Category Archives: Something new

Five Nights on CPAP

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Five nights into CPAP therapy and I already feel like I’m learning something important about myself.

For context, my sleep study showed severe obstructive sleep apnoea with an AHI of 55.9.
That means, on average, my breathing was disturbed nearly 56 times per hour while sleeping.

Looking back, it explains a lot.

For the last few years I’ve struggled with exhaustion, pain, brain fog, anxiety, injuries, poor recovery, and an increasing inability to get consistent with training again. I kept assuming the issue was motivation, grief, discipline, or simply “not being who I used to be anymore”.

The reality may be more complicated than that.

The First Few Nights

The first thing I’ll say is this:

CPAP is not glamorous.

You strap a mask to your face, connect yourself to a machine, and try to sleep while air is pushed into your airway all night. The bridge of my nose is sore. My beard ends up damp in the morning, and part of me thinks that if this keeps happening I’m going to end up with a rash and a permanently sore face. Some nights I wake up thinking: just push through this — make it work.

But at the same time, something is happening.

Even within five nights:

  • My sleep score has improved dramatically
  • My average overnight HRV has increased
  • My resting heart rate is low and stable
  • My sleep stages are becoming more structured
  • My Garmin is showing stronger overnight recovery

One night this week my average overnight HRV hit 93 ms — above my normal range — while my Body Battery fully recharged overnight.

That honestly surprised me.

What the Numbers Say

Untreated:

  • AHI: 55.9 (severe sleep apnoea)

After five nights of CPAP:

  • AHI averaging roughly 12 events/hour

That’s still not ideal, but it’s already roughly a 75–80% reduction in breathing disturbances.

More importantly, my body seems to be responding positively even before the therapy is fully optimised.

The biggest surprise so far is not energy.

It’s recovery.

The Strange Emotional Side

One thing nobody really explains is how emotional this can feel.

When your body has spent years in survival mode — poor sleep, stress, grief, adrenaline, pushing through — finally getting periods of genuine restorative sleep feels strange.

I’ve found myself tearful some mornings.

Not because the machine is upsetting, but I think because my nervous system feels like it’s finally starting to exhale. Maybe my grief can be felt.

The Athlete in Me

Before life became what it became, I was the guy who:

  • ran marathons and ultras
  • completed a 230km Jungle Ultra in the Amazon
  • trained obsessively
  • recovered well
  • could keep pushing physically and mentally

Over the last few years I’ve felt like I lost access to that person.

I’m beginning to wonder if part of the problem wasn’t just grief and trauma, but years of severe untreated sleep apnoea sitting underneath everything.

That doesn’t erase the grief.
It doesn’t magically fix life.
But it does raise an interesting possibility:

What if my body has been trying to survive while never truly resting?

Early Lessons

Five days in, this is what I’ve learned:

  • Consistency matters more than perfection
  • Comfort matters more than chasing perfect numbers
  • Recovery may happen gradually, not overnight
  • Good sleep is not laziness — it’s physiology
  • My body might not be as broken as I feared

I’m still tired.
I still hurt.
I still miss Haze every single day.

But for the first time in a long time, I feel like my body might finally be getting a chance to recover instead of simply endure.

And honestly, that feels hopeful.

Beginning Again

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For a long time, I stopped writing.

Not intentionally at first. Life simply became too heavy, too chaotic, too painful, and too exhausting to properly document. Somewhere along the way, survival replaced reflection.

When I originally created this site in 2013, it was a training log. I was preparing for endurance events, marathons, ultramarathons, and eventually the Jungle Ultra in the Amazon rainforest. Writing helped me process training, stay accountable, and understand myself through movement.

Back then, life felt hard — but possible.

Over the years, life changed completely.

Grief entered my life in ways I could never have imagined. Illness arrived. My marriage ended. I left the career that had shaped much of my adult identity. Somewhere along the way I stopped recognising myself.

For a long time, simply getting through the day felt like enough.

But recently something has started to shift.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. More like small movements beneath the surface.

I’ve started swimming again. I’ve started trying to rebuild strength again. I’ve started paying attention to sleep, recovery, health, and consistency instead of simply forcing myself forward through exhaustion.

A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnoea. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how long I was running on empty while believing that exhaustion, pain, anxiety, brain fog, and low mood were simply things I had to push through.

Maybe some of it was.

But maybe not all of it.

For most of my life, my response to difficulty was to move towards it rather than away from it. That helped me survive many things. It helped me succeed professionally. It helped me complete races that once felt impossible.

But I’m beginning to realise that rebuilding may require something different from pure endurance.

Less punishment.
Less survival.
More listening.
More patience.
More honesty.
More consistency.
More softness.

I don’t know exactly what this site becomes from here.

Part of it will still be running, swimming, endurance, data, training, technology, and adventures. Part of it will be grief, recovery, fatherhood, and trying to reconnect with life again.

Mostly, I think this site is simply becoming a record of what it looks like to begin again after life has broken apart.

And maybe that’s enough.

— Keith Nolan