Wednesday, March 18, 2009

No Sleep Express Rolls On

Between a very intense and stressful time at work, preparing for what will be a tax return from Hell, and a mild ear infection - sleep has simply been non-existent for me.  Five hours Sunday night, and just four on Monday took me out to 7 consecutive nights w/ five hours of sleep or less.

Unfortunately I had hill repeats on the schedule for Tuesday.  During my 3-mile warm up prior to the hills I felt somewhat sluggish.  This session was not going to be pretty.  Where I usually do 10 x 1-minute repeats, Tuesday's session was going to be slightly different.  10 x 45-seconds broken down into 3-sets.  4 x 45-seconds, 90-second rest, 4 x 45-seconds, 2-minute rest, 2 x 45 seconds.  The good news was that I'd be getting a little extra rest - the bad news was that even though the repeats were slightly shorter, they were going to be much faster.  

I hit the first set pretty hard.  I was surprised how quickly I recovered after set #1, and went out hard again to begin set #2.  After the sixth rep I really started to feel it, and by the 8th rep I was fried.  I took my 2-minute set break after #8, but I still felt lousy.  For a second I thought about just bailing after eight, but thought better of it.  Repeat #9 wound up being the 2nd fastest one of the lot, but it left me dead in the water for #10.  I did the best I could but it was a struggle the whole way.  

Looking at the data afterwards, this was surprisingly the fastest hill session I've ever done.  I don't know how long I can keep doing this w/ no sleep.  I'm bound to crash here sooner or later.

Quite odd to have it such that the hardest part of my training is sleeping!

Training:

Mon, 3/16:  off day (scheduled)

Tues, 3/17:  6-miles including 10 x 45-second hills


5 comments:

RICK'S RUNNING said...

Working nights i constantly don't get the quality sleep that is needed, but part of it is a mental battle, tell your self your be tired and you will be,we don't always need as much sleep as we get older! catch up with your sleep when you can and your be ok!
GOOD WORKOUT!

Mike said...

Thanks Rick. I managed to get about 7-hours last night so maybe I'm getting back on track. I'm definitely going to need to catch up on some sleep ASAP because next week I've got two extremely difficult workouts!

RICK'S RUNNING said...

I tend to have a mega sleep in once a week [ 12 hours!!!] to catch up, anyway You seem to be making really good progress! keep at it! spring is here, so let the good times roll!!!

Ewen said...

The 'No Sleep Express' has been known to run off the rails - usually on a bridge over a high river crossing ;)

Nice hill session. Hope you can keep that sort of improvement going in other sessions.

RICK'S RUNNING said...

When you start seeing pink elephants on the road and pigs flying in the sky, then you know you've got sleep deprivation! and its time for some shut eye!!!
BE POSITIVE, YOU CAN SLEEP AS MUCH AS YOU WANT WHEN YOUR DEAD!!!