Early morning work-outs

You got double whammied by the time change ..... it won't take long before you are acclimated to getting up early.

I usually don't get to bed until 10 or 11-ish and wake up at 5 on my longer run days.

I was somewhat consistent last season training in the morning, but it's very tough. Especially having 3 kids and not getting to bed until 10:00. I'm usually not asleep until 11:00, and getting up at 4:30 just doesn't give me enough sleep. I can usually make it a few days like this, but around 2:00pm I'm pretty dead. So I'm trying to avoid morning training sessions this season by not training until 8:00pm. I'm up late, but at least I can get 6-7 hours of sleep if I'm asleep my midnight

I consider myself a morning person to some degree, but I would still place this in the category of "how bad do you want it"? as well as "how bad do you NEED the AM workout to happen"?

I have kids and a family.  It's AM or nothing.  I need to be at work early, therefore it's UBER-AM or nothing.  I've got no choice, it's the way it is.  It will become a routine after a while, but on some level you gotta want it. 

A wife helps too.  Mine is a medium-light sleeper.  If I've dampened her deep sleep with the alarm, she's cool.  However, out of courtesy I then can't be farting around, snoozing, re-setting, or being a dink.  The alarm goes off, I need to be getting up and outta there. 

And, get ye to bed early. 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you just have to do it.

I am the same way. The only time I allow myself to sleep in is if I'm sick, or if I can rearrange my schedule later in the day to accomodate the workout. Sometimes this means doing a run and a swim on a Friday night. That's how bad I hate to get up.

But it comes down to just forcing yourself to do it. Some tricks like those mentioned above may do it, but it all boils down to how bad do you want to make it happen?

Drink a bunch of water before you go to bed.  Then when your alarm clock goes off at o'dark:thirty, you will wake up and have to pee really bad and will have to get out of bed to go to the bathroom!

~Mike

I just think about how much I "want it."  I want to make it to the finish line knowing I did everything in my power to do the best I could.  Skipping workouts, or sleeping through them, isn't going to help me do that (the little voice in my head just asked me why I haven't been to the pool yet this week.. haha.)

For early morning stuff, the night before, I set out the stuff that I'm going to wear and when the alarm goes off, I just get up and go.  If you're going to bed at 9 PM and getting up at 5:30 AM that's plenty of sleep   Also, maybe try and arrange your schedule so that you can do the workout you look forward to the most in the morning.  For me, I like to run, so it's no problem getting up and heading out for that.  However, getting up to swim is not my thing.  I tried going to the pool in the morning, but realized I wasn't getting it done and switched all swims to after work. 

WOW! Didn't everybody realize that the OP is getting more than 9 hours of sleep per night.  that's absurd! Unless I had an incredibly demanding day job that just completely wiped me out, I can't imagine ever forcing my body to get that much sleep more than once per week.  I just don't need it.  Really, 8 hours of sleep is plenty.

You simply have to either WANT or NEED to get up.  I, too, used to have a paper route, so for 2 years, I had to get up at 4am every day.  These days, I'm married with a child, so in order for me to train for Ironman (something I WANT to do), I WANT to get up to get my training done so that I reach my goals.

 *teasing here* I wonder if your next thread will be telling us you do all your long runs at a 5:45 pace and would like some help slowing down. 

~B

Here I am wondering how some of you work out in the evening. I can't bring myself to do that.  I've always been a morning person, so it is no problem for me to get up at 4am everyday. I do go to bed no later than 10, though, and I'm usually asleep by 9 most nights. 

 One of my workout buddies is NOT a morning person and it took her a while to become one...Having someone to meet her seemed to help her a lot.

 All of the suggestions seem to be good ones to help out, but I think you have to just do it. Get up, suck it up, and it will eventually become easier, I would think.

I love getting my workouts in the morning.  It leaves the rest of the day to do whatever or get the second workout in

See my post from earlier today(How's your quality of life?).  Most of it is based on not having a lot of non-tri and non-work time.  I'm going to try HARD to do 2 AM's a week, but it's definitely a challenge for me too!  Adding some morning workouts will hopefully give more time at night to relax or take care of other 'stuff'.  I know I just need to suck it up and hopefully adjust before long.

I have tried the water before bed trick..it works pretty well too.   GOOD LUCK!