Early mornings are about to get earlier.

This entire academic year (from September 1 through last week), I've been working, taking a class, and completing my second year of clinical internship. To fit all of it in, I worked from 8:30am until 9 or 9:30pm three days a week, and from 8:30am-6:30pm the other two days. Factor in the fact that I live in Annapolis, work in DC, and go to school in Columbia, and you wind up tacking another 90 mins-2 hours of commuting onto every day. That doesn't leave much time to run.

The remarkable thing is that I was actually more motivated to exercise this year than I've ever been in my life. I chalk this up to a few factors, such as getting dumped last summer, joining a gym I like, making friends in my running club, and spending part of my internship at the DC morgue (trust me, there's nothing like seeing 35 year-olds die from heart attacks to get you to the gym). Probably the #1 reason for the motivation, though, is what I call "the recess factor." When I was working the crazy schedule, the hour or so I spent at the gym or on the roads was literally the only part of the day when I decided what I wanted to do. It was my recess. Nobody wants to skip recess.

Now, the craziness has abated. The internship is over. The Spring semester is over. I have one summer class for a few weeks, but otherwise I'm just going to be working my regular job this summer. I'll have weeknights free again!

Except now I need to train for a marathon.

So, this week, I commence experimenting with new workout schedules. Experiment #1 takes place at 5:15am tomorrow, when I try geting up for the first spin class of the day (which starts at 5:45). The idea is that I get in an hour or so of running or cross-training every morning before work, and then get in whatever additional running needs to happen after work. I've been getting up at 5:30am for a 6am class twice a week since August, so this shouldn't be too bad, right? We shall see...