I’m not perfect. This morning I woke up and was comfortable and miserable all at the same time. Comfortable because I was nestled under a warm down comforter but miserable because my nose was stuffed up from the heat running intermittently throughout the night. I looked over at my clock, and just as luck would have it, it read 6:15am. I knew that my alarm was gonna’ go off in 45 minutes anyway, and as I lay there contemplating whether or not I should just get up or sleep in today, the minutes ticked by. Before I knew it, it was almost 7am, and I figured that I might as well get up because I sure as heck wasn’t gonna’ go back to sleep. I knew also that I really wanted to get myself back into a regular routine with running….but it was SO cold outside and I was SO warm!
Don’t Think; Just Run
Too often, we dwell on things and eventually we talk ourselves out of doing something that is probably good for us. When it comes to running early in the morning (especially when the weather is cold), YOU CANNOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO THINK. I say this because the more you think about how cold it is, and how comfortable you are, etc, you will quickly come up with a laundry list of lame excuses for not doing it. And the funny thing of it is, at the end of the day, you’ll feel WORSE about being lazy than you would if you had worked up the nerve to get your butt out of bed!
So that’s just what I did. I only allowed myself to lay in bed and think about it for a few minutes before I decided that if I didn’t just get out of bed and run, chances were likely that I wouldn’t run at all today.
Now, if I could just somehow stick one foot out from under my warm covers….
It was sorta’ like testing the pool water before you get in. Clearly, it was more difficult than usual to get myself out of bed today (ie. my comfort zone) to do something that would ultimately benefit me. I continued on:
Ok- one foot out…Geez- it’s cold! (foot quickly retreats to warmth) Ok, ok- this is ridiculous. You’re already awake for crying out loud and even though you’re tired, you’re not going to go back to sleep, so it’s better to just jump out of bed and get your running clothes on as quickly as possible before you change your mind…
And that’s what I did. I scrambled out of bed, and then I turned around and made the bed so that I wouldn’t be tempted to get back into it. Then I brushed my teeth, threw on my running gear and quietly exited my apartment. The air outside was cold, but not bitingly so. It actually woke me up. I took a couple of shallow, cold breaths, descended the few flights of stairs and jogged out of my apartment complex. Morning runs can be a bitch.
Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?’
-Peter Maher, Irish-Canadian Olympian & sub 2:12 marathoner