When the Alarm Doesn’t Wake Us

Yesterday morning I set two alarms for 0600 because I wanted to wake, have some free time, and then run at 07:50/08:00 but I don’t remember it waking me. I remember looking at the phone or watch and seeing 07:53. With the heat wave making sleep difficult, followed my a music festival making sleep difficult I reached such a point of exhaustion that the alarm failed to wake me. It even failed to register in my conscience that I turned off the alarms.

Someone said, “what does it matter that the festival keeps you awake, it’s only a week a year?” but being kept awake for an entire week is exhausting. I suspect that either the wind changed direction from Tuesday and Wednesday to Thursday, or they were told off, and were more cautious about noise pollution for the last two nights.

In either case I missed two social runs. I missed the 6am run, which I had not planned on going to anyway, due to sleep deprivation, but also the 8am Décathlon run. I had every intention of going for this run. I woke too late so I went for the consolation prize, a group ride at 09:30.

It’s nice to have a primary and a backup sports activity lined up. If you fail to wake for one, you can always head to the second.

What’s impressive about the second ride is that the average speed was 25.2km/h according to the Garmin Explore 2, and around the same for the Coros Pace 3. That’s fast for a relaxed ride. Part of the reason for this could be that I took a flatter route from home to Divonne, but the other reason could be because I descend and corner faster than I used to. The third reason might be that I’m fresher. Now that I run regularly, rather than cycle my body has a lot of time to recover, between big efforts.

Yesterday was cool, for me. The temperature was low and comfortable. I drank as a reflex rather than a need. When we stopped I shivered two or three times. When you live in 29 to 32°c in a Minergie building 34/7 for months, you adapt but sleep doesn’t adapt.

At the same time right when it cooled down, right as the Minergie building became more liveable noise pollution got in the way of sleep. That’s why alarms stopped working.

I’m suffering not because of the weather, because nights are cool, but because of a noisy festival for one week, and a building that becomes too warm from Spring until Autumn. What gets to me is that on Facebook no one says “I’m suffering from the same” or “I know what you mean”. I see plenty of people venting about things, but I see no conversations and empathy.

From Monday to Wednesday I hope to sleep well, and then we’re back in a Canicule and we will see how long it lasts. It could be several weeks long.