Good Morning?!?

(Old pic) My puppies trying to convince me to get up.

I am not a morning person, and early mornings are my least favorite part of the day.  But if I want to workout I must get up early in the morning.  Why you ask???  Well mostly, because I have a full-time job that keeps me away from home until 4:30 pm and a family I need to take care of when I get home.  Of course I am pretty sure my family would be okay with me not being home until later and they would be totally supportive of me coming home late, but my conscience does not.  So this means I must workout in the morning and I am NOT a morning person--in fact, it is best to give me about an hour before you talk to me if it is early morning.

So this morning my alarm clock went off at 4:35 am and I began to have the typical morning conversation between the "it's okay to stay in bed" and the "get out of bed and workout" angel/devil.  The first voice "you know your tired, just sleep in for a couple of more hours and you can workout when you get home"  Then comes the second voice "get up and workout, you know you need to".  Back comes the first voice with pretty much the same thought of sleeping in and workout later.  The second voice "get up and workout, you know you won't work out when you get home".  First voice the same.  Second voice "get up and workout, you are fat and out of shape and there is no way you will get fast  if you don't work out."  The second voice is a bit more cruel and ends up winning.

I drag my body out of bed and gloomily get ready to ride the spin bike or something like that.  Eventually about 30 minutes into the workout I start to feel pretty good and by the end I am completely awake and ready to take on the day. And although I feel really good by the end of the workout, it still does not change the fact I am not a morning person and I wish there was a different time of day to workout.

So what do I need to do.  I need to find a way to make me a morning person (not likely this will change), or find another solution.  Any suggestions???

Pride

I haven't written forever, and was going to write about my trip this last weekend, and I will, but I wanted to write about today.

Today I rode by bike to work (for those who didn't know I got a new job and it is close to home--yeah!  Also, yeah for the new job, I really like it.).  According to Coach Dan I am supposed to keep my heart rate down on these rides.  In the morning this is not hard, I am tired and really don't need to arrive at work sweating and hot.  Going home is a whole different story.

Riding home I just want to pound the pedals.  I have been in an office all day long and need to just ride hard.  There is something that feels so good when you ride hard.  Going home I ride up 2 small hills, and one long, steep hill.  It takes all the self control I have to gear down and spin up these hills.  I know this may seem crazy, but it takes everything I have to not go up as fast as I can and as hard as I can.  I would say I am somewhat prideful.  I know I can make it up these hills in my large and middle cog, and I want to do it in these hard gears.  Part of it is because I like making it hard and I can, the other is what if someone were to pass me!  I hate being passed!

In the past I have allowed this thinking to mess up my recovery rides.  Someone rides by and begins to pass, and I just can't take it.  I let them go, and then eventually I have to hit into high gear, catch them and pass them back, and then not let them pass me back.  Sometimes I am too horribly competive, or perhaps insecure--who knows.

However, this year I am not going to let that happen.  I am going to be secure in my riding, recovery days are recovery and anyone can pass....now if I can just get my mental state to be as secure.