In the knick of time

I've said this before and I'll say it again. SLEEP is critical! Especially to your relationships, training, working, living. I don't like to get too personal on my blog and I'm finding that it's the personal issues that keep me from blogging. I don't feel the need to disclose my personal life on my blog. However, at the same time, I sometimes feel the need to explain why I haven't blogged very much. So without getting too personal I'll tell the world that I've been struggling with sleep issues. The more I tell you about it the more I realize that half of America probably struggles with sleep as well. So how personal can this issue really be?

After trying several natural sleep aids I finally broke down and took Ambien. Nothing was really working well enough even though I would tell myself that "waking up 3 times per night isn't THAT bad". It's amazing what we tell ourselves to rationalize not doing something such as take medication. I was really against, like most athletes, taking any meds. I was sure I could figure this out on my own and had convinced myself that I was fine on the natural remedies. Until this week when things just got really bad and I resigned myself to the idea of taking an actual sleep drug. Ambien.

For the first time in months I slept the entire night through last night. It's a wonderful thing when you awake and feel like your head has been leveled out and you can move forward. Just in the nick of time for a great race!!! Yes, tomorrow I race an Olympic distance triathlon in Middleboro MA and I'm psyched!

Tomorrow's Olympic triathlon description reads:

The swim is in a quiet lake. The bike and
run courses are flat and fast.

Sounds pretty sweet eh? Fortunately I've learned not to fall for those lines. I'll assume there are going to be challenging hills, downhills, ect.. I do feel though, that after my last two races (REV3 and the 13.1 Boston half) , I'm prepared for almost anything within those distances. Now that I'm rested this should be fun!