Have you ever tossed in turned in bed the night before a big race? Each hour getting more and more stressed that your lack of sleep is going to ruin your performance?
I’ve been there, so I know your pain.
Luckily, I learned some critical tips and found some research that helped me get over this issue. Now, I never lose a wink of sleep the night before a big race.
I’ll share these tips with you in today’s daily podcast
Audio Transcript
Jeff [from NA]: Hey, this is Jeff from Charlotte, North Carolina.
My question is, I have a very hard time sleeping the night before a big race. When I think I have the potential to PR, I end up super excited and eager to get to the start line the next morning, that I don’t sleep at all.
I slept about 30 minutes the night before my last half marathon, which happened to be a PR but who knows how I could have done with even more rest under my belt.
Any tips to help calm myself down and rest better that night before the race would be super helpful and appreciated. Thanks.
Jeff: Jeff, that’s a great question and I am sure that it’s a symptom and an issue that many runners face. I know I faced it quite a bit early in my career and so I’m glad that you asked.
The first thing that I want to tell you is something that my coach told me when I was in college, that really helped change my perception.
Obviously, this is anecdotal evidence but my coach – his name was John Gregoric – was considered one of the best distance runners in the country, back in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. I believe his mile PR was 351.
He told us the story about the night before the Olympic trials in 1980.
He was a sophomore in college and he had qualified for his first summer pitch trials and was set to run the final the next day. Obviously it was a huge race for him.
It’s the Olympic trials, it’s the finals, and the top three go on to the Olympics. You can imagine how nervous he was before the race.
He told me that he didn’t sleep a wink.
He lay in bed all night, nervous and wrecked, being nervous of the race. He went out and actually qualified for the Olympics.
He came the top three, qualified for the Olympic Games and from then on in never had sleep problems because he knew that even if he didn’t get any sleep, it wasn’t going to matter.
I always took that with me when I went into big races.
If I was feeling nervous before a big race, I would just think, “You know what, John had this same issues and ran wild, so even if I can’t sleep tonight, it’s no big deal.” That really helped put to have a restful sleep.
But let’s go deeper and take a look at some scientific studies.
Surprisingly, there have been scientific studies on how well you perform after a no night sleep or even a couple days of bad sleep.
Luckily, all the science shows – and we’ve looked at two or three, even four different studies – that your performance is not going to measure.
That was measured in VO2 Max, and heart rate as well. They were identical between the group who got normal sleep and the control group who had no sleep.
What the scientist didn’t know is that your perceived effort is going to be higher when you’re sleep deprived. That’s likely because there’s a strong connection between your brain and the nervous system. Even though sleep doesn’t necessarily impact your performance, it may make it feel like it’s harder to run.
I feel like missing a nice sleep, especially before a big race if you’re nervous, is something that is more psychological than it is physiological.
For me, that’s something that from my perspective helps me. That’s why John’s story works out well for me because it helped me realize that, even if I don’t get sleep, my performance is still going to be fine.
Hopefully sharing that story with you, and also sharing some of the research with you Jeff, helps you realize that if you don’t get sleep the night before your big race, it’s really not that big of a deal.
Your physiological performance is going to be just as good as it would have been, had you had a great night sleep.
That said, I obviously understand that you want to sleep the night before your race. Not sleeping is really not fun and I think anybody can agree with that.
One of the things that helps me the most, when I can’t sleep well, are just a couple of tricks.
The biggest one for me is using melatonin. Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone that basically signals to our body that it’s time to go to sleep.
Supplementing with melatonin can help make sure that that hormone’s in your body and that it’s at the levels that it needs to be. I would definitely suggest checking that out.
As with any supplement, you want to make sure that you try it before your race day, so try it a couple times in training.
Melatonin can leave people a little bit drowsy.
It doesn’t for me; it works really well, but again that’s something that you don’t want to find out on race day.
I usually take about two milligrams. The recommended dose is anywhere from one to five milligrams.
What I would do is, try one to two milligrams in your training or just on a regular day and see how it affects you.
If it helps you to feel drowsy, then it should help. It’s one of the best natural ways to help you sleep. If you can take it the night before your race, and that should help you sleep a little bit.
The other things that I like to do is, I have a nice hot tea. I’ll usually do celestial seasonings, as it has the sleepy time teas.
I don’t remember where I heard this or where I read this but I once read that Frank Shorter used to say that you can’t sleep well if your feet are cold.
I’ve also noticed that when my feet are cold, I always have a hard time sleeping, so when I’m having a hard time sleeping, I’ll put my feet in hot water, or wear socks to bed.
You can also go ahead and Google sleep tricks and you’re going to notice some things that you can do to help calm yourself.
Another big one for me is when the lights are on. The light from your phone, your computer screen and TV screen actually lowers melatonin and it can trigger your brain to stay awake.
What I recommend – and I think a lot of sleep experts recommend – is having a good routine. Create a good routine before race day and execute that routine the night before the race. I’m sure that will help you sleep a little bit.
Jeff, I hope those answers helped you, just looking at it from the physiological versus psychological reality and then some tips for sleep in general.
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Thanks so much guys for listening today. Hope you enjoyed and I’ll be back with you tomorrow.
Have a great day.
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