A sleep plan for your race week, night by night

You have been training for weeks, you have your race number, your shoes are tested and your fuelling is rehearsed. And your sleep? It is usually the last thing to be planned and the first thing nerves ruin. A scientific review of ultra-endurance athletes sets out some very specific strategies, and we have used them to build a plan for your race week, whether it is the Behobia, an autumn marathon or that sportive that is keeping you up at night (literally).

What the science says (and about whom)

The review, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, analysed 16 studies with data from 1,389 ultra-endurance athletes: ultramarathon runners, cyclists, triathletes and cross-country skiers. Physically, better performance was associated with having slept more the night before the event. Cognitively, meaning attention and reaction time, it was associated with good sleep quality before competing and with naps during the race.

The authors themselves urge caution: the relationship between sleep and performance does not seem to be linear, it depends on the context of each event and the studies have their limitations. And we should be honest about something else: hardly anyone reading this is about to run 168 kilometres starting from Chamonix. But the underlying idea, reaching the start line without a sleep debt, works just as well for a 10K as for a marathon.

The key: arrive in credit

The strategy that comes up most often is sleep extension: sleeping more than usual in the days beforehand so you arrive with something in reserve. The review presents it as a viable way to reduce sleep debt and reports benefits for physical performance. It also picks up an important warning from earlier research: when you build up a lack of sleep, mental performance does not fully recover even after more than a week of extra sleep, and the classic “I’ll catch up at the weekend” falls short.

That is why this plan does not start the night before, but a week earlier. After all, sleeping well is the invisible training that pays off most, and in race week even more so.

Days −7 to −4: fix your alarm and bring bedtime forward

Choose a wake-up time and stick to it every day, weekends included. From there, bring your bedtime forward by 30 to 60 minutes compared with usual. That figure does not come from the review: it is our practical way of applying sleep extension without fighting your diary. It helps that your training is already tapering this week: less load and a bit more time.

Days −3 and −2: protect your reserve

These are the nights when the week is most likely to go off the rails: dinner with friends, travelling to the race city, collecting your race number. Try to keep them as close as possible to the previous ones. If you are sleeping away from home, take what helps you at home: earplugs, an eye mask and, if it fits in the suitcase, your pillow.

Day −1: the night before, no drama

Get everything ready in the afternoon: number pinned on, kit chosen, breakfast planned and a double alarm set. What you no longer have to remember will not keep you awake. Eat dinner early and stick to something familiar. And accept in advance that you might sleep worse, because nerves do that to a lot of people: that is exactly why you have been building up reserves on the previous nights.

If you cannot get to sleep, do not check the clock every ten minutes or start counting how many hours you have left. Get up, read something calm in dim light and go back to bed when you feel sleepy. And if the night turns out patchy, do not beat yourself up: being hard on yourself does not make you stronger, and you arrive with a whole week of rest behind you.

The nap: your wild card

In the study of the 168 km race, a nap of 15 to 20 minutes at an aid station improved runners’ reaction times. And another earlier review, cited in the paper, identified napping as the sleep intervention with the greatest effect on cognitive performance. For your race week, a short nap after lunch can make up for a night that was shorter than it should have been, as long as it does not steal your sleep the following night.

If your event lasts many hours

In events lasting many hours or several days, things change. In several of the studies reviewed, those who slept less during the competition finished sooner, while greater sleepiness during the race was associated with slower times. It is a delicate balance, best left to specialists: if you are taking on something like that, sleep during the event deserves its own plan.

Day +1: sleep is recovery too

You have crossed the line, you have celebrated and even your eyelashes ache. The review recommends monitoring how much and how well you sleep in the recovery period too, so on the night after, get to bed early. You have earned it.