How Malindi Elmore deals with jet lag

If you’ve ever experienced jet lag while traveling, you know how hard it can hit. While this may not be a big problem during a regular vacation, it can wreak havoc on your performance when you’re traveling for a destination race. The former Canadian record holder in the women’s marathon, Malindi Elmore, knows this struggle all too well, so she gave us some advice for runners trying to adjust to a new time zone so they can perform at their best.

Elmore has traveled all over the world for competitions, but she still describes herself as someone who is very affected by jet lag, sleep and adjusting to new time zones. “ I don’t adjust quickly or easily to time changes, and it takes a lot of work for me to get on a new time zone,” she says. “I had one particularly disastrous race last year at the Seville Marathon, where I basically didn’t sleep all week leading into the race, so I had to work on a better strategy for Berlin, and it helped so much!”

Her strategy worked–Elmore ran an 80-second personal best in 2:22:30 at this year’s Berlin Marathon, good enough for 13th place, top North American Woman, and nearly reclaiming her Canadian record from Natasha Wodak.

So how’d she do it? It’s all about creating a plan and being disciplined enough to stick to it.

Have a sleep plan

Elmore says she creates a sleep plan based on the number of time zones she’ll be crossing, and in which direction. She finds going to Europe from B.C., which involves a nine-hour time difference, to be more difficult to adjust to than traveling west from B.C. to Asia. 

When she travels to Europe, Elmore plans to arrive in the morning, so she has to force herself to stay awake until a reasonable hour (usually 8:30 or 9 pm) to help her get into the new time zone right away. Still, while the first night is usually fine, she usually struggles to fall asleep and stay asleep on the second, third and fourth nights, and to get up feeling refreshed.

To combat this, she establishes a strict routine, forcing herself out of bed by 8 a.m. to eat breakfast and go for a run, to adapt to the time change. It typically takes several days before she stops feeling sluggish on those morning runs, but she says taking this approach is necessary. “I also work on a strict bedtime routine, including taking melatonin an hour before bed and winding down adequately, as I find it really hard to fall asleep at an appropriate hour,” she says. “Staying disciplined about getting up despite a poor night’s sleep is also key–it’s so tough in the moment, but necessary for early-morning races.”

Arrive early… or just in time

Ideally, Elmore says you should arrive one day early for every hour of time difference. Since Berlin is nine hours ahead of B.C., she arrived nine days before the marathon. If arriving that early isn’t feasible for you, you’re better off arriving only a day or two before your race. “I find the hardest times to race are five to six days into travel. It’s almost better to go two days out from B.C. than five or six days prior,” she says.

If you can’t arrive far enough in advance of your race to get over jet lag, you can also try to adjust your body clock before you leave home by gradually going to bed earlier and getting up earlier to match the time zone of your destination race. Of course, depending on your life circumstances, this isn’t always feasible.

Structure is better

During her years as a professional athlete, Elmore has tried many different approaches to travel, but has found that having a structure in place works far better for her than simply going by feel. “I suggest runners traveling for important races create a sleep and eating strategy for arrival,” she says. “I have set bedtimes, wake-up times, eating and running times now in my final preparation plan, as it is easier to commit to a plan when it is written out. If it left up to me, I would sleep til noon some days when I first arrive, but that doesn’t help on race morning!”