(Day)light matters

The days have been (noticeably) shrinking for a while now, and I'm still fighting with myself to get back to what I consider a normal amount of exercise. The winter solstice is next week, so the sun will slowly start to add minutes to its daily presence. It will still be a long while before the edges of the day start visibly expanding outward though.

When daylight supports biking before and after work, I have a much easier time of getting what I consider to be a reasonable amount of exercise. This daylight-lacking time of year is hard. Somewhere along the line I lost my enthusiasm for indoor exercise, so I've been trying to satisfy my need for movement with walking. My bikes happily join me on weekend days when the roads are dry, but my primary form of exercise during the week is by foot, usually in the early evening.

Just walking... I'd like to add a very early morning walk (as in before work) a couple of times a day. That hasn't worked so far, but I'm going to keep trying. It's funny, but in the summer (when I'm commuting to work by bike) I have no problem getting up at 5AM. The sun is just below the horizon then, sky lightening. Right now the sunrise is considerably later; today it was at 7:05AM. When my alarm noisily announced it was time to get up at 5 this morning, the sky was still in full darkness. My reaction? To turn the alarm off and go back to sleep! Oops! A mid-day walk plus my evening jaunt worked for today, but my goal is still to add a couple of early morning walks each week.

Remember, dreams and goals can become reality. Next week?