Rise and Shine – It’s Workout Time!

I’m a self-professed night owl.  After long and busy days filled with work, kids’ pre-school, activities, playdates, housework , meetings and projects, I am energized at about 8 p.m. and I don’t go to sleep willingly.  My husband starts asking me if I’m ready to go up around 10 p.m.  By 11 p.m., he starts up the stairs by himself.  I usually tell him I just need five more minutes and I’m right behind him, but most of the time I’m up another 30 minutes to an hour.  I LOVE the night.  I love how quiet the house is, how still the world is and how I don’t have to be anywhere but home.  The lack of interruption brings out a level of concentration rarely seen during daylight hours.  It’s my favorite time of day.

In the morning, however, I pay dearly for my indulgences of the night before.  I am groggy, impatient and won’t let anything stand between me and the coffee pot.  I sleep in as long as possible, and never make time to wake up peacefully, shower and dress, style my hair or put on makeup.  Brushing my teeth and throwing on clothes is as far as I get before having to get the kids ready and off to school by 8:30.  Usually sometime later in the day I get in the shower and put on real clothes for the day.  But not always.  Sometimes it waits until that magical me-time hour of 8 p.m.

My night-owl identity has been a real driving force behind my preference to work out in the evening.  I’m awake and energized, and whatever stresses of the day are usually melted away by a run or a yoga practice around dinnertime.

But these days, it’s not easy to fit in that workout.  And when I do, something else suffers, like dinner with my family or bedtime stories.  Many nights I have meetings to attend for work, and those are nights when I skip the run altogether.

It is for these reasons that I recently made the switch to working out in the morning.  The hardest part is going to bed at a reasonable hour the night before, and then of course, getting up when the alarm goes off.  But once I’m up, I’m glad to have the quiet house and time for myself I usually enjoy late at night.

I’ve only worked out two mornings this week.  The first morning, I threw on my running clothes and headed straight to the treadmill in my basement.  It was tough!  I was feeling half-asleep, and my legs were heavy.  I alternated walking and running and prayed I’d get used to this new hour of running and get back to my usual pace and distance of 2-3 miles.

Today, taking the advice of some morning running friends, I got up extra early, and slowly eased my way into the morning before starting my run.  I checked my email, made the coffee for the morning, drank a few cups of water and did a quick 15-minute morning yoga sequence to stretch and energize my body in preparation for my run.  By the time I did all of this, I felt as if I had 2 cups of coffee!  But I hadn’t had a drop.  I had simply allowed myself the chance to wake up with physical and mental activity before taking on the day.

Noticing how much lighter it had become at 6:30 a.m., I happily stepped outside and ran around the neighborhood, foregoing the treadmill.  I set my goal of jogging for 20 minutes, as slowly as I needed to, but no walking.  It was amazing – between my newly awake state and the number of cars and people out in the world already, I was energized and motivated to run.  What a difference from my treadmill workout in the dark basement, all alone, only 2 days earlier.

I think I’m on to something….I’m going to stick to this at least twice during the workweek and fit in an afternoon jog on the weekend if I can.  If I can do it, I will give myself an extra two hours in my schedule every week!

If you’ve never been a morning person and can’t stand the thought of waking up and working out, try these things that worked for me:

1.  Drink 1-2 glasses of water as soon as you get up.

2.  Read the paper or check the news online to wake up your mind.  Return an email or two, or catch up with friends on Facebook for 5 minutes.

3.  Get some of the morning chores out of the way, such as making the coffee, setting out breakfast, packing your kids’ lunch or letting the dog outside.

4.  Give yourself time to slowly and peacefully stretch out and energize your body with deep breathing and a physical yoga practice.

5.  Don’t set unrealistic goals for your workout.  Start out slowly until you build up your endurance after several morning walks, runs, rides or trips to the gym.

As someone told me this week, if you stick with it, in no time you’ll dread the days when you have to wait until the evening to get your heart racing!

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