Captain Sensible Says, "Wot?"

Summary

In this episode of Momma Runs an Ultra, I'm tackling the wild world of ultra marathon training while also trying to keep my sanity intact. You know, just a jaunty jog through my 50s, right? Between holiday illness smacking my entire family (because why not?) and trying to breathe through my neighbors' smoke out, it's been a season.

We also dive into the mysteries of pacing my upcoming half marathon. As I gear up for my first ultra marathon, I’d love to hear your best sleep tips. Basically, send me all the good advice so I can stop googling "how to stay asleep like a normal person" at 2 a.m.

Links

1. Sleep with Rock Stars
2. WTH does this episode's title reference?

Recommended If You Like

ultra marathon training, half marathon pacing strategy, asthma management for runners, recovery tips for endurance athletes, sleep challenges for runners, training for ultra marathons, benefits of sleep for athletes, overcoming sleep issues, running at 50, endurance athlete health, managing asthma while running, social media for runners, nutrition for endurance training, mental health in running, preparing for long races, tips for staying asleep, running and respiratory health, coaching for endurance athletes, benefits of meditation for sleep, living in the country as a runner

Automated Transcript

Speaker A

00:00:01.040 - 00:07:02.730

If I go to jail, I can't train for my ultra, right? Well, hey y', all, thanks for getting back here on Momma Runs an Ultra.

I'm a runner on the downhill side of my 50s who decided to sign up for my first ultra marathon. And this podcast is all about me figuring out what the hell am I thinking. The last time I chatted with y', all, I was losing my voice.

Or I had already lost my voice. It actually got worse from there. And then I started to feel bad.

It was weird because for the first couple of days it was just my voice wasn't working and I felt a hundred percent fine. But it got to the point where I finally had to go to the doctor, which honestly pissed me off. My family got super sick right before the holidays.

And even though we are fully vaccine and do our best to stay as healthy as possible, one of them got Covid, which turned into pneumonia. And real pneumonia is pretty darn scary. Well, I've had asthma my entire life and it's pretty well managed with some daily medication.

But as I've mentioned, I live out in the country.

One of those neighborhoods built like 60 years ago that was like speculative at the time and they were hoping that civilization would build up that direction. Well, they were wrong. There's nothing out here. But living out in the county means that there is not a lot of rules and regulations.

Which sounds great until you have things like my fucking neighbors across the street who burn every leaf that falls from the sky. And I'm really not kidding. I actually videoed my neighbor out one time catching leaves as they came off of her tree.

And I'm not making this up, but what really ticks me off about them and it's both the neighbors across the street right next door to each other, they wet down their leaves and then burn them. So it's just smoke everywhere and absolutely sets off my asthma.

So what happened was they burned for five days in a row of wet leaves and wet boxes and it set off my asthma to such an extent that I ended up with bronchitis and had to go on antibiotics like massive horse pills for days. It was terrible. Eat your yogurt, y'. All. You know what I'm talking about. And if you don't, you should.

Anyway, that's my rant about living in the country. It is noisier than when I lived in the city because people fire weapons constantly and shoot off fireworks every friggin day of the week.

And my neighbors open burn constantly. And there is not a thing I can do about it.

And had I known to ask about those things prior to moving out here, I think I would have stayed in the city where it was quieter and less smoky. Anyway, enough of that because I feel better now. I'm back to running. I had obviously when I finally got actual sick, I did not run through that.

I'm not one of those people mentioned that before, but I'm back to running and now I'm looking at taper before this half marathon that I already had planned before I signed up for the Ultra. So I don't really know how to plan for a pacing strategy for this half marathon.

I know what I can do like just show up and run, but I also know that given the right circumstances, I'm capable of running much harder. Am I? I think I've nailed down this coaching situation I hinted at before. Anyway, that doesn't start until after the half marathon.

