Sleep Deprived, Part III

Okay, final post. I've set three future posts to hit this blog and the net at roughly the times I was supposed to have run. If all went well, I'm running outside of Sin City right now, getting our team that much closer to the finish line.

I'm probably pretty tired right now. This last run has been the one I'm most concerned about. The weather is supposed to be in the mid-80s at this point, so it's going to be a challenge in that sense. Plus, you know, the whole lack of sleep thing, and that I've already ran about 13 miles by now...

Anyway, here's something that's going to be keeping me company as I run:



The previous two posts that I wrote about being sleep-deprived were the two most sleep-deprived moments of my life. Easily. It was coincidence that they both happened in the same year, about five months from each other. Or were they? Maybe I was young and thought I was a bit invincible about certain things, such as sleep.

As I mentioned before, I used to have a good ability to shake off sleep and maybe this gave me a sense of confidence and a belief that I had a mental edge over sleep. No such edge exists now. Before, though, I used to get past sleep, and used to put myself in positions where I would be operating on very little sleep. Another of those times came in 2002, when we moved to Mexico.

Mrs. LB and I were at a point in our lives where we'd not be any more. She was tired of her job as a reporter and wanted a change. At the time, early 2002, I was working for a soccer web site and making decent money. We didn't have too many bills and we had this great idea about what to do next. We decided to walk out on our apartment since the lease was up at the end of February 2002 and move to Mexico. Why not? An uncle of mine had a house that sat unused in the small town my parents grew up in. I had family that was willing to help and we didn't have any children.

So Mrs. LB quit her job, we did not renew our lease and off we went to Mexico. I was going to drive down there with my dad while Mrs. LB was going to fly there about a day after we were supposed to arrive.

We loaded up our truck with many of our belongings: clothes, books, computer, pictures, things like that. My dad and I decided that we didn't need nor want to stop so we were going to drive right through, a roughly 1600-mile drive without stopping but for gas and food... mostly gas.

I woke up at 2 a.m., said bye to Mrs. LB and went to pick my dad up. He was already awake, and we got in and took off right away. At the time, my dad worked as a long-haul truck driver, so he was used to driving endless hours on lonely highways. I drove first, got us out to Arizona and when we crossed the border about seven hours later, he took over.

We actually got held up at the border for about two hours, which ruined our time, but were on our way soon enough. We crossed into the Mexican state of Sonora, and while that is not the country's biggest state, it certainly seemed as much to us. The Sonoran desert is pretty much like Arizona, except bigger and more desolate. At least it seemed more desolate to us.

We drove another seven hours before we got out of that state. We were alternating every now and then, my dad and I. My dad looked fine - he was a rock of strength back then - and I felt okay as well.

We got past Mazatlan, where Mrs. LB and I would stop on the way back several months later and have a fantastic stay. It was after midnight I believe and my dad and I'd been up for a solid 24 hours at that point.

Shortly afterward, though, I started to doze off. Sleep hit me like a ton of bricks, but I didn't realize it. It felt like I'd just dozed off for 20-30 minutes or so. But we were up on the next city, and it was just before daybreak. We ended up at our destination some six hours later.

It wasn't until our trip back, Mrs. LB and I, that I realized it was a good three and a half hours from the point where I fell asleep to when I woke up. I guess it doesn't really matter how comfortable or uncomfortable you are, if you need to crash, any position will do.

Hopefully that's worked out for me well the last two days.