What is your wake up routine?

Crashk said:
Mmmmmm... haven't had fresh fish from cold water in a while. Mouth watering.
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Having some fresh fish right now....but not from cold water. But it is still delicious. White Bass fillet....salted, peppered, braised in just a touch (less than a tsp.) of coconut oil, sprinkled with Butter Buds. Yum. :)
 
Capgras said:
Do you just snap get out of bed and out the door in 20 minutes? (me)

Do you hit the snooze button like 20 times?

Do you actually get up early, fully rested, and go eat a nice breakfast, watch a little tv, and calmly walk out the door? (how is this possible?)

__

Now you may be thinking, "grind, waking up and being out in 20 minutes sounds like the suckiest thing ever", to which I say, THAT'S WHY I FUCKING HATE MORNINGS. it's the lesser of 3 evils. I just can't justify being awake in the morning doing things when I could otherwise be sleeping.

So what is your routine?
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I do the third option. I hate alarm clocks with a passion so I don't use one. I go to sleep at a regular hour so that I wake up at 6:30 am on workdays.

My morning routine consists mainly of variants of the same routine. I wake up around 6 to 6:30. I roll over and try to give the missus some morning wood. Most mornings I get a swift elbow to the ribs and a death threat (She's not a morning person). I then get up and brew half a pot of coffee and start whistling happily and chatting happy talk with the dog. Around 6:35 wife yells at me for being so damned cheerful in the morning, tells me to shut the hell up so she can sleep. When the coffee is ready I go to my den and I "quietly" read my online subscription to the Columbus dispatch and review what's on JPP and FB. Breakfast usually consist of a bowl of raisin bran and a piece of fruit. At 7:20 wife gets up and starts stomping around the house mad at the world cause she has to go to work. I say nothing to her but give her a kiss.

During the warm weather months I'm dressed in my cycling kit with my work cloths in a backpack and I'm headed out the door at 8 am. By 8:15 to 8:20 I arrive at work, where I sweat for about 15 minutes in the sauna in the company gym, take a shower, get dressed and I'm at my desk shortly before 9. In cold weather months I leave for work in my car around 8:45. (My work is about a 4.5 mile drive/ride from home).
 
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Man, that 20 minutes of cycling sounds strenous.

*snickers*

Is it possible to dress warm enough to cycle in colder months? Or do you just find it too uncomfortable?
 
Guan Yu said:
Man, that 20 minutes of cycling sounds strenous.

*snickers*

Is it possible to dress warm enough to cycle in colder months? Or do you just find it too uncomfortable?
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Depends on what you consider cold. Generally speaking once the temp drops below 50 deg F you need neoprene gear to ride and even then it's not comfortable as with the wind chill factor you're pushing close to freezing. It can be done though about not pusing it to hard. If you break into a sweat and have a mechanical things get uncomfortable real quick. I tried doing the neoprene thing one winter but the first time I had a flat and I had gotten sweety inside the neoprene, I froze my ass off. That was the end of that. I do have thermal underwear, full length bibs and long sleeve jerseys and windbreakers/rain jackets for when temps are between 50 and 70 and/or raining. Essentially that means the riding season here in Ohio is roughly from middle of March to the middle of October, that is, 6 to 7 months. Sometimes winter weather comes early or spring come late, as it did this year. Once temps drop to the forties or below I work out inside on a stationary trainer or a spinning bike at the company gym.

I love Mississippi and Arkansas for riding. The berms on your highways are extra large for cotton farmers and it's like a huge bike lane that keeps you out of traffic. You can pretty much ride year round, except that the heat and humidity in the summer can be brutal. I always rode in the mornings during the warm weather months when I lived in Arkansas and North Carolina. The only problem with where you live is terrain. It's so damned flat. Great for time trialing but you just can't get into the kind of shape that you can in hill country.
 
Huh, that is interesting Mott, because I also refuse to use an alarm clock. Too many years being a slave to that thing, and I hate the sound of it. These days I wake up naturally and if a day comes that I sleep a little late, that's fine. No alarm clock ever.

