Don't Think About It Just Go With It

Are you a morning runner? I'm generally not. It's not that I don't like running in the morning, it's the getting out of bed that I have problems with. Though I do find it's easier for me to want to get out of bed for a run than it is for something I don't want to do, like say....work. I bring this up becuase last night I saw that a friend had posted on Facebook that he was going to run 8 miles at 4:45 this morning if anyone was interested in joining. Next thing I know I had responded that I was in! Wait. What? Clearly my fingers worked faster than my brain because it wasn't til after I responded that I realized I'd have to be up close to 4 in order to be at his place on time. Ironically this morning I read Christine's post about never regretting a run and tricks she uses to get out and get running and one of the big ones is to not think about it, just start your routine. Well that's basically what I had done. I didn't think about when I just saw an oppurtunity to run and went with it. Now I was committed. It was already 9:30pm so I had to finish getting things around for the next day and get ready for bed if I wanted any sleep at all.

My alarm went off at 4:10. Or at least I think it did. It was so early and I was soooo out of it I wasn't really sure what was going on. I actually started to panic for a few seconds because I knew I wasn't supposed to be up early, but couldn't recall for the life of me why or when. I actually had to look to see what time my alarm had been set for to decipher if I was up at the right time or not. I really hate that feeling like you might have overslept.

yeah that's 4:25...as in AM

I met Jonathan at his place and we were off. It was actually fairly warm this morning (for January); I think it got up to 42 when we started. This meant shorts! It was pretty damn foggy out this morning and obviously still dark out so we both had our headlamps on. His apartment is tucked back in a neighborhood and even though we hit a few decent sized hills  today I think the hardest part of the run was trying not to fall on the ice that was the non-plowed road leading in and out of the neigborhood. I'm not kidding it's like the road has never seen a plow before, slush and ice everywhere.

All in all it was a great run. It was good to get out and run with someone and seeing as how the temperature has dropped close 15 degrees today and it's snowing like a bitch out right now the morning run was definitely a good call. It took us almost exactly an hour to run 8 and some change, even still I was at Panera for my celebratory French Toast Bagel Sandwich ten minutes before they opened. That's right I'm not above rewarding myself. I didn't have to be to work til 8 so I was able to go home, shower, eat and relax for a while which was kind of nice.

Maybe getting up early for a run isn't as horrible as it seems in my head. I just need to work on going to bed earlier (harder than it sounds) and maybe this could turn into a good habit...maybe.