I'm wondering what the importance of sleep is in relation to race performance. I never thought it's much of a factor since the night before marathons I hardly sleep and still pull off some better-than-expected finishing times.

Today, I bombed my half marathon (Staten Island), doing five minutes worse than my goal time. By mile 2, I knew I was in for a long, unenjoyable race. And that it was -- I never got into a groove as I did in last month's Philadelphia Distance Run (1:32). Perhaps it was my 2.5 week layoff due to flu, but in the last week I put in about 70 miles with some tempo runs so I figure I'd have gotten back in shape for this one.

Friday night I got 5.5 hours of sleep, and last night I had allergies that kept me up nearly the entire night, got about 2 hours of sleep total.

By the time I finished my sprint toward the end, I felt nauseous and felt like I was going to **** myself. It was awful.

Anyone know if the lack of sleep had a hand in this poor finishing time, or is that more like a lame excuse? Your input would be appreciated, thanks.