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Speaker 1: There's no sleeping. I think that's usually the first question

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Speaker 1: I get is do get to sleep during ultra and

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Speaker 1: durance running events? And I'm like, no, not. If you're

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Speaker 1: trying to finish within the time limit, you run through

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Speaker 1: the night. Eo Wang is a competitive runner currently training

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Speaker 1: to compete this fall in the JFK fifty mile Ultra Marathon.

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Speaker 1: The race route spans over a thousand feet in elevation

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Speaker 1: along a mountainous and rocky section of the Appalachian Trail

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Speaker 1: at Horseshoes along the Cno Canal Towpath before ending in

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Speaker 1: historic Williamsport on the border of Maryland and West Virginia.

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Speaker 1: You know the best way to warm up start running.

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Speaker 1: While the varied terrain of this course makes for an

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Speaker 1: intense and arduous race, fifty miles is not the longest

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Speaker 1: distance for an ultra marathon, nor is it the longest

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Speaker 1: race Eo has ever competed in. But running long distances

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Speaker 1: is just part of the training program. These ultra endurance

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Speaker 1: athletes have to think about the whole picture. When you're

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Speaker 1: pushing your body to the max, you've got to think

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Speaker 1: about physical endurance, mental strength, nutrition, and most importantly sleep

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Speaker 1: in order for EO and runners like her to keep

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Speaker 1: going mile after mile. Sleep must be a part of

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Speaker 1: a winning plan. It can be almost four miles. Let's

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Speaker 1: go all the way to the top of the hill

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Speaker 1: to our little single track, do and come back. I'm

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Speaker 1: on a hut O'Connor, and this is chasing Sleep and

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Speaker 1: I heart radio production and partnership with Mattress Firm. As

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Speaker 1: a best selling author and a health calumnist with a

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Speaker 1: background in psychology, I've spent a lot of my time

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Speaker 1: studying and writing about sleep. Sleep is so essential to

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Speaker 1: our overall health, but often it's something we overlook and

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Speaker 1: it's the first thing we tend to neglect. In each

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Speaker 1: apios zode, we'll meet people living and working in extraordinary circumstances.

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Speaker 1: I want to learn how they rest and recharge their

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Speaker 1: bodies and minds to perform at their best, whether it's

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Speaker 1: an ultra marathon or training for their next one miles,

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Speaker 1: or an astronaut floating in space. Together, will explore the

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Speaker 1: unique challenges they encounter and uncover the universal secrets to

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Speaker 1: a RESTful night of sleep, no matter the environment or

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Speaker 1: occupational hazards. Today we'll look at the roles sleep plays

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Speaker 1: and training for intense and durance competitions, and the symbiotic

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Speaker 1: relationship between sleep and physical fitness. Plus we'll discover which

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Speaker 1: is more important an early morning workout or an extra

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Speaker 1: hour of sleep. My name is io Wan. I'm a

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Speaker 1: professional trail and ultra runner, and I'm also a teacher

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Speaker 1: throughout the summer. Eos starts the day with a cup

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Speaker 1: of coffee and then heads out to the trails for

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Speaker 1: a run. And she's not the only one. According to

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Speaker 1: a report from the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, about

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Speaker 1: fifty million Americans take part in running or jogging. After

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Speaker 1: competing in both the and Olympic marathon trials, Eo now

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Speaker 1: has her sights on becoming one of the top ten

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Speaker 1: women in a globally recognized ultra marathon. She has already

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Speaker 1: won the Lake Sonoma fifty mile race in and seen.

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Speaker 1: But people aren't born ultra marathons, and she wasn't even

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Speaker 1: always a runner. It took her some time to find

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Speaker 1: her rhythm in the sport. I started running when I

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Speaker 1: went to college at Might and I spectated my first

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Speaker 1: Boston Marathon as a freshman. I got so inspired by

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Speaker 1: what I was seeing happening in front of me. I

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Speaker 1: was not a runner at the time. I did not

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Speaker 1: think of myself as being athletic in any way, so

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Speaker 1: it was kind of a personal quest and challenge to

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Speaker 1: work on doing sports. And I kind of just got

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Speaker 1: hooked on the process of trying to run a bit

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Speaker 1: longer each day. And this idea that you know, working

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Speaker 1: towards a running goal means you have to be consistent

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Speaker 1: and train and develop fitness over time. So I remember

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Speaker 1: training for my first five k, and then once I

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Speaker 1: got the five k under my belt, moving to longer

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Speaker 1: and longer distances, eventually a half marathon and then a

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Speaker 1: full marathon, and I just kept going back for a

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Speaker 1: few years doing Boston, setting goals for myself of trying

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Speaker 1: to run a little bit faster each year. I ran

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Speaker 1: fast enough to qualify for the trials in and the marathon.

