brian hoadley from couch to london marathon in 1 year
Type 1 Diabetes and Sport – Couch to London Marathon in 1 Year
Hi, Paul Coker here from 1BloodyDrop.com, and today I’m just outside of Buckingham Palace and I’m with Brian Hoadley of www.Type1Bri.com and we are just a few feet from the place where Brian will cross the finish line of the London Marathon in April 2018 . Brian joins 1Bloodydrop to tell us to tell what inspired him to train for and run the London Marathon when he watched the event on TV in 2017 he had never run before and now in 2018 he is planning to cross the finish line of one of the most famous 26.2 mile races in the world.
Brian started his a blog abut his journey with type 1 diabetes about 18 months ago and he includes his journey from novice runner to marathon runner, along with tips, advice and has moved on from that as he started running.
When did You Start Running?
I started running in April last year, 2017. I watched the London Marathon and I thought … I fancied trying that. Let’s see if I can do that.
When is the London Marathon 2018?
The London Marathon, I’ll be running that this year. It’s been set for 22 April 2018, less than a year since I’d done my first run, in fact I will have been running and training for just 359 days when the cross the start line in April.
Why did you Decide to Run the London Marathon, What or Who Inspired You?
No, there’s a lot of people with diabetes online, on social media, that … We’re just proving that diabetes shouldn’t hold us back in any way. That inspired me in all honesty.
There are loads of inspiring people out there who have type 1 diaebtes, people like Roddy Riddle. Some of the things that Roddy has done are crazy. Pete Davis is another one. So, a man of these sort of years, and how long he’s had diabetes, and he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. So, I’m still young. I can do this.
Does Running Help You to Manage Your Blood Glucose Levels?
I thought my diabetes management was quite tight before I started running, and since I’ve been running, it just makes everything smoother now. I’m not putting diabetes on the back burner because it’s always there in the forefront. It just makes day-to-day so much easy with the exercise, just helps maintain.
How does it help? Is it regulating glucose levels? Is it your mindset?
It’s more so … Eighty percent of it is mindset. Mentally, you just feel so much sort of happier, day-to-day. You’re more positive about everything. Running really has helped a lot with the mental side of diabetes and that approach to it, but the blood glucose … That’s more stable now since I’ve been running. There’s no more sort of spikes in food. After I eat now, the spikes are much less than they were before, but my actual insulin regime hasn’t changed in any way. It’s-
If You Had 1 Message for A Fellow Type 1 Who Wants to Run What Would it Be?
If you’re thinking of giving it a go, just try it, really. It’s not easy. It’s not plain sailing. Initially, you’ll go out and have a run, and your blood glucose will do something completely mad that you wouldn’t think it would do, but don’t be put off by that. Just learn from that. See what it did, and think about what you could do to stop that from happening the next time.
How Did You Begin?
For me, literally, I was getting online & registering for a Park Run. I thought I was going to try to do a Park Run. I just literally went out in my normal trainers that I wear every day and I went for a run not even five hundred metres, and I actually had to stop and walk. I couldn’t get through that, and then I thought about it and I was, “All right, let’s build up to running a kilometre and then running fifteen hundred metres, two kilometres. I worked from that, and I got up to running three kilometres just out of my own, and I got my partner through parkrun, and went and just did a parkrun. That was after three weeks of running. I did my first parkrun thirty nine minutes, and then I did it about in thirty eight minutes the next week, and then thirty five minutes. Just keep pushing up.
How Do You Stay Motivated to Train & Run?
I started by setting small goals that I could achieve, even if it’s just distance increasing by a hundred metres, it’s still further than last week so it’s definitely small goal driven all the way.
What is Your Take Home Message for Others With Diabetes Who Want to Run?
Every run, even now, a year into running, something different happens and I just try and learn something from each run. I never think you know what’s going to happen because you don’t. Every run is something different could happen, so it’s like every day with diabetes, something different will happen.
Good Luck on 22 April 2018 Brian
in the next video, we’re going to be talking about how you manage your blood glucose levels before you go for your training.