I wake up between 5 and 6 am, and the first thing I do is look in the mirror and think, my God is it possible I still look this young and first thing in the morning too? I put up coffee, go in the shower, and when I'm out I make oatmeal and eat that with my coffee while reading JPP and the NY Times online. I get into work by 8am. I really have no problem with my morning routine at all and am quite satisfied and relaxed about it. Any stress I feel comes later in the day.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Depends on what you consider cold. Generally speaking once the temp drops below 50 deg F you need neoprene gear to ride and even then it's not comfortable as with the wind chill factor you're pushing close to freezing. It can be done though about not pusing it to hard. If you break into a sweat and have a mechanical things get uncomfortable real quick. I tried doing the neoprene thing one winter but the first time I had a flat and I had gotten sweety inside the neoprene, I froze my ass off. That was the end of that. I do have thermal underwear, full length bibs and long sleeve jerseys and windbreakers/rain jackets for when temps are between 50 and 70 and/or raining. Essentially that means the riding season here in Ohio is roughly from middle of March to the middle of October, that is, 6 to 7 months. Sometimes winter weather comes early or spring come late, as it did this year. Once temps drop to the forties or below I work out inside on a stationary trainer or a spinning bike at the company gym.
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Man, it sucks that you have to give up riding so early.

Mott the Hoople said:
I love Mississippi and Arkansas for riding. The berms on your highways are extra large for cotton farmers and it's like a huge bike lane that keeps you out of traffic.
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I had to look up "berm" to find out that it's Ohio slang for a highway shoulder. The shoulders on US-49, and most larger, divided highways, are pretty sweet. I imagine US-49 is the road you rode on, actually, it's the main thoroughfare through Mississippi and passes right through Arkansas (I actually live half a mile from it). Smaller state highways, unfortunately, don't have those sweet shoulders, even though traffic can get pretty harsh. But in those stretches with shoulders, it's like an entire damn lane of the road all to yourself, they're so wide.

Mott the Hoople said:
You can pretty much ride year round, except that the heat and humidity in the summer can be brutal. I always rode in the mornings during the warm weather months when I lived in Arkansas and North Carolina. The only problem with where you live is terrain. It's so damned flat. Great for time trialing but you just can't get into the kind of shape that you can in hill country.
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I dunno, there are cold snaps from time to time and it becomes uncomfortable, especially in December. But cold season is, of course, really really short here. I hadn't really taken this into account when I was planning my grandiose tour de America. I really can't expect to set out for anything half that long until midway through October, and even that would kind of be rushing it. But I might run into some uncomfortable cold whether along the way, as I probably won't be back until halfway through November.

Anyway, it is kind of flat, but I suppose you can remedy that by just shifting into a higher gear and riding really hard. Kind of difficult to convince yourself too, though. The big hills force you. I live at the bottom of a creek's drainage basin, nearly at sea level, and there are hills all around climbing back up to the ~250ft above sea level that the rest of the place is at. That's about as hilly as the place gets, honestly. On my ride to Picayune, the hill outside my house was by far the biggest I encountered the entire way. I suppose if I go up and down it about 120 times, cumulatively I will have basically biked up Mount Everest.
 
Hitomi's Tanakas said:
Man, it sucks that you have to give up riding so early.



I had to look up "berm" to find out that it's Ohio slang for a highway shoulder. The shoulders on US-49, and most larger, divided highways, are pretty sweet. I imagine US-49 is the road you rode on, actually, it's the main thoroughfare through Mississippi and passes right through Arkansas (I actually live half a mile from it). Smaller state highways, unfortunately, don't have those sweet shoulders, even though traffic can get pretty harsh. But in those stretches with shoulders, it's like an entire damn lane of the road all to yourself, they're so wide.



I dunno, there are cold snaps from time to time and it becomes uncomfortable, especially in December. But cold season is, of course, really really short here. I hadn't really taken this into account when I was planning my grandiose tour de America. I really can't expect to set out for anything half that long until midway through October, and even that would kind of be rushing it. But I might run into some uncomfortable cold whether along the way, as I probably won't be back until halfway through November.

Anyway, it is kind of flat, but I suppose you can remedy that by just shifting into a higher gear and riding really hard. Kind of difficult to convince yourself too, though. The big hills force you. I live at the bottom of a creek's drainage basin, nearly at sea level, and there are hills all around climbing back up to the ~250ft above sea level that the rest of the place is at. That's about as hilly as the place gets, honestly. On my ride to Picayune, the hill outside my house was by far the biggest I encountered the entire way. I suppose if I go up and down it about 120 times, cumulatively I will have basically biked up Mount Everest.
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What I do around here since there are not big hills is a find a small hill in a river valley with a very steep grade and I'll do hill repeats. Fortunately the piedmont region heading east into Appalachia is only about an hour where I live. No mountains but lots and lots of big hills. Failing that, you're pretty much left with doing interval training.
 
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