it may surprise some of you to know, I am not perfect, I do need sleep, and I am NOT a machine. last weekend, I completed 60km of walking on the Friday, 5km of running on the Saturday, and half marathon run plus 14km walk on the Sunday, to take the total for 3 days to 100km.
there was a price to pay
the efforts on the Friday night / Saturday morning, the short sleep before parkrun, the late night 14km effort on Sunday all smelled of “hero mode”, but they left me seriously deprived of sleep.
this sleep deficit has been hanging around me all week, resulting in another “hero mode” effort yesterday morning, where I forced myself out to do some intervals.
but this morning, a planned 20km walk to work was ruined by waking up late, and tonight in all honesty, a severe case of “cannot-be-bothered-itis” has prevented me from doing a planned 20km run.
and I could NOT be happier
to be fair, initially I was really quite unhappy. disappointed, feeling as though I had let myself down, my coach and advisor, and just about everyone really. but tonight I have had “normality”, I have relaxed, I have caught up with a few tasks that had been lingering for ages, I have felt the sweet relief of not HAVING to get out and run or walk.
over the past year, since I was in full training mode for London Marathon, things have been pretty unrelenting. Apart from when I was recovering from my hernia op, and was forced to do nothing, training has been building and building and building.
just look at the past couple of months, with 2 ultra marathons completed, and now just a week away from my 3rd ultra… lots of hours, lots of kms; all necessary to prepare for the big one, the journey from Perth to Brisbane…
regroup, reset, reboot, refocus
doing a sum total of absolutely nothing, today, has given me exactly what I needed. an opportunity to regroup, a mental health break, a chance to perform a bit of an operating system reboot, a chance to let go of some of the pressure (that mostly I have been putting on myself).
this, as my coach likes to say, is “raw reality”. to be honest, I had half expected a mechanical, physical, body failure of some kind. but in the end it was more of a mental stutter brought on through the medium of sleep deprivation.
tomorrow things will be back to “business as usual”
I already have a bladder chilling in the fridge, ready to add some Tailwind Nutrition in the morning, for a 10km run to parkrun, a 5km run at parkrun itself, then a catchup with friends and a 10km run/walk back afterwards.
in the overall scheme of things, not much will have been lost; I would have been doing 5km tomorrow morning, and now it will be around 25 instead.
so nothing lost, but so much has been gained. a chance to freshen up, but also a few lessons. firstly that I am not infallible. secondly that sleep is essential, thirdly that being strict with my time and schedule will help ensure I get plenty.
and on that note, it is time I got some sleep…
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