Panic!

Those of you who know me, know that I LOVE SLEEP! I have always been a goal setter and one of my goals is to consistently get 8-9 hours of sleep a night...throw in one or two 7 hour nights a week and it gets scary. I've always been this way, in bed by 9:30 ever since high school (can we say "I know how to have a good time!"). I swear I'm not a complete loser, but pretty darn close. Throw in IM training and my schedule gets tight trying to maintain this level of sleep priority (there are plenty of nights where bedtime comes around 8:30). So last night, when I got in my car at 10:00 to go home I flew into a mild panic.

I went to watch the World Tour of the Banff Film Festival, where they are show casing some of the movies that made it to the 2009 Banff (as in Canada) Film Festival. They were amazing films that were all tied together by a "mountain theme" with amazing athletes climbing, skiing, jumping and what not. They truly inspired me to go and try even more crazy things that I already have on my list of "to do's" (Kilimanjaro in 2010!).

Anyway, I was on this high when I got in my car and noticed, ahhhh, it's 10:00! I drove home as fast as I could only to realize that I hadn't packed my bag for swim/work yet and that I still needed to wash my face, check to be sure there aren't any more surprise grey hairs and apply a thorough amount zit cream (thank you sweating 3-4 hours a day). Whew, 10:30, done, in bed...now SLEEP! Then my brain started running...does this happen to you?..."only 5.5 hours of sleep, you are going to be exhausted tomorrow, you need to swim and then go to work and then bike...you have to get up again early on Wednesday and do another bike and then another swim after work...you then have to get up early on Thursday and meet your coach for mile repeats on the track...you then have to get up early on Friday for swim again...you are going to die of exhaustion from this one fatal night of only 5.5 hours, why did you stay out 'til 10 on a MONDAY...ahhhh" I know, I know, PSYCHO! Then of course I can't sleep because I start thinking about all I have to do and it's just a downward spiral from there...the madness.

We had an awesome swim this morning, logged 3900 yards, and I felt great...still do. Check back in around 3:00 and I may have a different story...I will most likely be on my way to Starbucks.

Hopefully you won't find me like this come Friday...I'm sure it's bound to happen at some point during all this training!