I’m not getting enough of it. I know that because I never quite got on to European time and it didn’t seem to bother me too much. Now, back in the states, I’m getting up at 5 am, after going to be after 11 and I seem to be doing okay. That is approaching just 5 + hours a night for the last 3 nights. Something has got to give.

As I get older, I’ve noticed I can get by with less sleep. And I don’t mind getting woken up near as much as I used to. I think I need to start trying to get more sleep and mind getting woken up.

As an athlete, sleep is super important. Maybe more important than training hard after you’re already fit. I don’t put too much emphasis on the amount of sleep before a one day event. I think the sleep two nights before the race is much more important than the sleep the night before. But, getting in a good block of sleep while you’re riding hard is imperative. And during stage races, sleep is crucial.

I sleep with a noise machine. It’s really an HEPA air purifier, but it’s real benefit is white noise. Bromont can’t really sleep past 5 am in hotels unless the air purifier is going. Too much extraneous noise going on for him not to be up. And if he’s up, then I’m usually up.

I’m not sure how I’m going to implement this “new” sleep regiment long term. I’ve having enough trouble with jet lag from this one trip.

Bromont is the best sleeper in the world. His underside get all pink when he's sleepy.

Our new cat, Lilly, could give Bromont a run for his money, but it isn't fair, because Lilly is a cat and domestic house cats sleep more than just about any other mammal.

I’ve been breathing a lot of it. Salt that is. Maybe my memory is bad, but I don’t remember having much of a problem with breathing salt dust in the winters past. That isn’t the case the last few days. It is a problem. I rode 4 hours today and I still have a drippy, scratchy throat 5 hours later. I’m pretty positive the whole process is not that great for your health.

I’ve been flushing my sinuses with those sinus rinse things after the ride. And go figure, most of the contents of those packages is salt. So, I’m washing salt out of my sinuses with salt. Kind of counterintuitive .

I’ve been trying to put a bunch more salt on my food recently too. The BMC nutritionist said that endurance athletes should be consuming just about as much salt as they can stomach. Since I have never salted any food before, I probably wasn’t getting enough. I’m going to be seeing if that helps the cramping issues I’ve had historically.

And, I watched the movie Salt recently. Could all this be a coincidence?

Anyway, unless it rains pretty soon, I don’t see a way not to encounter dusk clouds of salt on all the road rides. My lips are that happy about the situation either. Any ideas out there? I don’t have any except going somewhere else to ride.

Edible organic salt.

Salt mine in Texas.

Angelina Jolie as Salt.