I wrote yesterday about starting a month long challenge to wake up every day at 4:00 AM to run. I am not new to getting up early to run and am familiar with a 4 AM alarm. But whenever I could sleep in I did so this will be the first time doing it every day.

For now this is am morning routine:

At 4 AM my alarm goes off and a slink out of my bedroom as quietly as I can. I immediately start the coffee maker then put my running clothes on. A critical part of the routine is laying out my clothes the night before. If I had to dig around in my room looking for socks or a sports bra things would fall apart.

Once my coffee is prepared I sit down to stretch, roll and do some activation exercises.

For now most runs will be done on the treadmill given that it’s so dark, but I can’t wait for them to look like this:

Most days I try to be running by 4:45 and complete my run by 5:45 so I can cool down and stretch a little. Cannon starts waking up around 6 AM and I like to be there when he gets up on school days. If I want to run longer Cory is happy to get the kids up on weekends.

That is the gist of my early morning routine, the key is having most things ready the night before. Also I used to hit snooze a lot but now I get up with the first alarm. I once heard it makes you more tired to snooze because it disrupts your sleep patterns plus I try not to disrupt Cory and sometimes Cannon who are asleep next to me.

after that the day moves quickly with breakfast, getting dressed, school prep etc.

I was so excited that it was warm enough to walk the kids to school, so much nicer than driving.

After dropping Cannon off at school Emmy and I met some friends at a playground for a little while. The cold kept us away for way too long and we missed our friends.

Emmy and I got a few things done before it was time to go back and get Cannon from school. I love how much he loves school. Then we went to our second playground of the day to play some more with some friends.

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Later we had the BEST time riding scooters and cooking dinner together.

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We are still striving for our 1000 hours outside so I thought this might be a good place to keep track of our progress towards our goal. The time will be highly estimated: 45 minutes will be rounded to an hour, 80 minutes will be rounded to an hour….trying to keep it simple while also be inspired to spend more time outside. Now I need to go back and estimate our time from the begining of the year and start a spread sheet.

Outside Time: 4 hours

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Are you enjoying more time outside lately?