While I am no stranger to the metaphorical darkness of Simon & Garfunkel, lately, I’ve been confronting a more physical darkness. (What? That’s not even possible.) Okay, so the not-quite-physical-but-also-not-metaphorical darkness I’m confronting is exercising before sunrise.
I’ve never really had a problem getting up early and heading out in the pre-dawn or earlier hours when I’m in the mountains, but for some reason, on any given regular day, exercising in the morning had always been one of my “shoulds” – those things I tell myself I would do if I was really “committed.” I finally made peace with it a number of years ago. For a long time, I happily exercised when I could and when I wanted, but circumstances change (Why! Why!).
When I lived in the US, I had a nice cushy job with flexible hours. If I wanted to run at 10am or 2pm, I could, if I didn’t have a meeting. Now, I leave home at 7:15 in the morning (when it’s dark) and return at 3:35 in the afternoon, where I have about 20 minutes to pee and shove chocolate in my mouth before I start teaching online from 4 to 7 (when it is also dark because, you know, winter).
Fortunately, the nice part about being a teacher is that I have supremely good vacations, so during my extremely long Christmas, New Years, and Three Kings holiday break, I killed it on the training front (and with knitting and being a cat bed too) – I ran, I snowshoed, I mountaineered, I skied, I hiked, and I built many cozy fires.
Since then, I’ve been struggling with fitting in running, hiking, strength exercises…any exercise (also cooking, cleaning, and being a cat bed). Basically, dark-time training has become essential if I want to exercise, which I do.
Like that famous home invader, Goldilocks, I’ve tried some different schedules to find one that is just right. Or, at least just tolerable. (And, spoiler alert: what a surprise in the end!)
At first, I tried the night-time darkness – after my classes: No good. After sitting, barely moving for 3 hours, I was too stiff – everything hurt. “Curse this hobbled body,” I cried to no one in particular on the overly crowded path as I comically jog-walked like a decrepit Tin Man making his way to the Wizard to ask for new knees.
Then, I tried morning-time darkness – before my classes start for the day: Oh yeah, this is where it’s at! “Did the Wizard actually replace my knees overnight?” I asked to literally no one at 6am because almost nobody exercises or even gets up this early in Spain.
Finally, I tried…just kidding. Unlike Goldilocks, I had no third option.
So, for now, I’m a morning exerciser. It was born out of necessity, but I’ve been amazed at how much I love it. For me, Madrid is just so loud and constantly crowded, all the time, every minute of the day, except, it turns out, in the early-morning darkness. Now instead of worrying about catching a stray coronaviral particle as I weave my way through throngs of dog walkers, runners, cyclists, and rollerbladers, I have “the sound of silence,” or more precisely, the sound of my feet, my breath, and the gentle chirps of the birds as they stir in the trees.
