Every couple of months, and more often during the OutSeason, Coach Patrick, Coach Rich, and Race Director Brenda issue a challenge to Team members to keep them on their toes and beat any ruts people inevitably fall into. On January 1,2014 Endurance Nation issued a challenge to Team members: get more sleep. Proper sleep has been shown to be the biggest single performance enhancing resource that an endurance athlete can integrate into training.
The terms of the challenge were simple:
- Record your daily sleep hours in the Challenge Spreadsheet; and
- Report your progress in the Sleep Challenge Forum in the Member website.
Of the 32 folks who started, 21 completed the challenge. Congratulations to the Team EN members who finished the January Sleep Challenge:
- Mariah B,
- Joe M,
- Jeff L,
- Beth H,
- Ralf M,
- Bill V,
- Stark,
- Paula N,
- Kim D,
- Rob S,
- Jenniferlyn K,
- John W,
- Noami G,
- Edwin C,
- Bryan R,
- Steve M,
- Dawn P,
- Antonia N,
- Ed S,
- Al T
- Leslie K
Of course, it wouldn’t be a true challenge if we didn’t walk away with some knowledge. Here are some of the lessons Team Endurance Nation members learned:
“This challenge has been really great for getting me to realise that I really wasn’t getting enough sleep. But now that I am more aware, I’ve been working to develop strategies that really seem to help, and I’m getting more consistent nights of 7-8 hours of sleep. I feel so much better!”
“I learned that with focus I can get in the proper amount of sleep. But I still have a long ways to go to make it quality sleep. Now off to experiment to get the ‘quality’ part right.”
“It is very clear – I need to get more sleep!! No wonder I feel tired most days! Time to break some old habits, and develop new ones.”
Stay tuned for our next challenge….and maybe you’ll join us next time!
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