Wide Awake In America

"I'm wide awake. Wide awake!
I'm not sleeping. Oh, no, no, no." Bad - U2

I suffer from occasional insomnia. It's not a big problem unless I've got a group training event scheduled for the next morning. Actually, the mere fact that I have an early morning group training event planned tends to cause me to sleep less soundly. It's like the night before a major endurance event where you have to get up at 4 AM. I tend to sleep lighter and awaken a couple of times during the night to check how much time I have left to sleep. Screwy, I know, but it's how my mind/body works.

Sometimes, I just inject too much caffeine during the day without realizing it, and I get the payoff when I lay down to sleep. Last night was one of those nights. I had a 7 mile group run scheduled with a couple of other runners for 5:45 AM. Not too early, but early enough. I tried to go to sleep at 10 PM, but it was a "no go" situation. After laying in bed for a hour, I got up, watched some late night talk shows, and putzed around on the internet. I try to get back to sleep again around midnight, but again, I can't buy shuteye. Around 1:30 AM, I e-mail my buddies that I'm not making the early run, take a sleep aid and await the kick-in of sleep. I awake around 8 AM and hustle off to get in a portion of my weight training session with my trainer. I'll get in the missed run this evening, but I sure hate the unwanted night owl status.

On the plus side, I had a good training weekend. A 12 mile run on Saturday morning; a 60 mile ride with triathletes Mandy and Miranda at a good pace on Sunday; and an open water swim on Monday. I think I'm back on track to give Miami 70.3 a decent effort at the end of October.

As for my running buddies this morning, I can only offer my sincere apologies and vow to more closely monitor my caffeine intake.