Two and a Half Hours

I had two and a half hours sleep last night. Woohoo!! I may possibly be a little delirious but I'm not feeling as bad as I expected to. And I've been incredibly surprised about what you can achieve when you're sleep deprived.

You can manage to get to training on time. This is despite waking up after an hour's sleep at 3:15am and trying to change the alarm so you can sleep a bit later. In my foggy state I decided to miss speed session but get up in time to make our Tuesday breakfast (Tuesday breakfast is sacrosanct and can only be missed when your child is caught in a fire at work the night before). I couldn't change the time. I think there were a few neurons misfiring. I got up at 4:45am, put the left shoe on the left foot and the right on the right, let the dog out to the toilet, realised I shouldn't have put my shoes on before my shorts but managed to dress anyway, drove to the session without hitting anything or falling asleep at the wheel and smiled at people when greeted. (I swear it was a smile and not a grimace). I may have even strung a few intelligible words together.

You can run like the wind for about an hour. Okay, it might have been a lazy puff of a wind that had no real direction but I kept running. The session was 3k, 2k, 1k with 500m recovery and if there was time left over we were supposed to keep running 1k's. I ran the 3k then I ran 500m on, 500m off. With permission from the coach of course! The 3k was pretty ordinary but each of the five 500m got faster. I may have been sleep-running.

You can spend a good portion of the run socializing. I can sleep-run and sleep-talk!  Coach Chris had also given me permission to walk the recoveries (by 'giving me permission' I mean that I tell him what I plan to do and he says okay - he doesn't want me getting sick again so when I tell him I need to back off there's no argument). Walking the recoveries is awesome. Other people decide they'll keep you company because it's only polite and you end up solving some of the world's problems. Not bad on two and a half hours.

You can solve the rest of the world's problems and engage in witty, erudite conversation over breakfast. I may actually have been talking drivel, or just making unintelligible grunting noises while drooling into my eggs but it felt witty and erudite at the time. My friends are way too polite to let me know the bitter truth and they'd be kind enough to wipe the drool off my face if and when needed.

You can drive home in the morning rush hour and manage to make it there without incident.

You can remain alarmingly calm when you see the mess that has become your lounge room.You can pick up the foam that used to be Toby's mattress off the floor and hardly bat an eye. Possibly because you might fall asleep if your eyes shut for even a millisecond.

You can fold the washing. (Note to my sons - if the wrong shirt is in your pile it's your responsibility to find the rightful owner)

You can decide the menu for dinner. I think that we might have cupcakes tonight.

You can try to have a nap. With the full complement of dogs on the bed (there's a strong sense of entitlement in our hounds. Or maybe they're just trying to be companionable) Snoring dogs make for bad nap buddies.

You can give up all idea of sleep and decide to start work early - just because.


And you can cut lycra until your skin gets all sparkly

This means I'm becoming a vampire, doesn't it? No wonder I'm having trouble sleeping at night.