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Speaker 1: I've run a lot of fifty ks, fifty milers, and

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Speaker 1: hundred milers since then. Wait, did you just say one

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Speaker 1: hundred miles? Um? Yeah, there's a one hundred mile race

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Speaker 1: called the Western States hundred Miler, which claims to be

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Speaker 1: the oldest hundred miler around. Some people might dispute that

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Speaker 1: but I think officially on record, it is the oldest

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Speaker 1: organized hundred miler. It's a race that starts in Squaw

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Speaker 1: and ends in Auburn, California, and it just attracts a

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Speaker 1: very competitive field each year and has worked its way

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Speaker 1: to being one of the Marquis ultra endurance running events.

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Speaker 1: Her average finished time for one hundred mile race is

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Speaker 1: around twenty two hours, and she's running straight through that

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Speaker 1: entire time, no sleeping, just running for twenty two hours.

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Speaker 1: Think about your day yesterday and now imagine if you

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Speaker 1: were on your feet running almost every single minute of it.

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Speaker 1: If you're wondering how it's even humanly possible to do this,

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Speaker 1: trust me, I'm right there with you. So how exactly

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Speaker 1: do you manage to keep going and stay awake through

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Speaker 1: it all? Yeah? So the human body is a remarkable thing.

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Speaker 1: You know. Think about the times when you've had to

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Speaker 1: stay up really late if it's really important or really exciting,

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Speaker 1: or like, you know, you're stuck at a layover on

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Speaker 1: an airport, and you amaze yourself by how many hours

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Speaker 1: you can stay up without going to sleep. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of the same thing because you're running on like so

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Speaker 1: much adrenaline and like crazy stress hormones and like this

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Speaker 1: fight or flight response, and that carries you through for

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Speaker 1: a remarkably long time, for very long events. Right afterwards,

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Speaker 1: there is a point at which you tend to crash.

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Speaker 1: I would say it takes me a solid forty eight

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Speaker 1: hours to come down and like crash, and it's really

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Speaker 1: day two through seven after the race is when I

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Speaker 1: can't move. I'm just gonna lay in bed all day

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Speaker 1: or I want to Anyway. As someone who loves to

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Speaker 1: dig into the science and research of how our bodies work,

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Speaker 1: EO's training plan and her approach to sleep got me

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Speaker 1: thinking what role does sleep actually play on our physical

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Speaker 1: performance and how can we use sleep as a training

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Speaker 1: tool for strength and endurance competitions. I decided to call

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Speaker 1: up neurophysiologists and brain coach to elite athletes Louisa Nicola.

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Speaker 1: Not only is Louisa an expert on sleep as it

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Speaker 1: relates to athletic performance, but she was also once a

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Speaker 1: try athlete who competed at some of the highest levels. Hi,

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Speaker 1: I'm Louis and Nicola. I'm a ner, a physiologist and

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Speaker 1: brain coach to elite performance. I raised for Australia, I

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Speaker 1: qualified for Beijing and London, and I also went to

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Speaker 1: med school and I became obsessed with human brain and

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Speaker 1: I realized that during my training my coach ever spoke

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Speaker 1: to me about sleep. In fact, he was really against sleep.

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Speaker 1: He basically said, you should be training and you sleep

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Speaker 1: when you're dead. And I think a lot of people

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Speaker 1: were thinking that. And this was going back, you know before,

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Speaker 1: which is when I retired from triathlon, and I always

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Speaker 1: felt as though there had to be more to human performance.

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Speaker 1: There had to be more to performance on the field

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Speaker 1: and athletic performance than just training, training the body and

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Speaker 1: training the tactics and technical side. There had to be more,

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Speaker 1: and that's when I became obsessed with understanding human physiology.

