Early morning run routine

[CraKaJaX]

Was curious to see if there are any early morning runners here. I just started doing this on Monday, so I'm pretty new with it. My normal work alarm was always 5:45. I now set it for 5:00, which isn't too terrible since it's only 45 minutes. I set my clothes out, fill my water, and put my armband/headphones out the night before so that everything is ready to go in the morning. When I wake up I have found eating a slice of some fruit is enough to hold me for the ~25 mins of running. I have always been a light runner (I've done many 5K's, etc), but that was all after work/evening. I think I actually like the morning thing. Lucky for me, my apartment complex has a gym on the property ... so I basically jog to the building, hit the treadmill for 20 mins, and jog back. It ends up being about 2.5-3 miles depending on pace obviously.

A few things I've noticed this week since I've started the morning thing:
1. My metabolism is RIDICULOUS. The only time I'm not hungry is directly after a meal. An hour later I'm starving. This was never the case when I used to run at night. Hell, sometimes I would get done with 3-4 miles and not be hungry at all. Is this normal? What's different?

2. Sleeping a lot better. I'm actually exhausted when 9-930 rolls around. Don't have to force myself to sleep anymore.

So... is anyone here an early runner? I'm wondering how you got into it? What routine do you have? Like it? Hate it? Why? What do you eat? How many times a week?

 

[cbrunny]

I have run in the morning but not on routine. I only do it when I have to. I've recently upped my avg hours a week training triathlon quite a lot so I'm finding the odd morning is a necessity for me. I start work at 8 AM, and hate having a rushed morning - a sure fire way to start me in a bad mood. I've found I really like running in the morning but not enough to actually do it regularly. My routine would be similar - get everything ready night before (it's always ready in my case), up at 5, eat/hydrate, out the door by 5:30, run for 60 mins, shower etc. go to work.

I find it spikes my metabolism, but then again lately I'm eating anything in sight anyway. This is pretty common and well documented. As is the sleeping. I question the sanity of anyone who stays up later than 10:30 on a regular basis. Last night I was asleep by 8:45.

 

[vi edit]

I'm usually up at 4:15-4:30AM to run. I have to get kids to the bus stop by 6:50 and in to work by 7:30 so it's the only time that really works for me.

My routine is usually...
1. Wake up.
2. Pee
3. Get dressed
4. Drink some water and chow down a 100 calorie granola bar
5. Go run (usually 4-5 miles through the week)
6. Come back, stretch, shower and get ready for work, get kids up, eat, head out

There are a ton of advantages for me. One, I have the road to myself which is awesome. Almost no traffic at that time of day. It's also the coolest part of the day and not hot as balls like it is in the afternoon in the summer. It's done and out of the way at the beginning of the day. I can't put it off or make excuses later. I feel fresher the rest of the day having got up and moving early. And yes, by 9:30 at night I'm pooped and ready for bed.

 

[pete6032]

Weather dependent I will be outside running tomorrow morning.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[CraKaJaX]

For those that do have a morning routine, do you do it every single day? Today was my 4th day straight and I'm considering taking tomorrow off. My legs feel DEAD. Maybe I'll alternate days for starters...

 

[cbrunny]

did ~11km this morning. holy hell is it humid.

I don't run every day, but I do at least one of swim/bike/run everyday. Often it's two-a-day for me. I have no kids or friends.

CrakajaX - are you new to running or just new to running everyday?

 

[vi edit]

For those that do have a morning routine, do you do it every single day? Today was my 4th day straight and I'm considering taking tomorrow off. My legs feel DEAD. Maybe I'll alternate days for starters...

I'm almost 40. I have a very stressful job. I have two young kids. I can't run every day. Some days are just "*&%# it" days where that alarm goes off and and I noooooooope out. I try to run 3-4 days a week. The other days are for mental and physical rests.

 

[CraKaJaX]

I'm a big tennis player - play at least 5 days a week. Pretty competitive singles matches for 2 hours on average. On the days I'm not on the court, I usually go to the gym. Sometimes it's treadmill (2-3 miles), sometimes it's upper body stuff. I'm far from "bodybuilder" type... it's mostly all calisthenic-type stuff. Lots of bands, situps, jumping jacks, rope, boxes, push/pull-ups, etc.