So at this point I'm thinking of calling them up again and saying hey, let's start a week before so you can tell me what to do for this half marathon based on my training. But that person is an Ultra coach and I don't know if they have any experience with halves because that wasn't part of our conversation anyway.

I don't know. I don't know. I did build in an extra day for some travel on the way there because it's one of these places where I have to drive there.

It is not any faster to take a plane and it's prohibitively expensive because the race is also in the middle of nowhere and so if I were to fly I would have to drive two and a half hours, wait two hours at the airport, fly, catch a second flight and then still drive another hour and a half. So just not worth it. I'm just gonna get my car and drive 11 a zillion miles. Could be worse. I have the opportunity to do so.

I will double up on some work the day before I leave so I get that extra day to drive.

But now that I've kind of put it out there that I'm training for this first ultramarathon my social media, which I hate social media, but I do occasionally get sucked into it. Woo. Boy do I have some weird stuff coming through my feed now.

But one of the things that being sick got me thinking about was the role of sleep in recovery. And I'm one of those people who I can fall asleep anywhere but my quality of sleep is terrible. Notoriously terrible.

I have never been a good sleeper, like even as a little kid I wake up a million times in the middle of the night. I cannot stay asleep. And sometimes it's because my brain is going, if you haven't figured it out so far, ADHD right here.

And that stays when I'm asleep as well. But even when I'm exhausted, sometimes I can't fall asleep, or I do fall asleep, and then I wake up two hours later, like, wide awake.

Clearly, two hours is not enough sleep. So when I read all this research, that's like, yes, you should be getting nine hours of sleep.

As an endurance athlete, I'm like, I don't think I've gotten more than six hours of sleep ever in my whole life. I would love to. That would be amazing.

But a lot of the tips that are out there about it are things that just don't work for me, particularly the one that's like, make your room really cold. The worst thing for me is when a room is really cold, I can't sleep at all. And I have terrible nightmares if I do fall asleep.

So sleeping as a recovery tool is one that is a bit of an elusive mystery for me. I've done all the environmental stuff. Like, I don't do any screens for three hours before bed. I don't have any lights on in my room.

I have a whole night routine with some chamomile tea and the whole deal. But sleep is still just a huge challenge for me. I do have some meditation apps that I love. And so falling asleep isn't the problem.

It's staying asleep. In fact, I even host a sleep podcast called Sleep with Rockstars.

And I think it's hilarious because in, like, a really quiet, you know, very soft voice.

I read from Wikipedia about bands like the Clash, and I find that absolutely hysterical because the contrast of those things, I know most people don't have that sense of humor anyway, I find it hilarious. Sleep with Rock Stars. I love it. So, like, I can fall asleep, I can't stay asleep. So if you have the magic answer.

And I will not take pills or substances. Not my bag. You do you.

Anyway, I would like to have a better ability to sleep through the night, because I do think that that is going to help my training and recovery as I'm fixing to start this ultra training, y'. All. Yep, just a couple of days. And now I'm super nervous.

So hit me up in those comments with all of your recommendations and suggestions that are safe, healthy, and legal. If I go to jail, I can't train for my ultra right Priorities. Oh, man. Anyway, sure appreciate y' all being here.

I love the feedback that I've gotten, particularly through Instagram, which has been interesting because I hate Instagram. But thanks for commenting anyway.

If you would comment within YouTube or Spotify, or even in the main comments on Apple podcasts, that would be way better because one, it helps the whole algorithm game they make us play, but two, it would help me stay off social media. That would be amazing. I'm glad to be back at it, glad to be running.

And I will let y' all know afterwards how this half marathon goes, because right now I have no idea what I'm going to be doing. I mean, some left, right, repeat, but beyond that, no clue. No idea.

Fingers crossed, because I don't even have a plan, so I don't even know how to aim for it. So. Advice? Sure. Send it my way.

Mentioned in this episode:

Sleep with Rock Stars

Sleep with Rock Stars, the Gen X sleep podcast. You deserve a good night's sleep...or whatever.