Sleep deprevation

This is my second marathon, yet I am starting already starting to suffer sleep loss. I lay awake for hours on end thinking through the race, planning, spectators positions, which pub for beer afterwards, kit bag etc etc.

I'm going to be zombie like by race day at this rate!

Will cut out tea, which I have replaced alcohol with. Caffeine probably not helping.

Any top tips though? Dont really want to use Nytol etc, but if needs must?

Finding this much more all consuming than I did Berlin last year, possibly because of home city, lots of support from friends & family and the pressure of raising a big amount of money for charity.

Have you tried The English Patient? 

If it gets really bad you will need Memoirs of a Geisha but that's only really for real emergencies.

 Also, start preparing your race schedule after the VLM (or a holiday, or something else important) it helps to get it all into perspective.  It's just a race.  You need to sort it out as it will leave you in a bad state.  I've had to take Phenergan in the past in race week, but I've found that getting a sense of perspective works better.

Maybe before you go to bed write a list of the stuff that's on your mind. Once it's on paper, tell yourself that you'll deal with it in the morning.

Try creating a sleep friendly environment before you go to bed. Maybe a hot bath, or no TV an hour before you'd like to go to sleep. Reading a book always does the trick for me.

I also find that waking up at 5am to go out for training runs normally knocks me out by around 9.30pm anyway!