I am doing IMLP in July and feel fit and healthy. However, it will be my first IM and I am already dreading the night prior to the race. Does anyone have any tips on how to grab at least a few hours of sleep the night before? I really don’t want to be on the shore waiting for the horn to sound without any sleep. Help!
As long as you sleep well the 2-3 nights before, don’t worry too much. Most people toss and turn the night before and do just fine on race day.
I am sure I will be amped up. My great fear is getting to the run and just losing it because of lack of sleep. Thanks! I will sleep as much as possible the week of the race.
QR_girl hit the nail on the head – don’t worry too much about your sleep the night before. The other piece of advice that I would give you is to try to stay in bed and rest the night before the race, even if you’re not able to fall asleep. Sometimes just lying in bed and relaxing can be almost as restful as getting a good night’s sleep. As long as you’ve had adequate sleep in the days leading up to the race, you should be fine.
I did my first half-IM last year and got a grand total of 2 hours of sleep the night before. However, I felt fine on race day & had a great race.
Good luck.
Thanks!
I’ll third what QRGirl said (she’s so smart!). Worry more about getting good sleep on Friday night. And you may very well surprise yourself. The night before my first IM I slept from 9:00pm to 4:00am and needed the alarm to wake up! And especially if you’ve done all your homework (training), you might actually find yourself kind of calm. I know I did. Good luck!
Ask your doc for an Ambien, 10 mg…Get 8 hours…no goofy feeling in the am!
If you go the Ambien route, be sure to try it ahead of time. I take 1/2 a pill and I can sleep for 10 hours (and if I wake up at 8 hours I am groggy for a while, and then need a nap in the middle of the day). But I have a friend who takes a whole pill and sleeps for 6 hours and wakes up feeling 100% refreshed.
Get to bed REALLY early and read a book. The sooner you get laid, the sooner you will start to feel sleepy. The book is to get IM out of your mind and if you cant grab a few hours of sleep this way at least you are resting.
The sooner you get laid, the sooner you will start to feel sleepy.
But isn’t it rude just to roll over afterwards and go to sleep? 
LOL. Laid DOWN.
Ah!
I feel with you! I have always hard time to fall asleep the day before. I’m very serious with my training and spend all free time for triathlon. Which I always think of when I’m trying to sleep the day before 
That will say, I get stressed knowing I’m ruing everything since I cannot sleep which stress me up and make it even worse and then the wheel spins and I never fall asleep and get more and more frustrated as the night passes by and turns to morning. So fare I have however always done excellent races, so bad sleeping doesn’t seems to be the most important thing before a race, atleast if you spend the night in bed (sleeping or not doesn’t matter that big, atleast not as much as your previous training).
So now a days I take knownledge from that an think about all the good training I have done and quickly fall asleep as a little baby, especially when I think of how tired I have been after all my keysession 
So my advice is: feel comfortable with what you have achieved and don’t bother if you sleep or not the day before!
Hope that made some sense, english isn’t my mothertounge…
As others have stated, it’s not the night before you have to worry about , its the 2-3 nights prior.
If you can get a good night’s sleep the night before I think that’s all the better for you , but provided you’ve had sufficient sleep in the previous 2 or 3 nights , I wouldn’t really worry too much about it.
Personally , I usually sleep tremendously the evening prior to IM’s. The evening after finishing the race and sometimes the following evening as well , I sleep poorly. I know the evening after the race it’s because of all of the sugar and caffeine in the Coke ,unsure as to why the following night occasionally.