Abbott Freestyle Libre - Glucose Levels and Sand Dunes

There were so many reasons why I wanted to try the Abbott Freestyle Reader, but one of the big reasons was because I wanted to be able to see and understand the effect that different types of training might have on glucose levels. Today's session was sand dunes- which is a lactic acid tolerance/ endurance session. It involves sprinting up a sand dune at maximum effort.

Scanning during training

This particular session involved accelerating up one of the steepest dunes in the area and jogging back down and around to the start, repeatedly. Below is the graph that I was able to download from my device using the Freestyle Libre internet application, of what my blood sugars did during training and for the rest of the day. 

Glucose Levels Before, During and After Sand Dune Training

I got up at 7am as I always do on a Sunday morning for training, so that I can have food and let it digest before during an endurance session. At which point my blood sugars were slightly high at 13.8 mmol. I chose not give a correction dose, but just to bolus for my breakfast. 

Getting ready to sprint up the sand dune/ wearing my sensor (left arm)

Training took place at 9:30am and involved a 2 mile run for warm up, followed by the sprints up the dune session I mentioned in the introduction. It lasted until 10:30am and between the start and finish of training you can see a short peak before a sudden drop. What I found particularly helpful during training was that about half way through the session, my glucose levels started steadily dropping. Normally, not being able to predict whether they would go back up or down I might have been forced to stop training. But with the sensor I was able to look at the pattern that my glucose levels had followed so far and also the arrow that appears on the screen. Making the decision to carry on training because my glucose levels were not dropping dramatically. So took on board some jelly babies and carried on training, hypo free.

With some of my training group post-training

However, post training there was a steady increase until my glucose levels rose to 18.3 mmol post training and lunch. Then for the rest of the day I struggled to keep my glucose levels down. However, at this point I did notice that the sensor was measuring slightly higher than finger prick tests.