Periscopecake

I believe pretty strongly in the concept that if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. However, I see clearly in my own fitness practices (and daily practices), that I am heavily a creature of habit and I am finding it incredibly hard to break my normal routines. I don’t actually WANT to change the modalities in which I exercise; I really like running, biking, weights and yoga. (Although I would like to do more hiking!) I see a big need to change efficiency in how I get going and how I use my time (before I run especially).

For many years my routine has been to get up, eat breakfast and have my coffee, then wait one and a half or two hours before I run. Sounds totally inefficient, and it probably is, but it always worked for me. I would get up a couple hours before I wanted to run, start some laundry, do some dishes or chores, and maybe watch my pre-recorded Saturday night live or something. Get the bathroom in. Take care of any risk of getting hungry on a long run. Get things started or make my grocery list, or whatever, then head out. I have always even done this on race days too; 7am race = up at 5am, eat breakfast, get ready, get down to the race, etc.

These days however, this feels incredibly inefficient and like a total waste of my morning and time, or more importantly, my time with loved ones! I subscribe to the thinking that by 10am, half the day is wasted! (and that’s not a joke). But I have a big old cage of my own making holding me back! What if I get hungry on the run? What if I have to use the bathroom? What if I feel too stiff or tired?

I have run on an empty stomach on very few occasions, when the opportunity to run was only at that time, under those circumstances, and it was going to be 10k or less. But I truly have never raced, done a long run, or trained in basically any other way, than after having eaten and been up for a little while; besides those very few (likely less than 5 times in nearly 2 decades running).

I think my number one barrier, as embarrassing and stupid as it is, is that I don’t want to get hungry. I have some crazy fear that I’ll be out running and starve to death, apparently. I jest, but it is an actual thought I have. Maybe not “starving to death”, but being so distracted and overwhelmed by my screaming hunger, that I’ll be unable to perform, or want to stop, or cry or something.

I know that many a runner rolls out of bed and into some shoes, and heads out in the wee hours of morning. I assume that there are very few causalities from running for a couple hours on a small snack, rather than a full breakfast. I can only assume that it’s probably the more normal thing to run straight away, because it is better for time and makes the most sense with our busy lifestyles.

I worry about needing to use the bathroom or being stiff and tired or a variety of other things. But as I eat my breakfast and then basically kill time until I’m good to go, it is starting to feel ridiculous and hugely inefficient. It has also dawned on me that I have always placed my runs on the same days and the same times and generally have an overall barrier to when I can do these things! Years ago I was able to break out of the “morning only” fitness slump, because necessity demanded it of me, and I was only able to work out in the afternoon some days, or not at all. Long runs are ALWAYS Sundays and the other run days are the same also, this has been out of convenience and lifestyle, but really does not have to be that way, I could structure a training plan around long runs on Wednesdays and it would work just fine for my schedule.

As the sun comes up earlier and I tend to wake earlier, it seems increasingly ridiculous that I hold firm to the self imposed confines of what has always been, will be forever more. I am sometimes not even hungry when I wake up! (Often, I am) I could certainly do something before my body even knows what hit it and actually be home to have breakfast and start my day from there. (These kinds of behaviors make me very well aware of my own neurotic tendencies that may border less on the side of “cute and quirky” and more on the side of “rigid and obsessive”…but I digress).

So in order to maybe not get what I’ve always got, and move into a less comfortable, but likely more efficient way of being, perhaps I need try some baby steps into running on empty, and pounding the pavement before the day begins. I am thinking that a 5k to start will greatly reduce the likely hood of starvation. Maybe I will discover that I can be even more efficient! (I love me some efficiency…maybe even more than I love routine!)