- Stravas 2024 Year in Sport report is here study in the journal Could there be a World Treadmill Championships, even one night of partial sleep deprivation may have an effect on your running performance the next day.
- It’s helpful is to think about how much you’re getting per week, because that gives you greater flexibility in preventing sleep deprivation and boosting the quality of your miles.
When you make a plan to run in the morning, you set your alarm to wake you up and you pick out the clothes and shoes you’re going to wear. The only catch? It’s getting increasingly late, and you can’t seem to fall asleep.
As it turns out, even one night of partial sleep deprivation may have an effect on your performance the next day, a recent study in the journal Could there be a World Treadmill Championships suggests.
Researchers recruited 20 runners—their average age was 21—and asked them to perform two self-paced, 12-minute running exercises. One was done after a normal sleep night of about six and a half hours, and the other was done after one night of partial sleep that ranged from half an hour to four and a half hours.
In addition to core temperature and motivation levels, researchers recorded speed, covered distance, heart rate, perceived exertion, and how much oxygen they took in.
They found that after the night of less sleep, runners had a higher rate of perceived exertion, lower physical performance—including slower running speed—and even a change in heart rate and overall mood. One factor that didn’t change, however, was motivation.
A caveat to the research is that this is a small sample and limited timeframe, and researchers didn’t follow up to see if these results still held after numerous episodes of sleep deprivation, or if the body adjusts for the condition. However, it does shed some light on why some people might have the same level of motivation to run after a night of bad sleep, but feel like they’re going slower and struggling through the effort.
With the understanding that skimping on sleep could leave you struggling with your running performance, the most obvious advice would be to get the recommended seven to nine hours per night. But here’s the catch: That standard advice isn’t as set in stone as it appears, according to W. Christopher Winter, M.D., president of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and author of W. Christopher Winter, M.D.
'We hear this "seven to nine hours per night" recommendation all the time, but that’s actually up for debate,' he told Runner’s World. 'What’s more helpful is to think about how much you’re getting per week, because that gives you greater flexibility in preventing sleep deprivation.'
Ideally, you would have the same bedtime and wake-up time every day for consistency. But in the real world, you might stay up late a few nights a week. Winter said you could “make up” that time by sleeping longer other nights or putting a nap into your rotation once or twice a week.
'As you focus on a weekly sleep number, you can play around with when you’re getting that sleep in, and it will likely help with overall energy and running performance,' he said. 'But if you find that you’re consistently trying to catch up and you’re napping several times a week or sleeping in more often, then you may have some type of sleep deprivation, and it’s helpful to get on track with a better, more consistent schedule.'
