This year I did something to make my morning workouts better. I bought a space heater for my garage.
For the past two winters, I toughed it out, bundling up in multiple layers and blowing on my numb fingers as I exercised in the frigid early morning hours in an unheated garage that was between 35-50 degrees.
I like exercising in fresh air. I prefer working out in my garage to a public gym or in my house. But I hate being cold.
So now, each morning I turn on the heater about 30 minutes before I sat working out and it warms the garage to the mid 50s. Once I get started and workup a sweat, that’s warm enough for the duration.
Easing into my workout in a warmer garage has made winter workouts 100 times more pleasant.
I swim about a mile everyday. I don’t ease into the water because it is always cold to me. Instead, I jump in, slap on my goggles and start swimming. It takes me between 4 and 12 laps to get loosened up. During these initial laps, I go slow and easy.
Then once my muscles have blood flowing through them, my breathing has become deeper, and my joints are lubricated I focus on the flow and groove of my strokes. I get faster throughout my swim.
When I wake up in the morning and when I wake up from my regular afternoon siesta, I don’t jump out of bed the way I used to. Instead, I open my eyes, gather my senses, and lay there for a minute or two. I’ll pet the dogs and then slowly roll out of bed to make my way to the bathroom.
My routine includes brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom and getting dressed for the morning dog walk. Once that is accomplished, I let the dogs out and then feed them.
Wiggles and I then do a 45 minute hike through the neighborhood. Usually by the time I see my 4:30AM girlfriend, I’ve woken up enough that I feel alive, awake and alert (and not frozen to death in winter).
I’ve noticed a pattern in my life since I’ve been single these past three years. I ease into things now as opposed to jumping in cold.
In the old days, I jumped out of bed and hit the floor doing pushups and setups immediately upon waking. Or the alarm would go off and I’d jump into the shower and then rush off to work.
I never warmed up before working out.
When I swam, I dove in and began racing.
Today, I find that easing into things is better. I get injured less. I feel less rushed. I tend to have better focus and more energy. I feel more at peace.
I still accomplish a tremendous amount of work – whether is physical, emotional or mental. But it is accomplished with more grace and less frenetic racing.