Sleep Panic/ Training run #2

So I'm not always the world's best sleeper. It always takes me a while to fall asleep, and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back to sleep. It stinks, I'm not going to lie.

Part of my motivation for starting to exercise was hoping that if I wore myself out, the sleeping problem might get a bit easier. No such luck. All that aside, I have been having a good sleeping spell lately.

Last night, however, was not so great. My friend Amanda had a Luau last night in Hollywood which was a lot of fun. Knowing I had to be up and ready to run at 7:30 this morning, I left the party at 11:30 PM and was in bed by midnight. I was sleepy, so I thought- Ok, this is going to be good- I'll get a decent amount of sleep and wake up refreshed- ready for my run. At 4:30, however, I woke up, wide awake. That's when the paranoia kind of set in. I think it must have been the 4 hours of sleep I was working with- but I started to worry- oh no- what if I don't go back to sleep! I can't run 3 miles on 4 hours of sleep! What if this marathon thing was a bad idea- what if I always wake up before big runs! What if I can't sleep the night before my marathon?!? I went from 0 to panic mode in no time flat. That's not so good. I eventually calmed down and I think I must have dozed at some point, but MAN was I tired when my alarm went off at 7:22 AM. I did hit snooze, finally rolled out of bed, got dressed, ate a granola bar and made it to the Civic Center (where the training group meets,) by 7:45 to stretch and get ready to go.

I decided to slow my pace down a bit and run with a slower group of runners today, partially because I was so tired, and partially because I was kind of hurting at the end of the run last week. That proved to be a really wise move, because the run went really well! I felt really good the whole time through, ran at a conversational pace, and didn't feel wasted when we finished. Our group ran 35 minutes total- 7 sets of 4 minute runs/1 minute walks- about 3 miles total. I've still been tired today, but I think this was a good step in taking care of the sleep panic- at least for now. I was able to run even though I didn't sleep well, so I know I can do it if the same thing happens in the future- which, ironically enough, I think will help the next time I wake up in the middle of the night before a long run.

Next week we run for 45 minutes- and I know I can do it- not worried at all!