When I was in college I could sleep until the early afternoon hours without much effort. If I wasn’t getting up for class, the only reason I saw AM on the clock was because we were out after midnight. Now having settled into a regular work schedule where I am accustomed to getting up early everyday, I no longer sleep through my weekend mornings. In fact, I feel like I must enjoy every moment of the weekend, and while that includes a little bit more sleep, I’m up well before high noon.
None of that changes the fact that I really despise early morning race times. I’m an afternoon, after work runner. That means I have a little breakfast, a nice big lunch, and then once that has digested and gotten me through the work day, I run or bike or go ahead with whatever physical activity I have planned for the day. All that is great, except when it comes to race day. All of a sudden I have to work off an unfamiliar schedule. Even for a 9 AM race, (depending on how far I have to travel) I still have to get up around 6-7 to make and eat a decent breakfast and let it digest a bit before tackling the course. And 9 AM race times are not the norm. There are so many 7-8 AM races that I pass up because I just don’t want to get up that early.
Stretching at 7am Before the Downtown Tri
I understand that many times the races have to be held early in the morning. If police are going to block off major roads, they would prefer to do that early in the morning on a Sunday, when traffic is lightest and the non-racing public is least inconvenienced. Most races being in the summer, people also want to run or bike during the cool morning hours before it gets torturously hot out. I get that, and for some events I’m more forgiving than others. When I did my first triathlon (7:30 am start) my adrenaline was pumping so hard I couldn’t sleep past 5:30 anyway. That being such a long, multi-sport event taking place downtown, it made sense to start that early. But a 5k run? There is no need for that short of a run to be held at 8 AM unless you want a legitimate shot at going back to bed afterwords. They do it right at the Reggae Run and Run Like Hell, evening races with a sweet parties afterwords. Even the GO OTR 5k, which is a midsummer event, starts at 10 AM (although this year it did get pretty hot).
Maybe later in life when I have to get up and run before work I will find the early morning races acceptable. I’m sure if you’re a morning runner the afternoon race times bug you. Luckily you have plenty of morning races to choose from. Meanwhile I’ll keep attending later races with sweet parties.
Photo Credit: Karen Stancik
