Letting People Down
I have struggled with how intense I consider my inner tube water polo to be. By that, I mean, how does it affect my blood sugar. I track my patterns for Wednesdays to find commonalities, and I have nothing. I also have generally avoided running on Wednesdays. I might not notice the 24 hour effects of exercise a lot, but when I do two exercise events in one day, I always have a hard time not going low during the second one.
Last week I decided to walk on Wednesday morning. It was a beautiful walk and I can’t wait to do it again.
When it came time for ITWP later that night, I set a temp basal like I always do, bolused for my cider like I always do and checked my Dex religiously. We were almost done with the first half and I was in the water, but I started feeling low. I finished the half (a minute or 2), but ran to my Dex and sugar immediately. I was still low when we needed to get back in the water and I felt REALLY low. I told my team I couldn’t get in the water, and they asked me to tell them once I could get back in, because a bunch of other people needed breaks too. (This was written after a night when I couldn’t get out of the water because we didn’t have enough subs, but I became too low for my comfort. Now my team knows that when I say I can’t get in, I can’t.) I became our team cheerleader, and hopeful strategist. All I could think though was that I was letting my team down. I hated feeling like this.
I also, all of a sudden, knew why when I wanted to do a triathlon in high school & college, my mother told me she wasn’t comfortable with it. It always pissed me off then, but now, lows in the water are the scariest lows to me. I mean, this pool is shallow and I’m in a tube, yet I still feel completely uncomfortable being low in the water. I stood there and cheered and cheered and got excited for my team when they scored. But all I did was sit. And all I felt was that I was letting my teammates down.
My take: You can’t let your teammates down if you have no control over what might happen. Your life rates over inner-tube water polo, even though I can tell you really wanted to be in there. Don’t give up!