For those of us who only have the early morning hours to get our running in, we may at one point or another struggled with just simply getting out of bed. Simple as the concept may be, as we all know it’s much harder to accomplish. It seems as if the mornings come quicker than expected. That the sound of the alarm comes calling sooner than we’d like. Well if I had some special trick to get you and me out of bed in the morning, I’d be first in line. Sadly enough it boils down to a few things that we all can work on.
1) Routine - I’ve found that when my running was at it’s best I had a routine for it. I went to bed at a certain time, I woke up at a certain time, and things just seemed to click. Of course this was well before baby Jack had arrived. For all of is, is a routine likely to become a habit? Possibly, depends on how disciplined you are. I for one have not found as of late. With our little guy still trying to figure out the sleeping thing, we find ourselves up at odd hours of the night, and that alarm clock seems to come sooner than we’d like. Regardless of our routine, as nice as it would be to stay committed to one, there are two more driving factors for me.
2) Goals/Races - When our nights seem to get away from us, and we lay there in bed debating between getting out and running or snuggling even further into our beds. One driving force can be having a goal/race in mind. Signing up for races and knowing that, that day is on the horizon is a huge motivating factor for me. I know I need to put in the time and the miles out on the trails and roads to be able to compete and race when race day comes. Having that goal/race looming in the back of our minds, so as the head starts to drift back down towards the pillow, it quickly pops up being reminded of that inevitable race day or goal in mind.
3) Mental Toughness - Over the years I’ve realized that running is almost 80-90% mental toughness and 10-20% physical ability. Not to denote the importance of proper training, but if you are mentally tough you can accomplish almost anything. Getting and dragging and crawling you butt out of bed every morning is truly a mental toughness barrier. If you think about your morning runs you accomplish two workouts. Your very first workout that got you out of bed and onto the road was that workout of training your brain. It does get easier over time, but just like getting into shape, we can let our minds get out of shape very quickly as well. Say we sleep in a few mornings, or hit the snooze one to many times. Our mental toughness starts to weaken. Over come yourself and get out of bed.
So there you have it! If you got out of bed this morning, great job! If you didn’t I’m sure you are already regretting it. Remember these few things each and every morning to get yourself out of bed and onto achieving your goals and becoming the runner you want to be. Think about the last time you regretted getting out of bed to go running? I dare say the answer is never. You know you will enjoy it as soon as you get out there, so get out there! Happy Morning Running!
