Morning & Merry Christmas

{image from: we heart it}

Hey, guess what? I haven't caught up on life yet.  And because yet another emergency arose at work this week, and because I'm flying out Wednesday night for California, I knew I'd have a difficult time fitting in my 4-mile run.  So I did something crazy.  I told Roomie Trois that I'd maybe possibly be willing to go to the gym with her in the morning... as in before work.

Let's back up a second - I am not (wow am I obsessed with italics or what??) a morning workout person.  All those people who say they get more energy if they work out in the morning?  Yeah, I call them all liars b/c that's never been the case for me.  So I knew I must've been smokin' something to even suggest the possibility of waking up before 6 am to run.  But once you tell Roomie Trois something like that, she won't forget it, and sure enough, when my alarm went off at 5:45 AM this morning, I got out of bed (albeit begrudgingly), and we headed out into the very dark, very cold early morning.  Destination: New York Health & Racquet Club.

Well... I might be a little more of a morning workout person now.  Don't get me wrong - I still hate it - but there are many perks to running in the morning, including but not limited to:

• Less people (Caveat: There are less people than there are at 6 PM.  However, this is NYC, home of the Type-A crazies.  So it was still pretty busy.)
• Higher likelihood of my fave treadmill being available (There are 2 treadmills, yes only 2, on which I will run.  Typically they are both taken, and I have to wait.)
• No side stitches (I consistently get side stitches on my right side when I run.  It's friggin' annoying as hell, and I've tried just about everything to get rid of them.  But this morning when I ran, I had ZERO pain which was AWESOME!!  I think the fact that I had nothing in my stomach helped.)
• Better bod?  (See this NYT article)
• Smug feeling of satisfaction that lasts allll day and makes your coworkers want to shoot you after you've exclaimed for the tenth time that you went to the gym at 6 AM!!

 So... yeah, not sure why I had to make a bulleted list of all that OR even why I'm devoting an entire blog post to something that may never happen again (don't tell Roomie Trois), but there ya go.

OK, I've got one night to pack for my 5 night/6 day Christmas in California Trip (to see LOOOOOLAAAAA!!), and since I'm the world's worst packer, I should probably begin.  I'm super duper excited for my first Christmas in Cali, and my itinerary already includes a 90-minute deep tissue massage (SWOON), lots of running, yoga, pumpkin pie-eating and catching up with one of my fave blog friends.  I know I've been MIA lately, but I hope y'all know how much I love you!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MES CHERIES!!