.

The sunset was gorgeous, and the light was spectacular. The hills were nice and green after all the rain we got a couple weeks ago. It was cool and comfortable as we walked back- Zoey the German Shepard easing down the bank to drink as needed. It was lovely, and we decided to meet at Squeeze In the next morning to undo our workout.