episode 2- sleep

mahalo.

Cut to J-Sal: "Okay."

Coach Schumacher, I will bow out at this point, and humbly and happily admit that there is much more for me to learn about our sport, and I cannot wait to increase my knowledge with you in the years to come. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the team. As a runner, coach, and an educated professional who gets paid to help heal the human body, I think our guys would be smart to follow your overall point: consistently getting 8-9 hours a night of sleep will help you recover from hard workouts and also help you feel rested before races.

When the person on the internet that is giving you the advice has forgotten more about the sport than you know, than yeah it probably is a good idea. :)

The best thing to do is to heed advice from someone on the internet who knows nothing about you, and to disregard the advice given by someone who interacts with you daily and tracks your running development. :) Sheesh!

Adequate sleep is needed in recovery so through out the entire season 7-9 hours of sleep is needed but the night before the race is not as important as 2 nights before. If you are to compare sleep to nutrition than you will realize that one bad night will not effect things in the grand scheme of things, it is the build up of poor habits that effect you. But I personally am not an All-American, I said some of my friends are All-Americans that only get like 2-5 hours of sleep the night before the race. They do adequate sleep almost every other night though. So like I said the most important night of sleep for a race is 2 nights before the race, but if you have poor habits than you will race poorly in general no matter what the habit is.

Who is Justdoit??? Well, in response to "Justdoit," I would view sleep much like I would view nutrition. It is the accumulation of many days. So one night of a lack of sleep can mess you up for awhile. Some people may be able to pull off less sleep before a race, but if you want to be at your peak, you will make sure you get adequate sleep every night. Sure, some athletes may be able to perform well with 5-7 hours of sleep before a race, but just because you are an All-American does not mean you performed your best...it means you raced well against other athletes. But ultimately, find out what works best for you and your body...

Actually that is not true. You do not need 8 hours of sleep the night before the race. The 8 hours is 2 nights before the race. Some of my best races have been with 5-7 hours before. I know quite a few runners that get very little sleep the night before the race and are All-American athletes.

YES!!!