Like most new moms, runner and triathlete Tiffany Lindstrom knows about sleep-deprived nights. After her daughter Torun Grace was born in November of 2005, Lindstrom decided to train for the Chicago Marathon. Throughout most of Lindstrom’s training that year, her infant daughter was waking up every few hours during the night.

A string of uninterrupted sleep seemed like a luxury to the Woodbury resident. While Lindstrom successfully trained through her sleep deprivation and ran a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon, she admits a good night sleep would have gone a long way in her training.

Torun Grace is now two years old and she’s letting her mom get a little more sleep these days. Yet as Lindstrom, a program manager for Sprint-Nextel, continues to train harder, work full time and raise a family, her sleep still suffers.

“There are days that I wake up completely exhausted,” says Lindstrom, who averages about six hours a night – slightly less than the national average of 6.8 hours. Even with the support of her husband/coach Derek Lindstrom, she says it’s difficult to fit everything into her day without skimping on sleep.

Lindstrom’s situation is typical for many recreational athletes who must fit their running in around work and family commitments. While elite athletes often sleep nine or more hours a night and supplement that with two-hour naps to help their bodies recover from their training, such a lifestyle isn’t realistic for most recreational athletes. Even so, runners need to think of sleep as an important part of their training program, explains Dr. Bob Gazzola, a longtime runner and Mankato physician.

“Sleep is really important when training for an endurance event,” says Gazzola. “During sleep a lot of important things are happening to aid in the recovery process. Besides just feeling more rested and ready to tackle the day ahead, adequate sleep–at least 7 hours, uninterrupted–can make a big difference in your recovery.”

Most of the healing that happens while we sleep is during the third and fourth stages of the sleep cycle, or short-wave sleep. It is during this deep sleep that human growth hormone (HGH) is released from the pituitary gland. Growth hormone is essential for building and repairing muscles and bones and also helps the body use fat for fuel. Without adequate levels of HGH in the blood, recovery from workouts is hindered and it takes longer to build fitness.

When athletes are chronically sleep deprived the level of HGH in their bodies decreases and another hormone, cortisol, (also known as the stress hormone) increases. Too much cortisol prevents the body from fully recovering and may interfere with soft tissue repair and growth.

A study published in the British medical journal, “The Lancet,” showed that a period of decreased sleep of only a few days causes a disruption in glucose metabolism. Glucose metabolism is the process responsible for storing energy from the food we eat and is why marathoners carbo-load before a big race or long run. “With impaired glycogen synthesis runners can’t get their glycogen stores as high which means they may bonk sooner during longer runs or races than if they were well-rested,” says Gazzola.

Recent studies also show that people who don’t get enough sleep feel hungrier during the day and as a result they may eat more calories than their bodies actually need. So, if you’re hoping to lose weight while training for a marathon you may actually gain weight if you aren’t sleeping enough.

Quality Counts

Sleep experts say while most people need 7-9 hours of sleep a night to feel fully rested, the number of hours varies. Some people seem to do fine on less while others need more. The best way to gage how much sleep you need is to go to bed at the same time every night and then wake up on your own, without the aid of an alarm clock.

While you may need to sleep a little longer when marathon training, the key to fully recovering from your workouts is not just how many hours of sleep you get but the quality of your sleep. The more fit you become the more likely the quality of your sleep will also improve.

“Just as not every mile you run during your training is the same neither is every hour of sleep,” explains Gazzola. “Some miles are more important to your training and give you more benefit. Well, the same is true of your sleep. There are different stages to your sleep and training helps you achieve a more restorative sleep. People who are restless in there sleep don’t get to those deeper states of sleep where a lot of the significant emotional and physical benefits occur.

“For the highly trained athlete the sleep becomes more important but the hours might be less because their sleep is more effective sleep. Part of that equation is how long it takes people to fall asleep. Most people find when they are in the midst of their training and they’re feeling good and confident, their sleep comes much more readily versus the tossing and turning that, unfortunately, a lot of people do,” he explains. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier, Jenna Boren, is one athlete who seems to do well no matter how much sleep she gets. The St. Paul runner averages five to six hours a night and admits when it comes to sleep, she is a “do as I say... not as I do” type of person.

“When I am stressed, it tends to affect my sleep more than anything. Ironically, the one remedy I use to manage stress is to run. Often, when I run the most, I sleep the least,” says Boren, who runs more than 100 miles a week and still works long hours at her chiropractic practice, Bridging Health Chiropractic and Rehabilitation, in downtown St. Paul.

Boren qualified for the Trials with a 2:45 marathon at Grandma’s in 2006. “Based on my training prior to Grandmas, I knew I could run a decent marathon. However, if I considered my stress level and amount of sleep at that time, I would