SLEEP DEPRIVATION

Things went straight from bad to worse after our last entry.  Coming on the heels of the stomach bug, we all caught a cold and Kasper finally also got the diarrhea which compounded the sleep deprivation we already were experiencing -- especially for me.  Things got pretty desperate for a while, with the sleep deprivation becoming so profound on my part that I started to go to pieces.  On top of the last 4 months of sleep deprivation, a couple of weeks with most nights less than 5 hours sleep almost pushed me over the edge.  I would have happily thrown in the towel at that point, but apparently there isn’t a “QUIT” option on life.  I’m happy to say that things are better now.

Sleepy...?

PORTUGAL

On February 10 we traveled to Portugal for a week-long training camp with KOK.  The trip was a bit of a mixed bag.  It was nice to escape the snow for a little while, even though it wasn’t as warm as usual, and we enjoyed hanging out with our club-mates a bit.  The sand-dune terrain was fun, and the maps and course setting were very good as always.  It was also nice to live in a hotel have someone else taking care of the cooking and housework!  However, none of us slept very well and our colds persisted through the entire week especially for the boys.  Holger was able to carry out some semblance of normal training, while I trained very little... which worked out well, since someone had to take care of the kids.

PORTUGAL O MEETING

We had both been looking forward to participating in Portugal O meeting to test our current form.  We have attended Portugal O meeting the last 3 years and as always we enjoy the excellent organization, child care, map quality and course setting.  I wasn’t able to run all the races because of my cold while Holger ran hard only for the middle distance races on Sunday and Tuesday.  For Holger’s part the news was not too bad considering how the winter has gone so far.  He was 13th in the WRE, 2 minutes behind winner Thierry Gueorgiou.

Photo: POM organizers/Nuno Neves

For my own part the WRE featured a total of 6+ minutes of time loss, yikes! (including running the wrong way on the butterfly, DOH!) and split times showing that my physical shape is about as desperate as could be expected given the circumstances.  I’ll be honest and say I was hoping for better news but it is definitely better to know where you really stand than to go on believing that things are better than they are.  I’ve now confirmed that I have a lot of work to do in the next 6 months before WOC.

Photo: POM organizers/Jorge Dias

KASPER: TURNING THE CORNER?

On the plus side, Kasper seems to have gone through an important  transition during the week we were away, being able to stay awake and happy for much longer periods of time during the day without freaking out.  We actually got some comments about what a calm baby he is!  Granted, this is partly due to the fact that we choose to not to inflict our screaming kids on others if we can avoid it. 

In any case it is a significant change in our lives as it means that we can now actually leave him in the care of others without worrying too much about there being tears all round when we return.  We actually tried this today for the first time with great success, leaving Aksel and Kasper in the capable hands of Spicheren Child Care while we trained hill intervals on the treadmill.  Maybe a new life around the corner??