Early morning swimming

[Wahine]

I am not a natural morning person. It is like slowly peeling off a very sticky band aid to get me out of bed in the early AM. So for me to make it to masters swimming workouts that start at 6:10 am is quite the chore. But when I do, it feels sooooooooooo good. I've got one workout in before I even start my workday and I'm usually pretty endorphined up when I get to work since masters is not a slacker workout.

I try to go to bed earlier, but I often get a second wind at about 7 PM that makes that tough. Also my BF doesn't go to bed until pretty late and that makes it really easy to let the evening hours slip by as we're hanging out together and before I know it, it's 11 PM.

I try to have everything ready to go before I go to bed. Swim bag packed, coffee ready...

I remind myself how good it will feel afterward. And yet, I still don't make it nearly as often as I'd like.

Then there's the eating issue. When I swim hard in the AM I am *STARVING* the rest of the day and I tend to over eat badly. So it doesn't really help with my weight management. It helps if I have a chocolate milk right after the workout but I'm still really hungry most of the day.

I'm not really looking for any miracle answers here. Just whining a bit and fishing for some commiseration.

[Biciclista]

I work with a man who swims first thing in the morning. My goodness, he is famished most the time!! It keeps him healthy too and I am sure it's doing the same for you. Keep being an inspiration!

[Veronica]

I am naturally a morning person so 5 AM workouts suit me. The alarm goes off at 3:30 and I start heading for bed at 7 PM every night. I know I am a B!tch w/o enough sleep.

So I have no advice there.

On my way home from my trainer workouts I am so hungry. I have a protein shake - Trader's Joe's whey - made with 2 % milk. That seems to really help - except on plyometric days. I burn so many calories on those days. I put the shake in an insulated Camelbak stainless steel bottle with some ice cubes. The bottle has a straw so that makes drinking in the car easier.

I'm not sure I could do swim workoiuts in the morning. Our pools are outside and I HATE to be cold. Yeah... I know the water is heated.

Veronica

[GLC1968]

I commiserate!

I used to be a morning person until I married a night person and now getting up early is tough. Add to that the need to take care of farm animals and a 45 minute commute and it makes my mornings generally a scheduling nightmare.

BUT, something happened with the membership at the gym where my pool is and it's insanely crowded in the evenings now. I have had to turn around and go home TWICE because there was not a single space open in the lot! Even if I can score a space, there are often no lockers left. At least not too many people swim, so the pool is still manageable. I can't even imagine the lines for the treadmills!

Anyway, I think I might have to switch to morning swims to be consistent. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it because I really suck at 1) getting to bed early and 2) getting up early.

And more hunger is definitely not something I need, either!

[solobiker]

I am very much a morning person. Sometimes I get to work as early as 4am to work on paperwork. On weekends I will sleep in until about 530 or 6 and then get up and go for a ride, run or go up to go x-country skiing.

DH on the otherhand is a night owl. I am in shut down mode..around 7 or 8 pm while he is ramping up. So needless to say once he comes home from work I pretty much have dinner ready, we eat, spend about 1 hr together then I go to bed. I try to stay up later but it is as if someone flips a switch on my energy level as it shuts off very fast.

[HillSlugger]

I'm not naturally a morning person, but I prefer to do all my training first thing in the morning. It's my time, before anyone else makes demands on me. I'm generally into the pool or out for my run by 6:05; sometimes I can be on the trainer before 6!

Yeah, some morning I want to eat everything in sight.

[Tri Girl]

I feel your pain!!!

I stopped swimming early in the morning solely because of the hunger issue! I *LIKE* swimming early and getting it out of the way, but that hunger all day long sabotaged me on more than half a million occasions.
It's a double-edged sword for sure!

[tealtreak]

I commiserate massively!!! and happy to whine back! I am not an AM person but my daughter swims before school- not worth going home and back so since I am there.........blah.........I do the work out...I have not noticed it affects my hunger, but it sure makes PM tutoring a chore..... (:

[Selkie]

Like others, I'm a early morning person, and I start 6 days a week off with a swim. :-)

Why fight it? Just swim after work or if possible, midday.

I found that when I swim at other times during the day, my rhythm is off, I feel like a rock, and I don't enjoy it.

[Wahine]

Why fight it? Just swim after work or if possible, midday.

The main reason is that Masters swimming is at this time. Which A) Kicks my @zz. We do have Masters workouts 3 evenings a week but they aren't as long or as hard. B) gets it over with early so there is no possibility that my day can go haywire and leave me without the time or energy to do it later.

So there are lots of good reasons to go in the morning. It's definitely the best choice. I was just being whiny about it.

[lph]

Oh sweet Jesus. Pardon my language. Some of you aren't just morning people, you're middle of the night people

I'm not a natural morning person, and I need lots of sleep, but I really like being up early if I can. So I try to cajole my dh into going to bed early, and I get up early(ish) as often as I can to take a long bike ride to work, or go swimming. I LOVE being out and about early. But the sleep thing really does me in. If I'm up too often, too early, I can feel it first thing that I'm feeling irritable or weepy. So I have to sort of balance it out, sleep enough most nights, get up early every now and then

Left up to my own devices I'd sleep nine hours a night, get up late, be annoyed, stay up late, and gradually turn the whole day around

[Owlie]

I suppose jumping into cold water (because let's face it, it always feels cold initially) is a good way to wake yourself up! I do understand wanting to get your workouts (whatever they may be) early, because if nothing else doing them later just breaks everything up and then nothing gets accomplished. (Or is that just me?)

But I'm not a morning person, really. The only time I'm a morning person is in the summer, because otherwise it's too hot to get anything done!

[Susan Otcenas]

I do almost all my workouts before work. BUT I usually eat something beforehand, which helps.

This morning, I was up at 5:15, ate two pieces of toast with honey, drove to the pool and was in the water at 5:50. My swims are long enough now (~1:15) that if I don't eat before I leave the house, I'm really hungry before I finish the workout! A piece of toast or two (or sometimes an apple or a banana) gets me through the workout in good shape.

I tend to struggle with hunger during the day too. I try to eat more in the mornings, including more protein, but usually by the end of the day, I'm pretty damn hungry again. I make alot of poor choices between 4pm & 6pm, which I'm sure is why I'm having trouble taking off the 10 pounds I've managed to put back on. I should probably be eating a substantial snack around 4pm so that I don't make bad dinner choices, but it's hard enough to find the time to make and pack my LUNCH, much less figure out my dinner options too. Some weeks I'm really organized on Sundays and i spend a few hours cutting and chopping veggies and the like so that I can make quick healthful meals as soon as I get home during the week, but other weeks all my good intentions fall flat.

[Ann8284]

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