Stuffedness

How does that cliche go, sometimes you are the hammer and sometimes you are the nail. Wednesday I was the hammer, today I was definitely the nail.

I was not feeling the magic in the pool this morning, quite the opposite in fact, there was no magic here.

The reason for my lack of sparkle is no great mystery to me and neither is it a great source of distress. it is simply because I am feeling tired today. Similarly the reason for my tiredness is not a source of mystery or distress, just a lack of sleep.

I haven't been sleeping that well for about a week or so. Not sure why. Somebody I was speaking to this morning suggested it may be because I am not training as much, which could well be true. It just occurred to me that my final coffee of the day has probably been happening a bit too late, which may be a very simple explanation. Might be something to work on next week. A final reason may be that my sleep habits have been a bit lazy because I am in a 'recovery' phase. The irony of course being that by not sleeping enough I am not actually maximizing my recovery. Whatever the reason though, I just haven't been getting quite enough sleep.

Lack of sleep is always a bit pervasive. One night you can get away with, perhaps not feel too bad. Maybe two or three even, but after a week it definitely starts to catch up with you. That has been the case with me. It is not that I am missing huge chunks of sleep, it is just that I am getting not quite enough for lots of nights in a row. As a result I woke up this morning feeling just a bit stuffed. While getting sufficient sleep is one of the cheapest and easiest forms of performance enhancement, not getting enough is probably the easiest way to handicap yourself.

On top of the stuffedness (that is a totally a word) I am also feeling a bit of muscle soreness from the swim on Wednesday. Wednesday was a solid session and I am feeling it at the moment. Getting down to the pool this morning I wasn't ruined, but I was just missing the top edge. Just the sort of morning when you want to be handed a very rapid CSS threshold session (note sarcasm). I had some go, but just not enough to hold the paces that were being asked. Still a solid session, but perhaps not a quality one.

Oh well, it is the way of things sometimes. You can't be on fire all the time, the important thing is that you stick with it when the motivational fires are burning low. The session may not have been a great one, but I am happy that I stuck with it. I will be even happier if I get my act together and start making sure I am getting enough sleep.