Wednesday 18 January 2012

The difference sleep makes

I've been thinking about sleeping, how much I get, should get and could get.

I am going to look at some studies when I get the chance but from recent experience I feel that I was just building a massive sleep debt trying to fit in all my training.

The biggest contributor to this is the early morning swim. 4:40am up for 5:30 start means that an 8hr sleep results in hitting the sack at 8:40 - if I'm hoping to train the night before after finishing work at 5:30 or 6 I'm already on the back foot.

Would it be better to skip these sessions and swim elsewhere? I need to weigh up the benefits of the club swimming against how much fresher I feel in other training - am I getting better more quality swim sets at other times by not swimming early?

What do you do with regard sleep?

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About Me

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As an ex-National League Basketball player I took up triathlon as a development from cross training. I won my first Sprint distance race and placed second in my first Olympic distance. Since then I have raced the UK Elite Superseries coming 24th in the National Elite Champs, raced Vegas 70.3 WChamps and helped Paratriathlete Iain Dawson to World, European and National Titles. In 2011 I obtained Pro authorisation from the BTF and am pushing my development by stepping up to top level competition in 2012. Aside from this I am a L1 Swim and Tri coach and Professional Lloyds Broker.