Running in the morning

The nerdy girl's unofficial guide to running before work

Scene at 6:45 a.m. during a trail run. 

I live in Georgia and summer runs when it's 100 degrees and 93% humidity are miserable. They're probably pretty unsafe too. (My asthma definitely flares up when it's too hot and humid to run.) So what do you do?

• You can run indoors on treadmills
• You can run on an indoor track
• You can run mornings or evenings outside

Those are your options. I'm not a fan of treadmills (I actually run slower on them). My indoor track is 1/8 of a mile and it gets boring. I don't like to run on it more than once a week. I've tried evening running outside and at 8 p.m. it's still 83 degrees and awful. I started running on Saturday mornings. It's actually cooler in the morning—75 degrees. And it worked. I began adding to this. One day I didn't have to be at work until 8:30 a.m. so I decided to run with my extra minutes. I also ran on a Thursday morning on a day I took off for appointments. And it worked. The weather was nicer. I liked having my workout out of the way—and I wasn't a slug the rest of the day (I worried about being tired afterwards, but was totally fine.)

When I ran cross country in high school, I'd occasionally get up and run two miles before school. I rarely did this. It was just to increase my mileage with the hopes of getting stronger.

So why run in the morning?
• In the summer it's cooler.

• You get to see the sunrise. The sky is really pretty on my runs.
• You can get your workout over with before most people are even awake. As a person who loves a To Do list, I love having  my workout done for the day.

In all honesty, I use to scoff at morning workout people. I thought those 5 a.m. gym ladies were crazy. But maybe they're just crazy productive? It's one way to pack more in your day. And all it took was some horrendous heat to get me to do this.

The key to running in the morning is to do as much preparation as possible.

Running clothes for Monday morning:
 shoes, chafe guard, clothes, hat.

I lay out my running clothes in my bathroom
• hat, tank, sports bra, crops, underwear, socks and my anti chafe stick.
Headphones for my runs stay in my car.

Pandor plays "Wake Me Up"
during my 6:30 a.m. run. Haha

I make a bag with my work clothes and stick that in my car the night before.
And my gym bag and shower bag usually stay in my car.

Also: pop a bottle of water in the fridge and any food for after your run should be easy to grab.

I also keep a towel in my car—to sit on after my runs so I don't get gross sweat all over my new car.

The perils of morning runs
• It's dark
• safety
• dew and your shoes (and grass clippings)
And haha—last week I tried to jump over a mud puddle and ending up hitting my head on a low hanging branch. Oops.

One morning I told my husband bye, I was going running. I was standing over him, wearing neon, it wasn't quite 6 a.m. and I think I scared the bejeezus out of him.