Naturally we think of doing group activities in the evenings, after work, or over the weekend, when we’re free for the entire day. Some people take the opposite approach. They wake up early to go for a morning sunrise run or a croissant loop bike ride.
The concept is simple. Instead of waking up for work, you wake up early, and you do an hour of sport between 0700-0800. In so doing you get your bike ride or run, before your day of work.
Two days in a row I participated in activities that pushed me physically. On sunday it was a 60km ride with 900m of climbing and a 25km/h wind and the next day it was a 9.4km walk which is pushing my endurance further than usual. I found myself thinking that I should participate in hikes because hikes are easy. I’m used to walking. Walking and hiking were my specialities.
Regular Challenges By cycling on Sunday, despite the wind, and running on Monday despite the fatigue I pushed myself, and I remained true to my word.
For several days I either had bad allergies or I had a cold. Both are possible because we went from cold and rainy, and cold and snowy to spring like so three or four trees at once dumped their loads of pollen into the sky at once.
Since so many people are coughing and spluttering at the moment, it’s likely that some generous individuals onpassed the virus to me. The result is that for several days I didn’t run or cycle.
It’s ironic that since I started a Runna fitness plan my “fitness” has been going down rather than up. The simple reason is that although the workouts are challenging, they’re challenging for a short time.
Take this morning’s bike ride for example. It was short in distance and time, but high in effort and strain. I had to keep up with specialists. By specialists I mean “people who cycle without touching other sports as often”.
Last night at around 05:30 the alarm went off and either before or afterwards I heard lightning. I also heard very heavy rain. The question was whether the weather app was to be trusted. I could see that it would rain heavily while I walked from home to the meeting point but that for the duration of the rain it would remain dry.
I chose to take a good raincoat and walked in the rain towards the meeting point.
Today I woke early. I set the alarm for 05:30 and again at 05:40 and yet again at 06:00. The reason for so many alarms is that it’s easy to set the first, wake up to turn it off, and then wake too late. It’s also as a backup. Usually the first alarm is enough to wake me.
I can be a morning person, if other people are not noisy at night when I want to go to sleep at a reasonable time.
Yesterday was cold and grey when I set off on my daily walk/run and my intention was to go up to Cheserex across to Tranchepied and then back down towards Nyon. I had no intention of running a semi-marathon.
The reason for which I ran so far is that I saw dog walkers and their dogs were not leashed. Years ago I was agressed by three dogs, one of them every time we crosssed paths, so now, if I’m alone, and I see a dog, I cross where the field boundary is, and then I continue my walk, run or bike ride.
Recently I ran with the goal of getting above the fog and I succeeded. The result was a 16km run. Since then I have run ten kilometre runs four more times. In the process I have shifted from not seeing myself to seeing myself as more of a runner than before.
Last year I couldn’t run five hundred to eight hundred meters without my knees hurting. Instead of trying to run far I just tried to run as far as I could before I felt pain, and then stopped.
Yesterday we were under the clouds for the entire day. Low lever clouds or fog kept us away from the sun. I noticed that someone on Strava had managed to get above the clouds by going for a bike ride. I decided to try to do the same thing, eventually, by running. This is the longest distance I have ever run. It was uphill for the first part.
I ran from the height of Nyon towards Tranchepied, and from there I ran up towards the Domaine de Bonmont before turning to run along the foot of the Jura towards Trelex, before running back down towards Nyon and home.
Last night, as I finished dinner I noticed that others were out so I joined them within twenty minutes or so. That wasn’t fast enough. They had decided to call it a night. As this impacted my mental health I decided to go for a run.
Often you see people are out, and you know they might call it a night by the time you get there. I had that thought.