Maybe because running wasn't a daily thing for me, my legs just aren't used to it. Even though I play a bunch of tennis, it's just not the same. The last 3 days was ~3 miles in the morning, and then a couple hours of tennis after work. Maybe I'm overdoing it and should just do like I said above and rotate days (for the running) ...

 

[cbrunny]

I'm a big tennis player - play at least 5 days a week. Pretty competitive singles matches for 2 hours on average. On the days I'm not on the court, I usually go to the gym. Sometimes it's treadmill (2-3 miles), sometimes it's upper body stuff. I'm far from "bodybuilder" type... it's mostly all calisthenic-type stuff. Lots of bands, situps, jumping jacks, rope, boxes, push/pull-ups, etc.

Maybe because running wasn't a daily thing for me, my legs just aren't used to it. Even though I play a bunch of tennis, it's just not the same. The last 3 days was ~3 miles in the morning, and then a couple hours of tennis after work. Maybe I'm overdoing it and should just do like I said above and rotate days (for the running) ...

Yeah could be that its just too much too soon. That's not to say you can't handle it, just to say you can't handle it yet.

I use a tool called Training Peaks (trainingpeaks.com) to help keep track of my training. It has some features which estimate (fairly accurately, over time) your general body fatigue. It might be useful to you as you get started, though I'm not totally sure how it works with something like tennis. For my three disciplines, it is able to calculate a Training Stress Score that's based on pace (swim/bike/run), duration (swim/bike/run), and heart rate (bike/run), and power if i had a power meter (bike). It has fancy equations that use the TSS score, Efficiency, and Intensity to graph how your fitness changes and estimate your fatigue. It's not that dissimilar to how Strava uses a suffer score and the fit/form scores, if you're familiar with that. The advantage of Trainingpeaks over something like strava is that it can combine multiple different sports into one general fatigue score. Just checking now... there is this kind of scoring for weightlifting/gym stuff, but I don't see anything for something like tennis. I suppose you could use the "run" feature but that's understating it quite a bit i'm sure. there's also a "custom" and a "crosstrain" option too but not clear on how accurate or how the TSS is measured in those cases. But it's all moot if you don't have or aren't willing to buy a gps/hr monitor. I use a Garmin Fenix 3 HR (most amazing watch ever made, best fitness tool of all time) and pair it with a chest heart rate monitor for my bike and run workouts for a bit more accurate and responsive HR data. Most of my training is based on HR so that's why I do that. There are absolutely less expensive options that can do effectively the same thing though.

 

[CraKaJaX]

Awesome info. I think it's too much too soon for sure. My foam roller has been getting used a lot in the last few days

That's the problem with tennis - it's really hard to accurately measure activity. There's a lot of running, but there's also a lot of regular walking/steps (collecting balls, changing sides, etc.). The only thing I have right now is a fitbit tied to the MyFitnessPal app. I follow what I eat using MFP, and the FitBit just tracks my exercise. It's pretty good for picking up what is just walking vs. what is actually running. After a day of running & tennis, I'm easily in the ballpark of 17-20k steps. The funny thing is, depending on how many steps it collects, it adjusts your daily calorie/carb/fat/protein intake. After a 20k day, it's telling me I'm allowed like 4k calories I still aim for my macros, which is about 2300 cals, 230 carbs, 160 protein, 70 fat. It's the best combination I've found, and I've been doing this for the last 4 months or so.

 

[cbrunny]

The other thing you could try is compression socks for recovery. I've recently got a pair as a gift. Highly skeptical, but holy shit do they ever work. I put them on after a run. Definite improvement in recovery time.

 

[vi edit]

Yeah I have Fenix 3 as well and use that to help train within HR zones. I try to keep most of my workouts in zone 3 and my "hard" workouts into zone 4. I can tell stress levels based on overall daily HR and my individual workout stress based on the HR recovery after the workout.

 

[CraKaJaX]

The other thing you could try is compression socks for recovery. I've recently got a pair as a gift. Highly skeptical, but holy shit do they ever work. I put them on after a run. Definite improvement in recovery time.

After? Aren't those typically for during? I have a buddy who swears by them. He used to suffer pretty bad shin splints but those things have greatly reduced them for him.