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Speaker 1: She founded her company neuro Athletics and dedicated herself to

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Speaker 1: combining the science of neurology with athletic performance. Louisa knows

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Speaker 1: all about the importance of sleep for elite athletes like EO,

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Speaker 1: and explains that sleep will shift and change depending on

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Speaker 1: where someone is in her training. According to her, there

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Speaker 1: will be training periods where as much as twelve hours

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Speaker 1: of sleep is completely normal, so sleep should change throughout

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Speaker 1: your training schedule. So when we look at periodization again,

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Speaker 1: you're you've got a block of where you're just doing

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Speaker 1: a lot of build work, which is you're just building

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Speaker 1: on endurance and you're doing a lot and a lot

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Speaker 1: of long distance and hard hard work. This means that

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Speaker 1: the body, both the body and the brain needs a

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Speaker 1: lot more time to recuperate and regenerate, so sleeping. If

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Speaker 1: I knew this back then we'd need to adjust our

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Speaker 1: sleep schedules to be sleeping if we can a bit longer, okay,

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Speaker 1: Whereas if we are doing short bouts of intense work,

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Speaker 1: our sleep may not have to be as long. If

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Speaker 1: you think of Roger Federer or Lebron James, they are

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Speaker 1: both renowned for sleeping twelve hours a night. But when

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Speaker 1: you couple this with the amount of training that they do,

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Speaker 1: it makes sense that they're sleeping because they're working out

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Speaker 1: in you where from four to five hours a day,

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Speaker 1: so it makes sense. However, they don't sleep twelve hours

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Speaker 1: a night during their competition phases because they're not training,

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Speaker 1: they're just competing. So basically, the general rule is the

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Speaker 1: more activity exerted during the day, the longer and better

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Speaker 1: quality the sleep needs to be. So if a professional

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Speaker 1: basketball player is sleeping twelve hours a night, training for

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Speaker 1: four to five hours a day and that's their full

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Speaker 1: time job, what does training and recovery look like for

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Speaker 1: EO who's competing to run fifty plus miles and working

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Speaker 1: as an elementary school teacher during the day. I think

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Speaker 1: most of my running is constrained by work hours. Currently,

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Speaker 1: my ideal schedule would be sleep in until like seven

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Speaker 1: and then wake up, have coffee, rollout for run around

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Speaker 1: eight thirty and nine, be done around brunch time, have

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Speaker 1: an afternoon nap, maybe do an evening walk for like

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Speaker 1: active recovery or a double session. That's the dream of

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Speaker 1: like the absolute pro runner lifestyle. But during the school year,

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Speaker 1: I have to be at school at eight am, which

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Speaker 1: makes morning runs challenging, and that means I have to

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Speaker 1: get up at five am and get out running by

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Speaker 1: six am, be done by seven seven thirty, and then

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Speaker 1: get to school. I just become completely wiped out by

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Speaker 1: like ten am, and you're like, there's still four more

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Speaker 1: hours of school. So these days I tend to be

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Speaker 1: a little bit gentler on myself as far as when

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Speaker 1: I fit the run in. I know always that like

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Speaker 1: if I try to get up in the morning and

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Speaker 1: do it, I might be able to run a little

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Speaker 1: bit faster or get a bit more quality run in

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Speaker 1: the morning, but that means I am sacrificing my sleep,

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Speaker 1: because no matter how hard you try, it's really hard

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Speaker 1: to like go to bed at nine so you can

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Speaker 1: get up at five. I think what's key to preparing

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Speaker 1: for an ultra is this idea of training specific systems,

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Speaker 1: kind of a time on feet approach, where you go

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Speaker 1: into some of your long runs already tired from the

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Speaker 1: week of training that you did. I like to have

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Speaker 1: at least a couple of weekends where I am running

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Speaker 1: at least three hours Saturday and Sunday back to back,

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Speaker 1: and one of those might actually have faster efforts, harder

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Speaker 1: efforts in there, so that you get used to running

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Speaker 1: hard when you're tired. And it's kind of about fatigue

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Speaker 1: management because there's a lot of things that you can

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Speaker 1: get away with when you're running and racing for two

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Speaker 1: and a half to three hours versus like four to

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Speaker 1: seven hours. So EO very strategically spends about two to

