The 5am Club vs The 5pm Club
I cannot believe that I used to be one of those people who could go to the gym after work. I can honestly say that I have to work out in the morning or it just doesn’t get done, period. Most days I wake up at 4:47 am and I’m in my “gym” ready for my workouts by 5:15am. I am usually tired, but I always throw water on my face and the back of my neck first thing; it seems to do the trick. I know that the feeling after finishing my workout completely outweighs how tired I am. I’m awake and set up for my day.
In the past, I had to be a work pretty early so that was really my start to my “afterwork” workouts, I didn’t really have a choice. I worked out with a trainer and honestly it' didn’t do a whole lot for me. Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot, as in how to actually lift weights. But I was doing this twice a week and I’d try to get a little run in beforehand, and the workouts were extremely random. Which we all know now, that that is not good for someone my age. I eventually switched to mornings, but I was spending 25 minutes just driving to the gym, what a waste of time. My trainer got promoted to a new gym and I didn’t follow, and looking back that was probably the best thing that could have happened.
Now I’m the first one up in the house and I have my time to myself, not to mention I absolutely love getting up in the dark, I don’t know why. I just feel like I’m getting so much accomplished and the day hasn’t even started, I suppose. There are a couple of things that I think of when I’m tired and looking for my phone to turn my alarm off… First, I think of Tom Brady saying, “fuck your tired body,” from a speech I listened to on social medial. Then, I remember Mel Robbins five second rule. The alarm goes off and if you can’t seem to get your body up, count backwards from 5 and your ass better be up by the time you get to 1. It works. Both work. I also read the book The 5am Club: Owning Your Morning, Elevate Your Life by Robin Sharma, I highly recommend reading it.
I bring all this up because this morning, I’m on the tread finishing up my Monday workout and I’m telling myself that on Monday’s and Thursday’s I should add in a run afterwork. I’m at work right now, typing this, and I can tell you I am certainly NOT going home and going to go for a fucking run. I could do it, but how much is too much? I’ve pretty much talked myself out of another ½ marathon, just because it took my leg like 3 months to recover after my last one, what a set back. I don’t want that to happen again. I may do a 10K just to see how that feels. I am a lot stronger than I was so I might be ok, but I don’t want to get hurt again and bam, there goes months down the drain.
I guess we’ll see, and I’ve never heard of a 5pm Club.