Runners on how they manage to get up early for a morning run, and why this is necessary
The seven runners who start the day earlier than 70% of the rest of the people running in the morning share their personal experience on how willpower can overcome laziness.
“We all have the same amount of time. The question is, what are you doing with yours? ” - sounds motivating, right? People who have time for 10 jogging in the morning, eat twice and work productively, for many cause a mixture of admiration and irritation. “I wouldn’t be able to,” you think, and you continue to spill everything in the world.
We asked the runners we knew about how they managed to start the day early and run in the mornings and fished out some useful tips from these answers.
Honestly answer the question “Why?”
Armen Petrosyan, publisher of the “Live interesting” magazine:
For early climbs, I observe simple conditions. First, I must clearly understand why I need this. What benefit and joy will bring me the things that I will have time to do, starting a day earlier.
It makes no sense to wake up earlier and fight drowsiness all day. If you change the daily regimen seriously and for a long time, then I need at least 7 hours of sleep per day. Here I am helped by the timing of sleep in a Jawbone bracelet. An hour and a half, I sleep during the day. The ways I tested to get into working mode at early awakening are freewriting and the Surya-Namaskara complex. Running early in the morning I did not go.
I regularly hear about the desire to sleep early, but rarely - about plans to go to bed earlier. Sleep and rest are underestimated. I needed to go through trauma and overtraining to understand the importance of recovery.
Laziness arises where there is a desire to achieve something, but there is no understanding why you need it.
The trick in the fight against laziness is simple: I write down the arguments in favor of fulfilling the upcoming task. It does not take much time. I present the joy of the changes that will bring action. The most important step is to start doing at least something in the direction of the formulated changes.
After all, laziness is like a swamp: the more you are at one point, the more you plunge into it.
Try to go to bed earlier
Daniil Vakhovsky, PR-manager of “Ukrazaliznitsі” (Ukrainian Railways):
The best rule for getting up early is to go to bed earlier. From going to bed, you need to do a certain ritual. Biologically, people are arranged so that bright light stimulates our brain to produce special substances that keep us awake longer. The body perceives bright light, including the screens of a mobile phone, tablet, TV, like daylight, so if we spend the whole evening sitting in devices, it’s much more difficult to fall asleep.
My ritual looks like this: I do not turn on the laptop after 22, and do not read electronic books on the tablet an hour before bedtime, I use dim light in the apartment. Each person needs a certain amount of sleep, I need at least 7 hours. Therefore, if I do not lie earlier, then I can’t stand up, respectively.
My life hack: sometimes I allow myself to succumb to laziness. There are days when you really get very tired, and there is simply no resource to put yourself together. If the batteries are not charged, I can shift the workout by a day. Sometimes I act differently: when I don’t have the strength to pack up and run in the morning, I can get up for a morning walk and run in the evening. We need to find a balance between supporting the training schedule and violence against the body. If he is not ready for the load, then training is unlikely to be effective.
Nothing helps better than challenge
Julia Sokolovskaya, author of the blog run-and-travel.com:
Despite all the fun of running, tune in to an early rise is not easy. Only one way works for me: set the alarm at the right time and go. And then falling asleep on time is already tightening. In the early days it is difficult, so it’s easier for some to rebuild gradually. In the evening I often think over a cool route with beautiful views, so that in the morning there is less time for internal dialogs.
My laziness loves to progress when there is no hard plan for the marathon. Favorite excuse - "I'll start next week." So I came up with the “30 Morning Runs” Challenge, where for 2 months I had to run 30 times early in the morning, share the results on Facebook, and at the same time show the morning city and my favorite routes through the eyes of a runner. Timing, schedule, reporting, and even beautiful - everything as I like. Not the fact that everyone will work, but it was definitely easier and more fun for me with such a challenge.
Those who want to extend the experiment are advised to read about the experience of 100 running days.
Develop a comfortable schedule
Denis Tkalich, e-commerce manager at Petcube:
So that the work-training-family triangle does not turn into Bermuda, you need to have time to work out before work. My working day is shifted relative to the standard ones from 9 to 6, I arrive at the office around eleven and work until eight in the evening, sometimes later. Accordingly, evening training would be more likely to be night, and I would have seen episodes of family on weekdays.
Therefore, I developed such a regime for myself: in the morning I get up at 6-7, if training near the house, or at 5-5: 30, if you need to go somewhere. Before 9 I’m back, having breakfast and going to work. After work, I always try to spend a couple of hours with my family.
If I’m running myself, sometimes I’m moving the alarm clock for an hour in the morning,
to sleep longer, especially in winter, when the street is dark and nasty. But if you agreed to run with someone in the morning, then you must be sure.
Fight laziness for what you love
Anastasia Bereza, journalist:
I always woke up early and, it seems, even to school for 10 years was late one or two. I am an adherent of running in the mornings: having trained before work, you can easily drink a glass of wine with friends, stay up late at your birthday party, or have a hearty dinner. An evening workout will keep me busy all day.
Now I am running around six in the morning: not hot, crowded, small, quiet and fresh at any time of the year. Even in winter at such a time it is lighter and safer than in the evening. To wake up at five, I just try to fall asleep at about 23. Anyway, at this time you can’t be busy with anything except surfing the Internet and watching movies and texts that can be put off in the morning. At first, the alarm clock helped me a lot, and now I easily wake up myself.
You can also train yourself to get up early for training on a business trip or on vacation in another country. There it is a pity to sleep, and I really want to consider everything better, but there is not always enough time for this. A morning run is a great opportunity to get to know the new city.
My method of dealing with laziness is to remind myself that I am not obliged to do this, but I feel better if I run around in the morning. This argument does not only work with running. And if it doesn’t work, then maybe you don’t love it that much?
Work is a bad excuse to skip a workout
Dmitry Molchanov, nurse:
I wake up at 3:30 and don’t drink coffee. No, I'm not a zombie. It’s just that my work day starts at 4 in the morning. All my conscious life I was an owl until a year and a half ago I moved to America.
I adapted quickly enough to change time zones, and later got a job in a medical facility. Everything in this work was good, except for the schedule: 3-4 times a week you need to work from 04:00 to 19:00. For the first two months, the body was very difficult to perceive such a restructuring, because out of habit I went to bed at 23:00, and I had to get up after four hours.
I haven’t overslept work all the time, even if I practically didn’t sleep at night. Here the motivation is simple: did not come - did not receive money. Music helps to turn on before work, but I can’t “swing” for half a day, because I work with patients and a lot depends on my concentration. Due to accumulated fatigue and lack of sleep, my regimen gradually changed. Now, after a working day, I can go to bed at 8 pm and sleep for 12 hours if I have a day off tomorrow.
Although my routine can scare many, I found a way to combine workout and work. I bought a jogging backpack, with which I sometimes run 8 km from work to home, I often ride my bike to work.
I can’t say that I’m completely used to my routine - I still have 5 alarms on my phone, and a couple of times I got tired so that I really wanted to leave this job.
Each time, seeing photos and posts of friends that they got up early and already managed to run, I wonder to myself that I would have to get up at 2 nights to repeat their feat! 🙂