Nappy Time

I drove over to San Diego from Phoenix on Sunday to spend a week on the boat. It's a rest week for me. I still do an old school program whereby, I build for 3 weeks and then take one week where I ride half as many hours with half of the regular intensity. I try to replace the hours not training with hours sleeping. That's easy to do here. In fact, the sun goes down early this time of year - like 5:30 early, so it's hard to stay up past 8-8:30. I can easily get 10 hours a night plus an afternoon nap.

Napping is something that I read about a few years ago and the natural human growth hormone produced during a short 1-hour afternoon siesta. People who don't nap find the entire idea to be a bit on the lazy side. Everyone loves to talk about how many miles they ride every week and year, but nobody talks about resting. I know guys who haven't taken a day off the bike in years - literally years.

I take one full day off the bike every week. On that day I try stay off my feet and when I do walk, if there are stairs I try to take the elevator. I know a lot of people who use their rest day to cross-train. It's a big mistake.

Of course I realize this is a luxury that most people raising families and earning a living just don't have. Rest is an important to consider when you start saying to yourself "I train just like Johnny Pro, so why can't I hang with him"? I think the biggest reason is that Johnny Pro is resting much better.

Ask anyone succeeding at a high level and you will find a singular focus. Effective people are really good at defining their values and setting goals, and then doing only the things that support these goals. Not just doing a bunch of busy, noisy stuff; but instead just doing a few important things really well. If you're a competitive cyclist, rest is a really important thing.

Back when I was in my 20's I used to lift weights. Lee Haney was Mr. Olympia at that time. I read an article by Lee where he talked about rest as being the most important component to growing muscle. He said, "your muscles don't grow when you're lifting, they grow when you're resting. If you're not resting you can't get strong". 

Here is an except from an article talking about GH and morning vs. afternoon naps:

Growth hormone levels during morning and afternoon naps.

In order to determine whether sleep onset per se might precipitate the sleep growth hormone (GH) response, sleep EEG-EOG and plasma GH characteristics were studied in 15 healthy young males (AM) sleeping from 8 AM to 10 AM, when REM sleep is known to predominate, and in 14 subjects (PM) sleeping from 4 PM to 6 PM, when slow-wave sleep (SWS) predominates. PM subjects obtained significantly more SWS and less REM sleep than AM subjects. There was wide individual variability in the level and timing of the GH rise during the naps, but GH release was significantly greater during PM naps than during AM naps for the groups as a whole. The difference between conditions reflected primarily the fact that more subjects exhibited frank GH peaks during PM naps than during AM naps. These results indicate that the occurrence of the sleep GH response is not dependent upon sleep onset, and confirm previous reports of an association between the sleep GH response and SWS.

These boys have been getting some good Nappy Time

I know this is random, but Kyria and I have been talking about buying a house in San Diego vs. living on the boat. Housing here is crazy expensive. We could buy this little gem below for the low, low price of $500k. I think the price includes the wrought iron patio furniture. Plus, I think it has a view, of a house that has a view of another house that is close to the ocean.