If you read my blog regularly or follow me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, you’ll know I’m a sucker for a dose of early morning endorphins.
I don’t care whether they come from a pre-dawn mountain bike ride up on the Downs, a 7am interval session or a pre-work gym or swim sesh, just get those endorphins to my person immediately.
Getting most of my exercise done first thing sets me up for the day, leaves me buzzing and keeps the evenings free to chill and catch up with my writing. It might take a couple (alright, a few) flirtations with the snooze button to haul my sorry ass out of bed, but once the initial disgust at the situation fades I love getting up early to make the most of my day.
I have been known to break into song when those early morning endorphins get too much…
A video posted by @fitbits_tess on
In the winter I just can’t be bothered to do much after work. You’d think I’d be raring to go after sitting on my backside all day at my desk (gimme a standing desk any day), but nah, I’d much rather go home and chill.
If you get up early in the morning you’re treated with this:
Buzzing
I’m an early bird on the weekends too – being in the middle of marathon training means Saturdays are for hills, parkrun or if I’m skiving, a long cycle ride, and Sundays are reserved for the long run, all of which require setting early alarms.
This weekend’s escapades were kicked off with 6:30am alarms, and a maximum of two snoozes per morning, promise. Why oh why Apple decided that a non-adjustable nine-minute snooze was a good idea I’ll never know.
Saturday’s adventure was a wet and windy mountain bike ride with the Brighton Triathlon Race Series crew along the old Downs Link railway to a cafe for cake and back – a round trip of about 38-40 miles that made my face do this:
And today was of course, the long run. On the plan was a hilly one up on the Downs with RunBrighton but I’ve had a cold all week and it’s moved to a cough so I didn’t think my chest was up to it.
Instead I treated myself to a nice flat run along some of the Brighton Marathon route, doing the New Church Road loop and back along the seafront for 12 slightly uncomfortable and very slow miles.
For me, getting the morning workouts in is all about organisation. I’ve written about how to make your morning sessions, it’s all about getting your kit out, making your lunch, pre-packing your bag etc. to give you minimal faffing time when you do eventually stop hitting snooze, as well as actually planning your week of exercise.
I’ve just finished my colour coded Google Doc (geek alert) for next week’s schedule and if I make it all (Mondays are always up for questioning depending on long run recovery) there’ll be five early alarms set. I’m sharing it with you now so next week I can look back and laugh at myself for trying to cram so much in again. And this is without bikram, I’ve had to prioritise other things this week!
Why can’t we have another day of the week dammit?!
I’ll let you know how the above goes…
Paradoxically, I’m sitting here talking about how great I am at getting up early and I should totally be in bed right now so I’m gonna shut up and get some zeds.
Do you prefer morning or evening workouts? How do you stay motivated to get up early or be active after work?
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