How To Sleep Before a Race, According to Experts

“That’s always a tricky thing,” Bates tells Runner’s World. “My go-to to get myself to sleep is one to two glasses of wine the night before a race.”

Sacrilege, right? But Bates says the wine chills her out and helps her fall asleep faster.

“Now, falling asleep is one thing and staying asleep is another,” Bates says. She suffers from the same tick that afflicts many runners who are worried about missing their alarms: She wakes up every half an hour to check the time and make sure she hasn’t overslept. Bates’ boyfriend was charged with ensuring she wouldn’t miss her alarm, she says. She only woke up every hour and a half.

“I got some pretty good sleep, but probably only like four hours total,” Bates says.

Good sleep is generally defined as when you fall asleep quickly, don’t wake up in the middle of the night, don’t wake up prematurely, and feel refreshed in the am, according to the National Institutes of Health. And studies have found that drinking a large amount of alcohol before bed affects your sleep later in the night.

The best way to battle these potential barriers to good sleep is to start your pre-race sleep plan multiple days in advance of getting to the starting line, says Dr Andrea Matsumura, a sleep medicine physician tells Runner’s World. “I tell [my patients with chronic insomnia that] the brain is just another organ, just another muscle in your body, and you have to train it just like all the other muscles you’ve trained.”

While your insomnia may not be chronic, it’s a good idea to have a plan to help yourself deal with anything that might interrupt your sleep the night before a race. The good news is that, as a runner, you already know it’s possible to train your body as long as you put in the effort. The same goes for your brain. “It takes time to train the brain, just like it takes time to train your body to do anything,” Matsumura says.

In other words, don’t consider pre-race sleep a one-night issue. Instead, learn to address falling and staying asleep as an ongoing act of self-care. Just like brushing your teeth or showering, sleep is a nightly ritual that pays off in the long run, not just in the morning.

4 Easy Steps to a Solid Pre-Race Sleep Routine

1. Create a Bedtime Routine

Matsumura says the best thing to do is develop a solid bedtime routine, which she calls “sleep hygiene.” That means a regular set of steps you do leading up to bedtime that signal to your body and mind that it’s time to sleep.

“Use it a few weeks before the race, so that you’ve got this routine set up,” she says. “That way, the night before the race, you already know you’re going to be nervous, and you use this relaxation technique that your body is now attuned with to be able to reduce some of that anxiety.”

Some suggestions for a solid bedtime ritual: Shut off electronics at least an hour before bed and make sure your room is dark, quiet, and cool. This can involve blackout shades, eye masks, ear plugs or white noise machines.

Olympic runner, Kate Grace, says she has a specific guided meditation to listen to before bed—the same one she’s used for years. “It’s a bit of just an automatic response when I hear it,” Grace says. “I kind of just go into my zone.”

In fact, Matsumura suggests build relaxation exercises into your sleep training schedule, as Grace does. Apps such as Headspace and Calm feature sleep meditations, and if you listen to them regularly they will cue your body that sleep is imminent.

“They’re just mind tricks,” Matsumura adds. “The mind is so powerful, it sounds hokey, it sounds like that’ll never work, but any kind of habit can be developed and formed and change your brain’s chemistry to do what it wants.”

2. Adjust Your Sleep Schedule

If you have a specific time you want to wake up before a race that is earlier than your typical wake-up call, Matsumura says you can “bank” sleep by sleeping more for a few nights before a race. However, a more successful strategy is to slowly shift your schedule over a few weeks so that by the time the race comes around, you’ll sleep at the ideal race-night bedtime.

Here’s an example: If you usually go to bed at 11pm but want to go to bed at 9 p.m. before your race, then, starting a little over a week before the race, go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night until you get to that 9pm bedtime.

“It’s similar to when you’re flying across time zones and you’re trying to go on a vacation and you want to land fresh and not have to make that time adjustment,” Matsumura says. It’s better to do that adjustment over multiple days than to try to do it all in one night.

3. Be Selective with Sleep Aids

If you have trouble shifting your sleep schedule, Matsumura says you can take a small amount of a melatonin supplement six weeks to a month before your race. Take the supplement a few hours before bedtime, not right when you want to go to sleep.

Be aware, though, that a journal article in Frontiers in Physiology found that we don’t have enough research to truly assess sleep medications’ effects on athletic performance, and the available research suggests sleep aids can cause hangover affects that decrease alertness the next day.

Melotonin may be a different story: A small study in the International Journal of Sports Medicine found that 12 athletes who ingested 5 milligrams of melatonin before bed did not see decreased performance the next day.

Matsumura strongly recommends not using other sleep aids, though, like antihistamines or Ambien, because those can cause hangover effects that affect your running abilities and energy the next day.

4. Minimise the Drama Around Sleep

Top marathoner Erika Kemp says she also sticks to her normal bedtime of 10pm before a race. Her other pre-race sleep strategy? She cuts afternoon caffeine completely in the days before the race, which helps with getting to sleep and calming the nerves.

“I’ve found trying to force myself to go to bed early before a race is not helpful because it just adds unnecessary stress,” she says.

Finally, speaking confidently to yourself about sleep will work wonders. For example, Matsumura says, you can say to yourself: “I know I tend to wake up every hour, but I’m confident I’ll be able to wake up with my alarm.”

This is exactly what Kemp does; she reminds herself of all her training leading up to the race. “There’s no more fitness to be gained in the last few days before a race,” Kemp explains, “so being confident or at least at peace with where your fitness is at helps keep some of those pre-race nerves from keeping you up.”