Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise...

Never in my entire life have I seen as many sunrises as I’ve seen in the last 10 days!

I am a night owl. I can often be found burning the midnight oil catching up on emails, carrying on with work, writing up my thesis or adding to my blog! I’m always available for late night chats – for anyone else who is up into the wee hours. Nighttime is when I get my second wind, when the house goes quiet after the mad rush of the day and I can just take a deep breath and focus on stuff that needs to get done.

Another important aspect that makes me who I am is that I hate exercise. It has always been something I have to do rather than want to do. In my school days, I would do anything I could to avoid any kind of sport or PT. Parent notes were produced aplenty when it came to sport. In my adult years I always played the game of on-again, off-again when it came to exercise because it would only happen when I felt good enough and motivated enough to go – which is not very often. I’ve tried yoga, aerobics, circuit, walking, running – anything I’ve left out? – to no avail.

And now… I’ve set myself a goal to climb Kili in 3 months time! Very quickly I realised that I have a better chance of enduring if I do some training and with my schedule, this training could only be fitted in in the early hours of the morning…

So… Take two very unlikely events that could happen in my life, put them together with a lofty goal and here I am… 10 days into a training programme where I wake up at 5.40am to begin a 6am training round. I’ve been consistent, I’ve been dedicated and I’m aching all over. So now I have a couple of questions for all you early risers out there:

1.              When does exercise begin to energise you rather than make you feel exhausted and sore?

2.              When do you begin getting used to the early morning wake up call and start adjusting by going to sleep earlier the previous night?

3.              Is this all really good for you?

With these questions in mind I shall continue on this rigorous training schedule and hope to see some fantastic results. Hopefully when I’m climbing the mountain, I’ll be thankful for the effort I put in before.

I’d like to end with this message of inspiration for anybody out there who is wondering if they can do it… if I can, you can!