Sweet Dreams: Running on Empty

The upside of the downslide: third anniversary edition

Ruminations: April 2019

I suffered countless restless nights in which accrued sleep time averaged six hours and some seconds. That figure comprised numerous segments of variable length, many of which were measured in mere minutes.

Happily, for about six weeks now, my nightly total has been close on the heels of the elusive eight — despite the continual interruptions occasioned by my feline bunkmate marching to-and-fro my face. (I’ve excluded from the tally my other type of cat-napping — i.e., on-couch-conking-out — which persists in its efforts to recoup a sleep deficit thirty-plus years in the making.)

So … at long last, my sleep-deprived dream has come true. To live in the Land of Nod, to reside in its state of restorative rest — thanks to which at 62, I feel 35, and don’t look a day over 80.

I am of course delighted — though stumped. To what can I attribute the amazing improvement?

My mind has mulled itself over, mused upon the body as well. Diagnosis: depression, physical as well as mental. The mental component is no surprise, stemming as it does from the mysterious manifestation of the physical.

That is, my stamina inexplicably tanked in December, resulting in a dramatic decline in my performance as a competitive runner — which led to profound demoralization.

Depleted, I turned to sleep by way of consolation. After a month of nightly indulgence, my mood lifted as I came to accept, though unhappily, my likely irretrievable loss of speed.

The depression explains why I started to sleep well. But how to account for my continuing to sleep well?

I’ve pondered and came up with this: As the cloud of disappointment began to disperse, a glimmer of silver was revealed.

Going from Speedo to So-So has its compensations. My mind used to outpace my body — indeed, I would refer to my baseline mental state as being “racy.”

I was in a constant state of “run-mination.” I would segue seamlessly from obsessing over yesterday’s race performance to agonizing over next week’s performance. Not conducive to sleep!

Losing races by two minutes and then some to my erstwhile within-seconds close competitors was a nasty dose to choke down. Though I’ve found its aftertaste, oddly, less unpleasant than I’d have expected — a sweet side-effect of the bitter pill is the blessed release of pressure in my “racy” mind.

No more torturing myself trying to stay on top. I’ve fallen so far behind my former pack that these days I content myself with placing a less-distant second or third of four or five (in my sparsely populated age division) than I did the prior week. As to next week’s race … ?

I admit, I still do wonder as ever: What will I pace? Where will I place?

Guess I’ll just have to I’ll sleep on it.

Postmortem: April 28, 2019

My “record-setting” 8:46 pace in today’s race stole the slowpoke-of-the-season prize from my erstwhile worst of December 17th. Just as I’ve fallen yet further behind the champs of my cohort, so have my “racy” days been left in the dust, the pathetic shreds of performance pressure having fled with the fleet feet of the front-runners.

The resurgence of despair occasioned by the relentless devolution in my performance is mercifully ameliorated by relief on the pressure front. The double upshot of which — increased depression/decreased anxiety — is that I’m now sleeping better than ever.

Epilogue: April 28, 2022

Three years on—having grown inexorably slower and long resigned from competition — I can only dream of running as fast as I did on this date in 2019. Sweet dreams indeed.

Running terms

pace: time it takes to run a mile, expressed in minutes:seconds (e.g., 8:46) place: rank in a division, e.g., 5th place in females age 60–69.