Do you find that there is a correlation between the amount of sleep you get the night preceding a race and the quality of your performance? I feel like I have definitely had nights when I've gotten 3 hours of sleep and run better than I have when I've slept for 8 hrs.
I've felt the same way and I think it is because even though the night before the race affects performance a lot, I think that the quality of sleep for the last couple of days in general affect it the most.
So in other words, if you fall asleep at 9:00 pm every day of the week except friday, where you fall asleep at 12:00, you'll run the race of a lifetime and wonder how it happened.
Or it can be the other way around. Every night of the week you fall asleep late, say 11:30, and then friday night comes along where you fall asleep at 9:00 and f up the next day and wonder how that could have happened...
This is just my experience, but I ran the best race of my life (a 1:09 half) on just 3 hours sleep. I had to wake up at 3 AM and drive 200 miles to the race start. Other than that, I've had good races on anywhere from 4-8 hours sleep, but 5-6 seem to work best for me. I too believe that it's more important to get good sleep 2 and 3 nights before the race. I've had a couple terrible races when flying the red-eye 2 or 3 nights before (and barely sleeping) and getting 8 hours the night before the race.
It has been shown in studies that athletes can perform very well on very little sleep the night before a race. What is much more important is the quality of sleep two and three nights before a race.
I agree that what matters is the amount of sleep you get 2 nights before you race. Last year, I stayed up all night with my boyfriend ;) & ran a great race the next day and so did he!
thats because you were probably gettin some from your bf, which could help you race better. im not sure how he ran well, however
I've raced very well after only 3-5 hours of sleep but very poorly 8-9 hours of sleep. I've found this to be the case with some training runs as well. I've always wondered if your body is simply looser after a less amount of sleep. However, this has only worked for me with consistent sleep in the week before.
same here. the night before my first marathon I had trouble sleeping and only got about 3.5-4 hours. but during the race I felt great. Other times i've gotten 8-9 and felt like garbage. I think it has more to do with how much sleep you get the night before the night before (2 days before race).
But has anyone considered the possibility that the sleep the night before the race might not be as important as the sleep a few nights before the race?
When I was racing, I went by the rule that at least one night out of the 3 before the race needed to be a really good night's sleep. A lot of the time my sleep the night directly before a meet was not very good. I usually never ran well at home meets because I allowed myself to sleep a lot more than I would have had I been on the road.
shit i get like 5 a night but run 2:02