X: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead
For me to be able to fit in both morning and evening workouts, I know that I must sacrifice some sleep. That's part of my deal with the "tri devil" and I embraced that going in, with eyes wide open.
On those pre-dawn mornings that my eyes are heavy and my body sluggish, I break out an, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” mantra until I’m standing in the kitchen with a hot cup of home-brewed Starbucks in hand. If that doesn’t work and it’s a weights morning, I begin chanting, “Weights won’t wait! Weights won't wait!” On the rare days that even that doesn’t work, I start to think about guys like Peter Reid, Norman Stadler, Tim DeBoom, and Nina Kraft. They sure aren’t sleeping—they are out training, damn it! Perhaps that’s because they are in a different zone where it is later—possibly even six hours ahead if they are in Europe—but to me that point is moot.
To make it easier on my brain to wake up at such ungodly hours, I set my alarm clock exactly one hour and 20 minutes ahead. This means when it's showing 5:00 A.M., it’s really 3:50 A.M.: a neat trick that seems to fool me every time. Of course last week I overslept until 5:00 A.M. (real time, not alarm clock time) and I felt devastated. First I waste an entire morning and then what’s next: a day, a week, a month, a year? A life? It’s a slippery slope. - Racer X
On those pre-dawn mornings that my eyes are heavy and my body sluggish, I break out an, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” mantra until I’m standing in the kitchen with a hot cup of home-brewed Starbucks in hand. If that doesn’t work and it’s a weights morning, I begin chanting, “Weights won’t wait! Weights won't wait!” On the rare days that even that doesn’t work, I start to think about guys like Peter Reid, Norman Stadler, Tim DeBoom, and Nina Kraft. They sure aren’t sleeping—they are out training, damn it! Perhaps that’s because they are in a different zone where it is later—possibly even six hours ahead if they are in Europe—but to me that point is moot.
To make it easier on my brain to wake up at such ungodly hours, I set my alarm clock exactly one hour and 20 minutes ahead. This means when it's showing 5:00 A.M., it’s really 3:50 A.M.: a neat trick that seems to fool me every time. Of course last week I overslept until 5:00 A.M. (real time, not alarm clock time) and I felt devastated. First I waste an entire morning and then what’s next: a day, a week, a month, a year? A life? It’s a slippery slope. - Racer X
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