I've gone completely crazy

This morning, I set my alarm for 5 a.m., managed to drag myself out of bed and by 5:30 a.m. I was running.

Yup, the sun wasn't even up yet and I was out running.

Running in the ungodly hours of the morning is something new I'm trying out, and today was the first day.

I know many people who say they love exercising in the morning; that it energizes them to get on with their day. But for me, at the moment anyway, I'm doing this for practical reasons -- right now, and for the rest of the summer, our evenings are so busy (with swimming and soccer and baseball) that I don't have much time to go out when Ryan gets home. And if I ever want to be able to run a 10K, I have to get out there and run. So instead of going out in the evening, I figured I'd go out before he leaves in the morning (and he leaves by 6:30 a.m.)

And it wasn't bad. I can't say I loved it because one of the things I enjoy about running is that it helps me unwind and de-stress at the end of the day. And let's face it, I'm not stressed about anything at 5:30 a.m. except maybe for the fact that I'm not still in bed.

But once I got going I enjoyed myself. The first half of my run was great but I started to tire on the second half and well, it was a long way home. But I was home by 6:15 a.m., just as the sun was starting to come up.

And I ran 4.3 kilometres. When I first realized that, I thought "damn, that's it" (because I can do 6K or so now). But then I rethought that reaction because, seriously, not only did I run that far before breakfast, but I ran that far immediately after getting out of bed -- which means I didn't have any coffee!