 

[cbrunny]

As I understand it (which may not be well), the science is still out on whether or not they improve performance/recovery when worn during a run. Some studies show a clear improvement while others do not. However, the science seems to point towards wearing the socks for 24-48 hours post-workout can improve recovery, though I think the science is not in total agreement on this either.

I don't wear them during. But I have been in the habit of putting them on as soon as possible after the run. The longest I've worn them without taking them off is 12 hours and I do notice a difference. I think compression socks are a YMMV thing though. It's an expensive gamble too at ~50-70 bucks (CDN, so about 6 USD) a pair.

 

[CraKaJaX]

6USD? I thought a decent pair was more around the $20 range. For 6 bucks I may give them a shot. Which ones do you use?

 

[cbrunny]

6USD? I thought a decent pair was more around the $20 range. For 6 bucks I may give them a shot. Which ones do you use?

6 was a joke. lol. or at least was supposed to be. CDN dollar is not worth much these days. about 75 cents US.

The ones I'm wearing right now are CEP.

 

[Kaido]

My metabolism is RIDICULOUS. The only time I'm not hungry is directly after a meal. An hour later I'm starving. This was never the case when I used to run at night. Hell, sometimes I would get done with 3-4 miles and not be hungry at all. Is this normal? What's different?

I'm curious about this one as well. The only change I know of, aside from time of day, is exercising on an empty stomach (or just having a quick energy hit from fruit or granola or whatever). People wonder how I do 6 to 8 meals a day (smaller meals & snacks), but the combination of morning exercise, managing macros, and getting enough sleep just drives the appetite up. Plus my blood sugar is a little bit low & I tend to spike & crash if I eat too many calories at once, so if I have a large meal, I always wanna take a nap shortly after.

Graphic content warning here, but over the years I've struggled with digestion issues. I've learned that an awful lot of fatigue comes from those issues. Specifically, I have something called SIBO, which is basically (1) inability to digest food very well, and (2) slow motility (which means food moves slower through your system than normal). So I felt like crap for a long time because I wasn't properly digesting food & the undigested food was moving slow through my system. Cleaning up my diet helped, but exercise helped the most because it forced my GI tract to take that food &, ah, compress it into a single, solid stool. At the time, the combination of eating a clean diet (whole foods) & daily exercise made for regular, effortless (TP-less!) bowel movements. The difference in energy was enormous; being tired from lack of sleep was now an entirely different thing from feeling fatigued & dragging all the time. It also improved my appetite because things were flowing along properly in my stomach. So "poop management" at the poop production factory is an important part of feeling good, for me at least. And it's funny, because if you've ever gotten really sick, your digestion gets all kind of screwed up...diarrhea, throwing up, etc. So I think there's a really strong correlation between your digestion & how you feel energy-wise (and also mood-wise).

So I suspect, but can't say for certain, that exercising in the morning on an empty stomach (or a stomach loaded with a small amount of carbs) kind of primes the pump to start flowing, in this case, kicks off your digestion because you're moving those stomach muscles around, especially when running because you're moving your legs, which affects your abs & stuff. I basically have to do a minimum of 30 minutes of cardio a day to ensure proper digestion for my stomach because my digestive tract doesn't self-regulate like it should. Also, eating smaller meals doesn't have the same impact that a large one does (zzz) & eating more often seems to keep my energy levels up better throughout the day. Plus if I do my exercise routine first thing in the morning, it gets it out of the way & ensures that I stick to my program rather than letting me push it off later in the day.

In short, yay for morning exercise.

 

[ControlD]

I am a morning runner on the weekends, but I can't convince myself to get up at 4:00 AM during the week to get my runs in. It has been so hot this summer that I have been doing my normal runs around 8:00 in the evening and that has worked well for me. One benefit of running when the weather is a little hotter is that my 10k times have been a little better as I am used to the heat.

My main problem with running early is that I hate doing it on an empty stomach. When I run on the weekends I get up and eat a full breakfast first. Those are always my best runs of the week.

I run 5-6 days a week, but having a rest day or two during the week is pretty much essential IMO. Especially when starting out.

 

[RagingBITCH]

I'm usually up at 4:15-4:30AM to run. I have to get kids to the bus stop by 6:50 and in to work by 7:30 so it's the only time that really works for me.