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Speaker 1: three hours a day training and working to mimic the

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Speaker 1: fatigue she experience. This isn't a race, and we know

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Speaker 1: some of her races keep her awake for at least

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours, but what does she think about sleep

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Speaker 1: during training periods? It's essential in order to not get

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Speaker 1: injured and not burn out. Sleep is a great indicator

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Speaker 1: of your like overall well being, and also usually one

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Speaker 1: of the first signs of overtraining is a noticeable decline

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Speaker 1: in sleep quality and quantity. So you fall into this

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Speaker 1: vicious cycle where you are fatigued, but your body is

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Speaker 1: so hyped up on the stress hormones that you can't

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Speaker 1: actually get enough sleep. And so one of the early

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Speaker 1: signs that we need to be careful of is like,

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Speaker 1: if we notice that we're consistently sleeping poorly, it's definitely

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Speaker 1: a sign that we're on the road to getting overtrained,

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Speaker 1: which is this chronic state of lack of recovery for

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Speaker 1: hardest weeks of training. A lot of times we as

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Speaker 1: athletes want to know, like what's the secret to performance?

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Speaker 1: And a lot of times the answers just get more

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Speaker 1: rest and get more recovery, Like nine of your gains

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Speaker 1: can be made if you just sleep more, we know

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Speaker 1: that sleep plays a major role in keeping our bodies

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Speaker 1: What can it help us run faster or further As

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Speaker 1: a your a physiologist, we had to go in and

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Speaker 1: do a lot of sleep studies. So we'd go into

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Speaker 1: a lab and with assesssipation maybe if they're having any

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Speaker 1: type of sleep disturbances. So it gives you a real

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Speaker 1: life picture of what sleep is. And it's very much

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Speaker 1: comprised of more than just putting your head on appeal

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Speaker 1: and waking up eight hours later if you're lucky. It's

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Speaker 1: very intricate and it houses a lot of physiology. So

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Speaker 1: we have four stages of sleep, and each stage is

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Speaker 1: very important. We've really got two main stages, which is

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Speaker 1: ram sleep and non rem sleep. But when we have

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Speaker 1: at this non rem sleep stage, we have light sleep

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Speaker 1: stages three and four, so it happens towards the end

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Speaker 1: of the night. This deep sleep stage is really responsible

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Speaker 1: muscle tissue. Muscle protein synthesis happens during the stage, so

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Speaker 1: we get a more well rounded recovery. We see a

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Speaker 1: lot of players during the NBA playoffs, for example, not

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Speaker 1: being able to recover and a lot of them getting

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Speaker 1: sick because they have been deprived of sleep. When it

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Speaker 1: if they've slept six hours compared to eight hours, they're

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Speaker 1: shooting accuracy is down by at least thirty and that

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Speaker 1: is huge because every single point matters. So if you're

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Speaker 1: taking a marathon runner, for example, you have deprived them

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Speaker 1: gonna be more fatigued, and in fact, their rate of

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Speaker 1: perceived exertion is not going to be as high. There

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Speaker 1: was one wonderful study that was done actually on sleep

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Speaker 1: deprivation and endurance athletes. Show that the first thing that

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Speaker 1: happens is their ability to keep pushing is dampened. So

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Speaker 1: if they can usually run ten miles, let's just say

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Speaker 1: at ease if they've deprived themselves of sleep, they're probably

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Speaker 1: going to get to maybe the six or seven miles

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Speaker 1: and their mind is going to start playing games and

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Speaker 1: start saying, oh my, and I'm tired, I'm fatigued. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to go that far. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: go that far, just stopped, just go a bit slower.

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Speaker 1: And it's those mind games. And so that's incredibly important too.

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Speaker 1: And I realized that, Wow, if I only optimized my

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Speaker 1: when I was training over thirty hours a week, and

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Speaker 1: if I had understood this, understood the science behind sleep,

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Speaker 1: then I probably would have been a better athlete. I

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Speaker 1: probably my last race, I came thirteenth, and I think

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Speaker 1: that if I knew what I knew back then like

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Speaker 1: what I know today, then maybe I would have come

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Speaker 1: on a podium, finished top three. We'll be right back

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Speaker 1: after a brief message from our partners at Mattress Firm,

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Speaker 1: and now back to chasing sleep. Now. I'm certainly no

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Speaker 1: elite runner, but I've albled in some five ks and

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Speaker 1: one or two ten ks too, and I generally try

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Speaker 1: to keep up an exercise routine. But learning about all

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Speaker 1: of the science that goes into sleep for training athletes

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Speaker 1: has me thinking a lot about my own workouts and

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Speaker 1: sleep habits. Sleep matters to our performance physically in a

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Speaker 1: race or at the gym, It's undeniable, But is that

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Speaker 1: the end of the relationship between sleep and athletic prowess?

