I have really struggled with finding the time for a workout since having kids. It seems that either I’m parenting, working or recovering from the other two activities. There just isn’t a good time of the day for a workout.
I’ve always been a bit of an early-riser though, 6:00 AM doesn’t scare me. So doing early morning walks/runs/workouts seems to be the only schedule I can really keep to, unless I’m engaged in an arms race with my kids. For a while, with both of my kids, I would get up early and get ready to go for a run, and then they would wake up. So I started getting up earlier. So did they. I think that at one point this continued on until 5:00 AM, when I just had to cave in and give up; for my sake and for the sleep schedule of my kids.
I have been able to get up at 6:00 AM regularly these days, and usually have until at least 7:15 to do my thing. Some mornings, I’ve been working during this time. Other mornings, like this morning, I went for a walk. There’s just one other problem.
Mayne Island doesn’t have streetlights. At 6:00 in the morning, it’s dark outside, and I mean REALLY dark. I bought a headlamp just because of this, but I have yet to put it to use. This morning I decided to try out my night vision (turns out that it’s not so great anymore). I had intended on doing a light jog, but that would have been suicide. I had to settle on a brisk walk. Even still, I rolled my ankle once and completely bailed once too.
The strange this is that I noticed that I really had to concentrate. I think I may have had more of a mental workout than a physical workout, just keeping track of the path, and avoiding obstacles.
6:00 AM is really my only opportunity to get out there. It’s 7:30 now, and it looks bright enough to function, but I’m also expecting to hear from a 2 year old any second now. Tomorrow, I’m going to break out the headlamp and see how that goes.