Manage your rest to improve your performance
After training or a competition, it is very important to recover from the efforts made and it is during the hours of sleep that our body "goes through the workshop".
The problem is that it is not so easy to have good sleep habits. There are often a number of factors in our daily lives that complicate our rest. The vast majority of runners organize their life between training, family, work and most of the time they lack time to complete all daily tasks.
That's why the most frequent resource is reduced sleep, which greatly affects our performance as runners.
We should always try:
1- Respect 8 hours of sleep at night.
2- Go to bed from 22:00 and before 23:30.
3- Take a nap to get more hours of rest.
4- Avoid drinking stimulating drinks after 16:00.
5- Avoid contact with screens before going to bed.
6- Eat light and nutritious dinners.
To highlight the importance of sleep in training and competitions, we have the example of the best ultra-distance runners in the world. Eritreans and Ethiopians sleep an average of 14 hours a day, split between night and siesta, while the average European runner sleeps between 6 and 7 hours.
The difference is gigantic.
The solution? Improve your schedule or, in extreme cases, adapt your Circadian rhythm to your lifestyle. Our body will adapt as long as we are regular with our new schedule.