Monday, July 7, 2014

Sunrise Run

Yesterday was a BUSY day. Ryan and I had been putting off a few tasks for a while and finally got around to them (I may or may not have twisted his arm to make sure we got things handled... having things on my lists not crossed off STRESSES ME OUT!).

The main one was SELLING RYAN'S TRUCK! You see, we have wanted an "adventure mobile" for a while now; something we can drive around the country in, camp in, live out of, etc. (It sounds grandiose, but we will probably just do a few weekend camping trips up and down the California coast :)) The issue is, we live in a condo complex where we only get two parking spots (one in a garage and another designated, uncovered spot), so we can only have two vehicles (and that is PLENTY in my opinion BTW). This means that our "adventure mobile" needs to also be Ryan's daily driver.

You see, we bought an "adventure mobile" a while back and it was SWEET - a 1967 Dodge A108 Sportsmobile Van. Although it was pretty awesome looking, it didn't seem to be the most reliable (i.e. it would stall out on the side of road and I would have to go get Ryan from said location or he would have friends push him to get it going again) and it didn't have power breaks or power steering (read that as HARD TO DRIVE, but at least Ryan was getting a good calf and forearm workout ;)). Thankfully we kept Ryan's truck in the meantime (one of our neighbors graciously offered to let us park it in her spot until we figured out what we were doing with it or the van), so when we finally (it took us a LLLLLOOOONNNNGGGG time to sell the thing) sold the van he still had his little pick-up truck.


Yesterday morning Ryan thought he would put his truck on Craigslist to see how long it would take to sell, how much he could get out of it, etc. I figured, seeing our luck with selling vehicles, it would take a few months and we would probably only get like $800 for it (it was a 2000 Ford Ranger with 116,500 miles and pretty beat up - it is his surf wagon which gets awfully dirty, dented, and dinged). It appears luck was on our side though, because within an hour we had someone come by and buy it. I literally mean that within an hour of posting the Craigslist ad we were already deleting it because we had the cash in hand and the truck out of our spot (the guy lived up the street and actually just rode his scooter over for the test drive)! We are still flabbergasted at how quickly it happened (not to mention we got A LOT more for it than we were expecting).

Wowser, all that to say, Ryan and I are currently sharing a car (haha, sorry for the long winded explanation...).

Thankfully I am working from home right now and don't really need the car during the day (I do go into the office once a week, but will be able to bike in, seeing as it is only about 10 miles), which means Ryan will be taking it to the office until we find our new "adventure mobile". (By the way, we are leaning towards a Ranger LONG BED [since Ryan is slightly too tall to lay and sleep {comfortably} in a standard/ short bed] with a shell and maybe even a pop top that would fit on the roof.)

This means that for my runs, I will need to either: A. run early in the morning so I can use the car to drive somewhere and be back before Ry needs it to go to work, B. do all of my runs from our house (normally after I get off for the day in the afternoon), or C. run late in the evening after dinner so I can use the car to drive somewhere to run.

This morning's run I decided to do A - wake up around 5:15am to head out for a run. My thought process was that 1. it has been SUPER humid lately (this morning's run started at 63* and 92% humidity and by the time I finished before 7am it was 72* and had only dropped to 89% humidity), 2. the route around my house is pretty boring and I LOVE running at the beach, so why not get down there when I have the chance, and 3. it would give me more time in the afternoon to catch up on my blog and other things I have to do.

A snapshot of the weather when I left this
morning for my run... GROSS!

I was at the beach running before the sun officially came up. It was so quiet and beautiful (although extremely sticky already, even with the cool sea breeze that seemed to last all of like 10 minutes). By that time there were other folks on The Strand running and biking, so I guess I wasn't the only one who thought I would beat the heat. Obviously there were not as many folks as when I do my runs in the afternoon (which PS I am thankful for... sometimes the tourists down by the pier can be rude, aloof, and inconsiderate). I loved getting to see the sky wake up along my run.

The lights on the pier were still on when I was running by.

I ended up doing 6 miles, which was just about perfect. I ran them with an average pace around 8:33, finishing around 51:18. This gave me just enough time to get home, take a shower, make Ryan's lunch, get ready for work, and then wake Ryan and Walt up. I think if I were to do any longer (and still run it before work) I would either need to run from my house (so I cut out the 10 or so minutes each way to and from the beach) or wake up earlier.


It was nice switching it up this morning and getting my run done before officially starting the rest of my day. I think I will continue to do it on Mondays and Wednesdays (Tuesdays I do my strength training, Thursdays I do my cross training, and Fridays I do my long runs but normally run from my house anyway), but I guess we will see how long that happens. (I would assume once we get a second car it will be a lot easier for me to talk myself into sleeping in and just running in the afternoon.)

How early would you have to wake up to get your run in before starting the rest of your day?

3 comments:

Kimberly said...

I get up early semi-regularly to run but always do it before work. The earliest is 5:15 a.m.

John @ run. geek. run(disney) said...

Awesome run. I love the mornings for my run, she. I can get past the tired and get out of bed. Helps the whole day. Just low motivation lately.

Danielle said...

Ugh, I am so over this humidity already! Luckily we had some rain that finally broke it, but it's creeping back!