Up and at em.........................

The plan of attack for today's run was to have (my) Mister wake me up as he was leaving for work giving me thirty to forty-five minutes of wake-up time before the time I wanted to be out the door. I thought taking time to wake up a bit would enhance my run. The reality turned out to be knowing I was up before I really needed to be (I can get dressed and out the door in under ten minutes if necessary) made me want to roll over and go back to sleep.

I am not a snoozer! The moment the alarm goes off I am up and out of bed. Heck, normally I wake up a minute or two before it goes off. Why? Because I have programmed myself this way, the same way others choose to set the alarm to go off early and then hit the snooze button for an hour or so. It was interesting to note that asking to be woke up earlier than needed was not as helpful as I anticipated.

After about a minute of self arguing about getting up or rolling over the, "You are going to hate yourself if you don't get out and run this morning" won out and I threw back the covers and was up. Now what? I was afraid that if I started my regular wake-up routine that I would get sucked in and not get out the door. Fine! May as well get dressed and head out then. That was, after all, the reason for getting up before the chickens. Wasn't it?

Another discovery I made was with this early rising hour comes the inherent dangers of running in pre-dawn lighting. It is not cars or potholes, but rather the distinct possibility of colliding with the stampede of deer that I startled, not once but twice within the first mile of the run. Fortunately we all managed to go our separate way unharmed.

I was suppose to go a distance of six miles, but ended up pampering myself and only going five, walking chunks of that. I will do the other mile this evening with the dogs. I am still feeling tenderness in my lower legs from wearing the worn out shoes and I am not going to be stupid and push myself into an injury.

Now that I am done with the run I am really glad I got up and got it over with. Even if I do nothing else today I will not have to feel lazy or like I am wasting my day, but can instead brag about getting up and running five miles before 6AM. That counts for something now. Doesn't it?