Savings Shmavings

Seems like us morning folk are taking this sudden morning darkness pretty hard. Thinking back on past years, this has traditionally been the week when one hour of sleep just disappears from my routine. In other words, instead of falling asleep when my clock says 10:30 or so I hit the hay around 11:30, when my body tells me to. But my alarm jolts me awake at the usual clock time, one hour early according to my internal clock, and I end up one hour short. Later in the day the extended sunlight makes me want to stay up later and the cycle continues. Needless to say, by summer I'm getting by on a few hours a night. Luckily, this week I've had a break. Between somewhat lax training, shorter commutes to work, and early ends to my days I've managed to sleep a little later.

I awoke around 6 today and decided to hit the streets. Just easy running, nothing structured, and I had to sprint across intersections a few times to avoid traffic. Out and back to the PMA, where I've spotted an exponentially increasing number of runners in recent mornings. Hovered around a pace that felt easy but turned out to be slightly quicker than I expected, progressing to around tempo effort within the last mile or so.

Oh, and according to this chart, we'll gain just over a half-hour of morning sun back in the next two weeks, and by mid-April we'll be back to where we were last week. For the record, just over 6 miles in just under 49 minutes. Average HR 152.