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Speaker 1: In addition to all of this, is it possible that

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Speaker 1: I'm also sleeping better because I'm keeping up a regular

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Speaker 1: exercise routine too. We've all got this one thing humans

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Speaker 1: in common has called our human nervous system. Okay, it's

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Speaker 1: comprised of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system.

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Speaker 1: And what happens is we want to be in both

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Speaker 1: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, and

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Speaker 1: training and exercising and physical activity is going to be

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Speaker 1: good for cardiovascular health, and it's going to be good

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Speaker 1: for overall sleep quality. If we're not training, it's definitely

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Speaker 1: not going to be good for the amount of hours

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Speaker 1: that we sleep at night. And there's also something called

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Speaker 1: sleep pressure that builds up during the day, and this

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Speaker 1: happens with me. I find that if I haven't exerted

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Speaker 1: the amount of energy, or I haven't gone out and

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Speaker 1: gotten sunlight. I find it hard to fall asleep that night.

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Speaker 1: I'm tossing, turning. It's like I haven't gotten rid of

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Speaker 1: a lot of the energy that I've got accumulated. So

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Speaker 1: physical activity during the day of any time is very

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Speaker 1: beneficial for sleep quality. Louisa says. We should also think

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Speaker 1: about the time of day you're working out so that

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Speaker 1: we can make the most of our sleep and avoid

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Speaker 1: interrupting our hormonal rhythms. The best time for training is

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Speaker 1: the furthest away from sleep as you can get. So

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Speaker 1: when we are training, when we wake up, we've got

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Speaker 1: this surge of cortisol, okay, and you really want to

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Speaker 1: go out and you want to do things. And that's

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Speaker 1: honestly the best time to train. Whether you're eating beforehand

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Speaker 1: or aftertown, I'm not talking about that, but the best

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Speaker 1: time to train is at least six hours away from sleep,

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Speaker 1: because what happens if you do train close to sleep,

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Speaker 1: You're going to have this increasing cortisol and as free

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Speaker 1: cortisol just roaming through your body. This happens for the

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Speaker 1: next two hours after exercise as well, and cortisol doesn't

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Speaker 1: help you sleep, it competes with the sleepiness hormones. So

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Speaker 1: this is going to prevent you from kind of relaxing

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Speaker 1: and settling your mind down and settling your body down

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Speaker 1: to get into sleep. So the best time to train

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Speaker 1: for sleep quality would be in the morning or mid morning.

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Speaker 1: And if you find yourself wavering between an extra hour

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Speaker 1: or so of sleep or getting up to hit the

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Speaker 1: trail or the gym some mornings, Louisa says, our heart

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Speaker 1: rate variability or HRV can be an important guide in

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Speaker 1: determining what our bodies need and what they're ready to

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Speaker 1: handle at any moment. Should you sacrifice sleep and train

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Speaker 1: or should you sacrifice training and sleep? And a really

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Speaker 1: good predictor of this is heart rate variability. Almost everybody

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Speaker 1: now who is training has access to a wearable and

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Speaker 1: wearable data, and if you look on this wearable data,

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Speaker 1: it comes up with this measurement every day and it's

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Speaker 1: called a heart rate variability. Oftentimes, we can wake up

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Speaker 1: every morning and we can feel a bit lethargic, okay,

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Speaker 1: and we may not feel good, and you look at

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Speaker 1: your HRV and maybe it's if it's usually at let's

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Speaker 1: just say for argument's sake, you peak at a hundred

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Speaker 1: every day, but you woke up today and it was fifty.

