I Hate Mornings

If you're short on time, you can skip the rest of this post, because the title really says it all. :)

I am not a morning person. I never have been. One time in high school, I threw my alarm clock across the room at my sister when she came in to wake me up. She told our Mom she would NOT be waking me up anymore because it was too dangerous! True story.

In theory, I'd probably function better on a schedule that allowed me to exercise in the evenings, but with a traffic-filled commute and family dinners and activities and FIVE kids to put to bed...that's just not feasible on a regular basis. Right now I really need to work out first thing in the morning (and that's best with the summer weather as well!).

When I got into running in 2010, somehow I gradually trained myself to get up early every day. I remember it getting easier with time. I assumed, incorrectly, that it would be easy to get back into that habit.

Mornings are killing me. My alarm goes off at 6am every day but I almost never get up then. I know it's only going to get hotter outside, and the pool is going to get more crowded, with each minute that I stay in bed. And yet I stay.

Yesterday, I overslept and didn't start my run until nearly 8am. It was already hot and humid out, and I also might have pushed my speed a little too much, and suddenly a 4-mile run turned into 3 miles with some walking towards the end. I thought maybe I'd finally learned my lesson, but this morning I started my swim at, again, 8am. (Luckily it was a slow day at the pool and my timing worked out such that I wasn't battling little old ladies from water aerobics class for the showers afterwards.)

When my workout starts late, I end up getting to work late too, and my whole day is thrown off. Then I have to stay up later to make up work hours and get other stuff done, and then next thing you know, I'm way too tired the next time my alarm goes off at 6am.

I've got to break the cycle somehow. I'm going to start forcing myself to go to bed no later than midnight and hope that makes a difference. I hate mornings and they hate me right back, but somehow I must conquer them!!!