Flipping The Switch

During the #RunHades challenge something really cool happened. I killed 4 birds with one stone. That's right! I'm a former night owl turned "Morning Person." How did I do it? During the #Runhades challenge I chose to log one mile a day when I wasn't running a 5K. Near the very end because of the heat I decided that mile would be in the morning before anyone got up out of bed. I set my phone alarm for 6am and then set a back up alarm for 6:30am. I would wake up, roll out of bed, get dressed, drive to the track and get one mile of running, jogging or walking in all before consuming any caffeine. The back up alarm would go off while I was at the track so this really helped me to make sure I was right on schedule. It wasn't easy at first but doing it three days in a row formed a habit. I was back before anyone was awake and I was on this sort of natural high. It was awesome. I didn't need that caffeine fix to function first thing in the morning. My body was doing everything for me. I was able to run the mornings in our home like a well oiled machine. The second week I set my alarm for 5:30am and set my back up alarm for 6am. The kids start school soon so if I want to get my half hour in I have to get up even earlier. So far it's working! Did I mention that I'm going to bed earlier too? I'm actually managing to get 8 hours of sleep. I feel like a whole new person!

If you would like to try flipping your switch try this:
Figure out the best time in the morning to get your one mile run, jog or walk in.
Set those alarms!
Roll out of bed, get dressed and get your 1 mile in. Whether you need to drive to a track or just do it in your neighborhood.
Arm yourself with water.
WARM UP before you take off. I'm inserting the Lunge Matrix video as your warm up.

Lunge Warm-Up from CoachJayJohnson on Vimeo. Thanks to Abe Cortes for this tip!

If you can run it will really get you hopping in the morning.
If you can jog it will still get you going.
If you have to walk, then walk fast. It's the speed that kicks you into high gear.
This should take no more than 30 minutes including your warm up.
Try it for 2 weeks and let me know if it flipped your switch!
Tweet me using the hashtag #MorningMile

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