I promise you we’ll get to the dog’s involvement in all of this before long….

(Sunday Paper, Year VII, Issue 3)

I have written (bragged) about this before:

I am a champiodon sleeper.

Well, I used to be.

It used to be that I could turn it off and take a nap at any time of the day, anywhere.

That is no longer the case.

I’m not even sleeping well at night.

And it’s becoming kind of a problem.

We’ll get to the picture of the dog in a minute.

But I have to say up front that as good of a job I’ve done with marathon training over the summer and now again as we head towards the April marathon, one thing the trainers talk about is getting the proper sleep so your body can rest and recover.

And I have not been doing a good job of that.

Or - I’ve tried. But my body is not doing a good job with it.

Now, it’s important to note that this mostly dates back to March 2020, so it doesn’t take a brain scientist to figure out what might be occupying my mind and preventing me from getting proper sleep.

(At the very beginning of the pandemic when there was nothing going on anywhere I was going to bed by like 8pm and I still don’t think I was sleeping well, but I didn’t hate the early bedtime.)

But there are other elements that I can actually take control of and try to make better to improve my sleeping conditions.

That’s where the picture of the dog comes in.

Tate has been sleeping in our bed for a while now. It’s not the worst thing in the world. She’s just a big dog. And in the winter it’s been a problem because when she plops down on the covers she really ends up pulling them off of me and I end up fighting with her to win them back and then she gets upset and wanders off and when she comes back it happens all over again.

So I made a drastic move this week.

We’re kind of rearranging some furniture and trying to organize our space better and we might end up getting rid of an old couch and moving another and getting a new one for upstairs…

But since it’s not long for this world anyway, I took the chaise (the right-hand-most portion of our downstairs couch, which we’ve had for almost 20 years) and moved it to the foot of our bed.

Tate likes lying on that part of the couch anyway, I thought maybe she’d like to sleep on it.

I trained her hard that first night, praising and rewarding her for sleeping there.

And the second night it stuck, and the third.

She’s tested climbing onto the bed here and there, but responds very well to the ‘no’ and steps back onto her bed.

I’m actually very proud of her for that (and me for the training).

I still haven’t slept great - part of me thinks my body is just preparing itself for the dog to jump over and start weighing down the blankets…but at least for now I’m hopeful that my body will adjust and be able to at least get more rest heading into April than I did leading up to my first marathon.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

What I like about this little segment now is that I haven’t been obsessing over listening to or watching something everyday. Sometimes I’ve gotten to the end of the day and thought, “Oh, I didn’t listen to anything,” and I’m OK with that. Which is good for my brain….I don’t feel like I should be getting 365 of these in. But it is making me make at least some time for some kind of art, which is good for my brain in another way. So I’m really glad I’m doing it. (Also, in case you haven’t picked up on it: I’m going for ‘exposing myself to something new’ - albums I haven’t already listened to, movies I haven’t already seen. I’m sure at some point it will include movies I re-watch…but for now I’m trying to put new stuff in my head.) With all that said, here’s this week’s list:

‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ - Simon and Garfunkel
‘30’ - Adele
Eternals
The Amazing Spider-Man

Notes

*Remember, you can buy a Super Bowl square and support the Massachusetts Wonderfund and my second Boston Marathon, all in one fell swoop. Squares are $25, and the details are all in that link. Get in touch if you want one (or many) and we’ll work out payment.

*Running Update: I am so thrilled with myself because I did my long run (9 miles this weekend) on Friday instead of Saturday. I really thought long and hard about this because I don’t like disrupting my running schedule - long runs on Saturday, rest days on Sunday - but the bitter cold this weekend was not something I wanted to brave to get my miles in. So I ran in the 40 degree temps on Friday and I’ll be back on track Monday (even though now I’ll have to figure out what to do about the rain we’re getting Monday). This is no different than what I did Christmas weekend - I’ll always prefer moving the long run to Friday rather than doing it on Sunday and impacting the next week.

For all of my running news, you can give my new Instagram a follow @johnnyrunsalot. I’ll be posting updates there throughout my training for the Boston Marathon and, certainly, beyond.

*And you can always Like the Facebook page or follow me on Twitter for all my other nonsense.

*Good news - I’ve really busted out of my reading slump these past few weeks. Which is great - I always write better when I’m reading more. Just in case you thought it was all podcasts and superhero movies over here.