Sleeping pains

So this past weekend has caused me to start to reconsider my sleep requirements. I've always prided myself on being able to function on minimal sleep, even doing some bike races that lasted over three hours on as little as four hours of sleep...yes had I slept more I probably would have done better, but you're missing the point if you think of it that way.

This weekend however I had decided that I need to get back to riding more, and consequently sleeping less as it seems that getting to bed early is not an option. Of course this would also be the weekend that all the rides started at 8:00 am. I can understand this when it's stupidly hot out, but now the weather is nearly perfect, why not start at 10:00? Saturday's ride wasn't too bad, particularly since I had been up until about 2:00 am playing poker. Sunday was a little harder to get up for but it was a shorter ride. Actually it was supposed to be a pre-ride before the club coffee ride, but my left knee was giving me some issues so I figured I'd call it a day after the pre-ride. I got lucky there as I managed to get home just as the first rain drops started to fall.

Now the downside to all this lack of sleep and increased exercise has been that I tended to fall asleep in the middle of the day. And I HATE that! I don't know why, but I just dislike taking naps, I always have. Maybe it has something to do with my childhood; I don't suppose seeing smoke come into my room from a small chimney fire when I was supposed to be napping lead to a positive association with napping. And for some reason my front teeth on the top of my jaw always go numb when I sleep midday, but never when I sleep at night, it's just odd.

But despite my best intentions my body won out and I crashed a few times on the couch. Figuring that maybe a change of location and some more activity would help me stay awake I went to the bedroom to put away the mess of clothes on the floor. Well somehow I made it onto my bed...like I need to draw you a diagram of that one. Now I happened to fall asleep with one arm up above my head, kind of with my forehead in the crook of my elbow. Now I'll spare some of the embarrassing details but I started to dream about Deirdre and kissing was involved, around which point I woke up, kissing my own arm. The worst part however was that as I went to move my arm back to my side I was shocked to feel...well nothing below my elbow! My forearm was completely asleep. Now I was still kind of in a daze from sleeping so my first thought was "Oh my god! My arm is broken! Shit!" This was the most dead-asleep my arm has ever been, it took minutes to finally be able to move it properly. I couldn't even move my fingers at first! I'm starting to wonder what kind of damage this does to my arm in the long run? How embarrassing would it be to have to have your arm amputated because it ran out of oxygen while you were sleeping on it for too long!

Oh well, just one more reason why I should sleep less.