I'm tired. My legs, my mind and my mood.

I wrote last month about how exercise generally improves my quality of sleep, therefore my general health and happiness also improves.

Today I'm tired primarily because I couldn't sleep last night. I actually think I woke up in the middle of the night and started stretching my hamstrings and calves. But when I woke up this morning, I couldn't remember if it actually happened or I was just dreaming about it.

This inability to get a good nights rest is generally one of the first signs that I'm approaching a breaking point. But it is partly due to the fact that I stayed up too late (10:00pm) watching the episode of American Idol that I had saved on my dvr.

A few lessons that I've learned in the past that I'm going to have to apply now, to this observation:

1. Some pleasures are going to have to be sacrificed to proceed, such as tv and movies. This isn't a big sacrifice, I generally don't get much out of it anyway. And with dvr, what little I do watch can be something I'm interested in and not a result of channel surfing.

2. Nutrition is a must! When I get tired I like to drink more caffine and take in more sugar. Both will lead closer to a crash if I'm not careful and mindful.

3. Alcohol is completely gone. It always seems to destroy my ability to recover and rest. Unfortunatley, any amount seems to do this to me. On Valentines day, Nikki and I drank some sparkling grape juice... a fairly cute way she came up with to keep the alcohol off the table.

Today is a well placed rest day and tonight Nikki and I are going in for a massage. It will be my first professional massage (unless you count the hundred or so my high school track coach gave me), but hopefully the first in a series leading up to the marathon.

Train. Rest. Recover. Repeat! Race.