Increase your Sleep to Bring Down Your Time

We talk a lot in the running community about the importance of nutrition and of hydration in our recover plans, but we often neglect talking about the importance of sleep. With daylight savings taking place last weekend and the hour gain (temporarily) in sleep, you may find your sleep pattern suffering. You may even be one of the lucky ones who isn’t having any difficulty adjusting to the new time. Consider that a blessing!

Studies show that sleep effects the body’s perceptions of physical and mental stress. Sleep deprivation can cause the immune system to lag when it should be fighting infection and illness (welcome winter sniffles). That also means your body isn’t repairing the damage from the previous day’s workout.

Try to nudge the total time you spend asleep up by 15 minutes every 3-4 days until you wake up with the alarm in the morning without the constant need to snooze it (let’s be honest though, you’ll still snooze it here and there). You’ll notice that your training, performance, and productivity get noticeably better with the increase in sleep.