Today: 3 hours training

Click on the title to see where I trained today: the Arboretum of Tervuren.


In order to prepare for walking 480 kilometers, it is imperative to engage oneself in a suitable training program. I found such program on a website dedicated to the Caminos of Santiago, and stuck to the application thereof. Today, some three weeks before starting on the actual camino, the program called for a 3-hour walk, laden with a 4-kilo backpack.

Off I went, by car, into the Arboretum of Tervuren. Arrived there, I crisscrossed the arboretum, as well as a small part of the much larger "Zoniënwoud" ("Forêt de Soignes"), taking care not to venture too far away from my starting point, because I didn't want to extend it to 4 hours... The weather was quite warm today, with a maximum of perhaps 28 degrees (Celsius, of course), so I walked in the morning.

After exactly 30 minutes, I noticed I started zigzagging: a hypo; not enough blood sugar. So I stopped, ate two dextrose tablets, an apple, two small handfuls of dried raisins and three slices of "peperkoek" (pain d'épices/a sort of gingerbread). The resulting sugar boost kept me going for quite a while thereafter. Yet, after another two hours, I again started zigzagging, and my pace slowed. Stopped again, measured my blood sugar, oh yes: 64 mg/cl (that's getting quite low; a normal measurement would be in the 100-130 range or so). So I ate a cheese sandwich, another apple, and the remaining large handful of dried raisins.

Such is the way of the diabetic walker: up and down. My experience has been that it is quite noticeable when the bloodsugar level is dropping: the famous zigzag and go-slow. Up until now, I've been injecting the usual amount of insulin, morning and evening. During the actual camino, that will have to charge for the less. Heavy walking burns off the sugar that would, in the diabetic case, remain as "poison" in the blood. Hence having to carry dextrose sugar (for a rapid emergency boost), dried raisins, almonds, peanuts, an apple or two, some full-grain bread, enabling to raise (and maintain) the sugar level in the blood to an acceptable level. Dextrose does that in no time at all, but that "extremely fast sugar" has to be balanced by the "slow sugars" found in other food, like full-grain bread, etc. Complicated in its simplicity...

All in all, I must have walked 15 kilometers. It wasn't too difficult, but arrived at home I fell asleep as soon as my boots removed.