Tuesday SnoozeDay

So the big question... was I able to keep my 6am date with the treadmill?

The look I'll give when someone asks me if I actually got up early to run.

The interesting thing is that I did wake up and felt alert enough to hit the gym - but I had an annoying headache. Now, the same headache happened to me when I was at the hotel last week, but I was able to let myself go back to sleep for a little while and get to the gym later on in the morning once I felt better. Today, I was on a tight schedule as I had to drop my dog off at the vet first thing for a dental cleaning, so there was no headache recovery time allowed.

I had hoped that my husband would be available to pick up my dog in the afternoon so that I could try to run in between work and a date for drinks with his sister - she's only in town for this evening and just had the one-hour window to see us tonight (she's at a conference and uber-busy). But he was held up at work too.

This is why getting a workout done in the morning is so much better for consistency - there's really nothing to derail you at 6am (other than headaches), whereas who knows what could come up at the end of the day. This story ends with me missing a training run, which is NOT going to get me to a sub 2:00:00 half-marathon.

So now I am a few days away from trying to implement morning workouts again, as tomorrow night I want to join the local "Running for Brews" crew and Thursday night will be my bootcamp night. I'll give it a shot on Friday, as long as I don't get beat up too badly at bootcamp. I asked Google about ways to make morning workouts easier, and here were a few of my favorite suggestions:

a. Visualize enjoying morning workouts - I've mentioned before that visualization is an important tool for many professional athletes, so why not visualize enjoying morning workouts?

b. Bribes - If I can get through 4 weeks of morning exercise - not every day, mind you, just maybe Tuesdays and Wednesdays to start - what could I treat myself to? New compression socks? A new pair of mouse ears for my next Disney jaunt?

(Note that the same article also mentions sharing your intentions on social media, which I'm putting into practice with my blog. Not sure it is paying off yet - not feeling the shame of failing to live up to my word here.)

c. Drink a full glass of water right upon waking up - this one was actually suggested to me by a fellow runner on one of the forums I frequent. Seems simple enough, will give it a try.

186 days left.

Today's Exercise: Unplanned Rest Day.

Breakfast	Lunch	PWO	Dinner
Eggs and spinach, coffee	Tuna Salad, more coffee	N/A	Tuna salad