Dados do Trabalho

Título

Sleep pattern of one athlete and his support team in an ultramarathon: A case report

Introdução

Running has become increasingly popular, and the ultramarathon has drawn the attention of practitioners and researchers. One of the main challenges that ultramarathons offer to runners is sleep deprivation, which is one of the factors that can impair performance. Until today, there is little data in the literature about the ultramarathoner sleep, and no objective information about the sleep from their support team.

Objetivo

Evaluate the sleep pattern of one athlete and his support team during an ultramarathon.

Métodos

The study was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee (4.799.521), and the evaluation was carried out with an athlete and his support team (a driver and a pacer - who runs together to set the pace) in the “Brazil 135 Ultramarathon”. The athlete ran 135 km and the three participants used an Ambulatory Monitoring Motionlogger Watch® actigraph from the night before until the end of the competition. The equipment was collected at the end of the race and the data were downloaded using the Watch Ware software (Ambulatory Monitoring Inc.®). Action W's Ambulatory Monitoring Inc.® software was used to read the data. The race started between 05:00 and 06:00 am and there was no manipulation in relation to the sleep routine of the evaluated.

Resultados

In the night before the race the athlete slept from 11:17 pm to 3:42 am (239 minutes), with sleep having 89.85% efficiency, 23 minutes of latency and 27 minutes of Wake After Sleep Onset (WASO). During the ultramarathon, he interrupted the race to nap five times, with a total of 121 minutes. Four of these breaks were at night (after 00h) and at the finish line the athlete reported that sleep was the main limiting factor for his performance in the race. In the night before the race the driver slept from 10:54 pm to 3:52 am (233 minutes), with 88.76% efficiency, 29 minutes of latency and 25 minutes of WASO. During the competition he napped 10 times, with a total time of 186 minutes. The pacer slept from 11:05 pm to 4:01 am (271 minutes) in the night before the race, with 91.25% efficiency, 8 minutes of sleep latency and 26 minutes of WASO. During the race the pacer took a nap on 3 occasions (total of 48 minutes). The team's plan was not to sleep during the race, but they reported that the sleepiness was greater than expected.

Conclusões

The start time influenced the sleep of the night before the ultramarathon, and sleepiness during the race induced individuals to nap more than once during the race course.

Palavras -chave

Sleep, sleep privation, athletes