Why We Exercise in the Morning.

I was reading a blog of fellow classmate, Marloes Lemsom, and while stumbling down the page, I found her blog from September 16 about Tuesday morning ballet. Upon reading, I decided her and I shared the same love/hate relationship with our early morning routines. Although she is forced to attend her class for a grade, I wake up at ungodly hours in the morning to go run...for no apparent reason. In the thirty minutes before I walk out the door every morning, I have already had a heated, uncompromising fight with myself. I have convinced myself that I shouldn't go at least ten times, only to refute myself another ten. "My legs hurt today, I can barely walk." "Yes, but you always feel so much better afterwards, you just need to stretch." "I'm starving, I can't, I'll pass out." "That, my dear, is why there is a refrigerator stocked with food in your kitchen. " "I'm just so tired, I'll run later." "No, you'll just find more, and better, excuses why not to go later." Almost every morning. Like Marloes, I don't necessarily want to do this. But I do, greeting the darkness, the setting moon and the chill, strapped in my shoes and plugged into my iPod. And when I return from my runs, I am bouncing, singing, smiling. My legs feel like I am walking on clouds, my blood is pumping fast and warm and my breath seeps gracefully from my lungs. The sunrise, light and pink, is mystifying. The breeze is inviting on my sweaty face. There is something so satisfying about that moment of accomplishment at that hour of the morning when you know many haven't even hit the snooze button once. So this is to you Marloes and may we always sweat together on Tuesday's.