My routine is usually...
1. Wake up.
2. Pee
3. Get dressed
4. Drink some water and chow down a 100 calorie granola bar
5. Go run (usually 4-5 miles through the week)
6. Come back, stretch, shower and get ready for work, get kids up, eat, head out

There are a ton of advantages for me. One, I have the road to myself which is awesome. Almost no traffic at that time of day. It's also the coolest part of the day and not hot as balls like it is in the afternoon in the summer. It's done and out of the way at the beginning of the day. I can't put it off or make excuses later. I feel fresher the rest of the day having got up and moving early. And yes, by 9:30 at night I'm pooped and ready for bed.

Ditto, but this goes with all my workouts. My first alarm goes off around 3:30. My only change to that is eating a half a banana instead of a granola bar, and rolling out on my Rumble Roller. Did this for years and years marathon and half marathon training. Have pretty much replaced most running with plyometrics and OLY lifts, but still try to run 2x week. All for the same reasons Vi does.

 

[CraKaJaX]

My main problem with running early is that I hate doing it on an empty stomach. When I run on the weekends I get up and eat a full breakfast first. Those are always my best runs of the week.

I thought I was going to have a problem with this too, but I've adapted pretty well. I'm either eating a few slices of fruit, or making some overnight oats and having a few spoonfuls of that before heading out. The good thing about the oats is that you can customize them so much. Once I get done I've been doing some protein pancakes. So far, so good....

 

[CraKaJaX]

For you guys that run a lot - what shoes are you using? I have a pair of Saucony Ride 6's - https://www.amazon.com/Saucony-Mens-Ride-Running-Shoe/dp/B00AO46NX0?th=1 that have essentially nothing left on the bottom. It's time for an upgrade. A good buddy who runs marathons loves his Kinvera 7's. They fit right and they're almost weightless. Anyone have other recommendations? The Saucony's fit me well, so I may go that route again... but I'd like to see what some of you guys here wear.

 

[Kaido]

For you guys that run a lot - what shoes are you using? I have a pair of Saucony Ride 6's - https://www.amazon.com/Saucony-Mens-Ride-Running-Shoe/dp/B00AO46NX0?th=1 that have essentially nothing left on the bottom. It's time for an upgrade. A good buddy who runs marathons loves his Kinvera 7's. They fit right and they're almost weightless. Anyone have other recommendations? The Saucony's fit me well, so I may go that route again... but I'd like to see what some of you guys here wear.

I'm not a runner, but most of my friends who do swear by Asics.

 

[ControlD]

For you guys that run a lot - what shoes are you using? I have a pair of Saucony Ride 6's - https://www.amazon.com/Saucony-Mens-Ride-Running-Shoe/dp/B00AO46NX0?th=1 that have essentially nothing left on the bottom. It's time for an upgrade. A good buddy who runs marathons loves his Kinvera 7's. They fit right and they're almost weightless. Anyone have other recommendations? The Saucony's fit me well, so I may go that route again... but I'd like to see what some of you guys here wear.

I always alternate between two pairs of shoes from different manufacturers (I never do two runs consecutively in the same pair of shoes), but a pair of Kinveras is always one of those shoes. I have yet to find a better shoe for the money. One thing to keep in mind is that the Kinvera is a lot less shoe than the Ride. I consider that a plus, but it might take a little getting used to the lower drop and less material.

Right now my alternate shoe is the New Balance Zante V2. They are OK, but the sizing is a little weird for me. I had to go up a half size which is a little big for me, but my normal size was too short. Once those wear out I will probably go back to my normal alternate which is the Sketchers Go Run Ride.

 

[CraKaJaX]

I always alternate between two pairs of shoes from different manufacturers (I never do two runs consecutively in the same pair of shoes), but a pair of Kinveras is always one of those shoes. I have yet to find a better shoe for the money. One thing to keep in mind is that the Kinvera is a lot less shoe than the Ride. I consider that a plus, but it might take a little getting used to the lower drop and less material.

Right now my alternate shoe is the New Balance Zante V2. They are OK, but the sizing is a little weird for me. I had to go up a half size which is a little big for me, but my normal size was too short. Once those wear out I will probably go back to my normal alternate which is the Sketchers Go Run Ride.

This might be a dumb question, but why do you alternate?

 

[ControlD]

This might be a dumb question, but why do you alternate?

Well, it's probably a stupid theory but I feel like it cuts down on the risk of repetitive motion injuries.