One thing I’m trying to do, since I have the ability to thanks to my watch and the Garmin app and the data collected by such tools, is keep better track of my sleep.

The problem with this plan is I don’t really understand any of it.

But here’s what I know.

Green is good.

Orange is not as good.

Red is bad.

And, to be honest, I don’t think there’s any real way to predict my sleep.

(Although I can have a pretty good idea ahead of time. As I’ve been able to predict for years - if I’m stressed about something or if I went to bed later than normal or woke up in the middle of the night for some reason or ate something weird - the chances are I’m going to be tired the next day.)

Part of this is like using an app to see what the current weather is. There’s not much more the app can tell you than if you just stick your head out of the window. I have a pretty good idea of how I slept when I wake up.

But, there’s something to be said for identifying patterns and seeing a graph over time.

I mentioned back when I was painting that I thought I was suffering from the paint fumes, and then I realized allergies were starting to get to me…and then I thought, maybe I’m getting sick. There’s a good chance there was a mix of all three…but I am certain about the allergies. And I am pretty sure, after looking at my sleep data, that I might have also been a little sick on top of the allergies.

Sometimes when the sleep starts trending towards the red, it’s an indication that I’m about to get sick.

I am not in the habit of checking this every day in a way that I would know a couple of days in advance that I’m going to be sick, but I’m starting to recognize the warning signs.

If I go from a couple of days in the 50s to 40s, that’s a sign.

I don’t know that I can do anything to prevent it, either, other than maybe try to get a bunch more sleep. Go to bed earlier. Get in a nap if possible.

But, I think the most important thing about this is the fact that it’s more information about my body.

With marathon training there is so much I need to think about. A lot of it is the physical stuff that is easy to identify - aches and pains - and do something about - extra stretching, icing, resting.

My weakness over these past five years has been sleep - which everyone says is one of the most important aspects.

I don’t know that tracking my sleep is going to help me get better sleep.

But if I have less-than-ideal runs some days, by looking at this graph, at least I can identify whether sleep (or lack thereof) was a factor.

And I guess I’ll just try my best to keep that sleep in the green.