Earthmovers and Sandcastles

A very brief entry tonight, as I’m trying hard to get myself into bed. You see, part of being able to get up early and get a run into the day is preparation. If I don’t start planning for a morning run by the evening of the night before, I’m not just not facilitating the run; I’m actually building a wall between myself and what I want. There’s not much middle ground, if any.

I know that I need to be finished running before Eric leaves for work, since neither kid is in school anymore. (Merry Christmas!) Also, tomorrow is the last day of work before Eric’s company holidays, and that means that he and many other employees are bringing in food to share. He’ll be up even earlier than me, getting everything ready to go, and I said I’d help him with last minute work before he heads out the door. That means I really need to be done running by 6:30 at the latest. I’d like to get in an hour, meaning I need to be up by 5 to be on the safe side.

To make the morning easier, I don’t leave a single task for then that involves thinking. The weather gets checked now, not then; too many good runs get sacrificed when a runner decides to “see what it’s like out” before getting dressed. In the frigid winter pre-dawn, if you’re not ready to go before you find out it’s not Paradise outside, it gets much easier to give up before you even start. No, the clothes are in a pile next to my bed, ready to grab and throw on my body before I can do much more than rub my eyes and blink.

Garmin and iPod charging: check. It bites to find out, just as you’re ready to go, that the batteries are dead, and nobody needs extra reasons to throw in the towel on a morning run. Flashlight at hand: also check. YakTrax, just in case.

All that’s left is to get to bed and close my eyes. This is the part that takes practice, unfortunately. Over time, though, I’ve managed to teach my body this: when I’m going through my pre-flight check, it means that sleep has to be imminent. I begin to feel drowsy even as I lay hand on the heart-rate strap. Also, I’m usually able to wake up before the alarm goes off on run mornings. Maybe I’m becoming a bit of a puppy in that aspect.

Three more sleeps to Christmas, if you’re celebrating! Gabe’s getting a little anxious, I think, though he’s trying to be subtle. This afternoon, he lay down to rest on the floor, with his head between a couple of presents under the tree, and I caught him holding and caressing the gift from his preschool teachers. He was told that he could open that one, but he refused, shoving it deep under the tree with the other packages; he did that with a few other goodie bag treats, as well, including one he got in church Sunday for attendance, not holiday-related at all. Who is this kid?

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