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Speaker 1: That would mean that your body isn't well rested and

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Speaker 1: your recovery index isn't that high. Therefore, the best thing

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Speaker 1: for you to do in terms of long term athletic

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Speaker 1: performance and in terms of overall health, the best thing

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Speaker 1: for you to do that day would it be to

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Speaker 1: go really easy and capitalize on sleep. Whereas if you

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Speaker 1: wake up and your HRV let's just say it's at

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Speaker 1: a hundred, or maybe it's at a hundred and ten,

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Speaker 1: and usually your baseline is a hundred, then you have

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Speaker 1: room to go through and do a bit of extra

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Speaker 1: hard work that day. And HRV is a really great

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Speaker 1: predictor of overall performance recovery. So that's how I would

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Speaker 1: judge them. So, if you are going out and you

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Speaker 1: really want to learn about your body, you really want

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Speaker 1: to learn about your own metrics and your own data,

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Speaker 1: the best thing to do would be to have a

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Speaker 1: look at your hr B and you know, predict it

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Speaker 1: that way. I think before the race, it's important to

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Speaker 1: not obsess about the night before, because it's really about

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Speaker 1: your two to three nights before the night before. Because

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Speaker 1: you know, we talked earlier about your body can go

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Speaker 1: for twenty four hours straight with no problem. So think

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Speaker 1: about it as like, say your race is Saturday, your

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Speaker 1: Thursday night sleep is going to get you through even

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Speaker 1: if you can't sleep Friday night. And a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: myself included, tend to not be able to sleep that

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Speaker 1: well the night before because you're often doing your last

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Speaker 1: minute preparation. You're nervous, you're thinking about the morning, and

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Speaker 1: the more you think about sleep, the less you're able

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Speaker 1: to sleep. And you often have to get up early

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Speaker 1: to you know, get to the race and do all

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Speaker 1: your pre race stuff anyway, So it's really the two

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Speaker 1: to three days before the night before the race that

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Speaker 1: are key. Eo has spent the last several years fine

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Speaker 1: tuning the way she runs and sleeps to maximize what

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Speaker 1: her body and mind can accomplish on race day, whether

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Speaker 1: it's a cup of coffee in the morning or sleep

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Speaker 1: cash that night. Eo says that consistency is key for

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Speaker 1: any level of running or fitness routine, even if you're

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Speaker 1: just getting started. I think my best piece of advice,

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Speaker 1: which just be two be consistent and establish a routine.

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Speaker 1: It's not about doing as much as you can all

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Speaker 1: at once, right at the start, because you will, you know,

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Speaker 1: burn out. I think it's about doing something every day

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Speaker 1: and sticking to that routine and also making sure that

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Speaker 1: you don't sacrifice things like recovery, nutrition, and sleep. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of people who start a fitness journey

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Speaker 1: and they're like, Oh, I'm going to go to the

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Speaker 1: gym every day at five am in the morning before work. Like,

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Speaker 1: that's great if you're also able to get enough sleep

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Speaker 1: to like support that kind of schedule. If it's going

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Speaker 1: to be detrimental to you getting your sleep and you're

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Speaker 1: going to be drinking ten cups of coffee every day,

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Speaker 1: like maybe kind of rethink where that can fit in

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Speaker 1: your day, or maybe slides in later in the day,

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Speaker 1: maybe it slides in the middle of the day. Sleep

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Speaker 1: is really import that's all for this episode. Don't forget

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Speaker 1: to join me again next week when we learn about

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Speaker 1: how a journalist chases and finds healthy sleep through breaking

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Speaker 1: news and the tight headlines at the news cycle. Now

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Speaker 1: you're trying to unplug from showtime mode and you're trying

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Speaker 1: to tell your body work time is over and now

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Speaker 1: it's time to relax and unwind and go to sleep,

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Speaker 1: and your body is still in go mode. We want

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Speaker 1: to hear from you. Leave a rating or review for

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Speaker 1: our show on your podcast player of choice. You can

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Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at on a O'Connor. Until next time,

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Speaker 1: hoping you're living your best while sleeping your best. Chasing

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Speaker 1: Sleep is a production of I Heart Radio in partnership

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Speaker 1: with Mattress Firm. Our executive producer is Molly Sosha, our

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Speaker 1: EP of post is Matt Stillo, our producer is Sierra Kaiser,

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Speaker 1: and this show is hosted by an a Hot O'Connor