Sleep, Pain & Hills

I'm blaming the full moon - and not my terrible diet as of late or my silly little schedule because of course those have been perfect [insert sarcasm here] - on the fact that my sleep the past two nights has just been terrible. On Monday night, I woke up almost every hour tossing and turning and dreaming crazy weird things. Tuesday night I decided to stay up late watching the Celtics beat LA in the NBA finals (haha Kobe!) and then my body was awake at 4am. And to top it all off the other night I watched this sleep study that in a nutshell said decreased sleep can lead to reduced intelligence and not to mention type 2 (I believe it was type 2) diabetes when extremely sleep deprived. Here is the article from 60 Minutes. Check it out... it'll motivate you to go to bed and stay there for at least your 8 hours. And if you love sleep as much as I like to, you might even be there for 12!

I did a 7 mile hill workout tonight and I have to tell you I was scared. Why? Well because hills hurt. I had to keep reminding myself that pain is pleasure (please read that as pain is pain and you should stop the activity, but discomfort or a new sensation is not pain and you may continue the activity, but most importantly listen to your body). All I had to do was take it one hill at a time and push through each one nice and steady one step at a time. And that's what I did. I have to admit that I did get a little motivation from these two quotes:

It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.
-- Emil Zapotek

To keep from decaying, to be a winner, the athlete must accept pain - not only accept it, but look for it, live with it, and learn to accept it.
-- Dr. George Sheehan

I felt good during the workout, but I definitely needed this motivation to push me through. I feel like I've been recovering very well lately, but with my increased mileage this week we'll see how that turns out. I'll be certain to get my sleep for the next couple runs I have planned this week.