I love the idea of running in the early mornings. The world is quiet. I get my miles in without needing to take time away from all the other things I need to do. I come home exhilarated, ready to start the day.
It also feels hard to make early morning running work right now. The baby still wakes up some nights, and when he doesn’t he’s up early. Then everyone else needs to get ready for school.
But just because something doesn’t work every day doesn’t mean it can never work. I can run in the morning one weekend day each week (which tends not to be too terribly early). And I can aim for once during the work week. Aiming for multiple days is probably just going to lead to frustration. But once isn’t bad.
So yesterday was the day. My husband had a call at 7 a.m. that I had agreed to cover. My plan was to get up at 5:45 and run from 6-6:40 or so. Of course, the baby elected to wake at 4:45 a.m. I got up with him and then couldn’t get him back down. Such are the trade-offs in life right now. My husband would take him at 6, which meant I had the option to go back to sleep until 6:45. But instead I stuck with the plan to run.
And it was lovely. I returned feeling great. I also had to take a short nap around lunchtime, which meant that I didn’t exactly preserve work time during the day by running early.
But I am telling myself that this is a phase. Children do grow up. And I can keep aiming for once during the week or so until then.
Photo: From an early morning run in the fall two years ago...
We were running at the exact same time today! AND I was thinking of you bc I smelled a lot of honeysuckle. I am going to guess that your run was crisper and cooler than 79F and be jealous 🙂
I look forward to doing more morning runs when our baby is as little older. But on the weekends, after he’s eaten around 6-6:30, I try to get out for a run. For me it’s a combo of needing to not be ‘super full’ and not worrying about the baby needing to eat soon. So I have decided not to try to run before he’s up for the day. But we won’t be in this phase forever. But when I can do those weekend runs alone? It’s so blissful.
I don’t know how you do the horrible sleep thing 5 times over, truly remarkable!! I only have two and gosh both ate rough sleepers and it’s just so miserable. I’d have more kids if the sleep didn’t make me so miserable.
This is timely for me: I currently try to work on writing a novel 5.30 – 6.30 am each weekday morning but I have a 6 month old and 4 year old who are often awake during that window. This morning they were both awake and it was frustrating. Thanks for the reminder that 3 or 4 writing sessions a week are a lot better than none, and also this is a phase.
This reminds me of some words a wise woman once said: Plan it in. Do it anyway. This has become such a mantra for me, especially as it pertains to exercise or other healthy decisions that might take some extra effort. I might scramble some eggs for supper when I’m exhausted, instead of eating a bowl of Honey Nut O’s. I find if I’ve planned it and do it, I feel 100x better. It’s a behaviour that feeds into my end goal of healthy living AND I have the satisfaction of sticking to the healthy option, despite there being rationale for opting out.