Sometimes I like to do things that are a little bit out of the ordinary for me. Usually, these things happen because I suggest them without thinking through the consequences, or what I am actually planning to sign myself up to. Ten 10km runs in a year, with half of them in the space of two months? Sure, why not? Hey, why not also do a marathon and three half marathons at the same time, heck yeah! How about a skydive for charity? Yes, amazing! But, Katy, aren’t you scared of heights? Oh… yeah, but it will be fine, not like it is going to kill me if it goes wrong! Oh wait…
Which brings us to this week. I jokingly suggested waking up at five am every day for a week to exercise and then willingly volunteered to this. I apparently forgot that I haven’t exercised properly in two years and that I am not a morning person. At all. Give me the option of staying in bed an extra five minutes and I will take it. Need me up before 6am without the support of others to physically wake me up? It won’t work.
Therefore, to commit to this 100% I needed to do some serious planning. The Sunday night before I start this insane task, I sit at my desk and open the exercise app Aaptiv, which has been staring at me accusingly for months. Yes, I downloaded it at the start of the first lockdown, used it once and then never looked at it again. I’ve picked out a couple of ten minute workouts to use throughout the week. The criteria for the workouts are ones that I can do in my room without needing much equipment,
So the question is: will I succeed in getting up and doing these workouts? There’s only one way to find out…
Monday
I made the mistake of staying awake and studying until around half one, so three hours after falling asleep, my alarm goes off. I lay there for a few minutes debating if this is really good idea. But, eventually, I drag myself out of bed and get dressed. I pick a HITT (High Intensity Tactical Training) exercise as the starting point. It goes well, sort of. I struggle with how to actually do the exercises but, given it is my first attempt, I accept I won’t be perfect at them yet
The one thing I didn’t succeed in doing was staying awake afterwards. Hopefully Tuesday will be better.
Tuesday
Tuesday is a little better, in the sense that I get up as soon as my alarm goes off. But I made a mistake with the dumbbell workout and have hurt my shoulder. I stop halfway through the routine before I injure myself further. Now I am worried that it is going to cause me to stop this because I’ve injured myself so quickly. Lets see what tomorrow brings.
Wednesday
Today I failed. I slept through all of my alarms and wake up four minutes before I have to be at work. So I do not exercise. I do however decide, maybe illogically, that this should be a rest day as my body is hurting from my minor injury. Is this a fail? Or is this being sensible? And why do I feel so guilty?
Thursday
I don’t wish to scare anyone who knows me well, but I seem to have actually woken up before my alarm and done exercise. All before 5:15am. Not only that, but it is a day off and I have stayed awake and been very productive.
I did the HITT exercise again (didn’t want to injure my shoulder with the dumbbell exercise) and felt a lot more confident doing it than the first time. I’m still slow, but this isn’t a race, so going at my pace is fine.
Friday
I realise something at the end of today’s dumbbell session, which I took very slowly and carefully because (although my shoulder felt better), I am aware I could still make it worse. I ache all over. It isn’t an ‘ow I hurt too much to function’, it’s a happy ache if that makes sense. It feels like exercising is working for me, and (dare I say it), I am starting to enjoy waking up so early.
Saturday
You would think after several years of having to get up for 7:45am for work on Saturdays that this would be the day that I would be up the easiest. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It’s a fight to get myself out of bed. So much for enjoying waking up for exercise!
But I do it. I go for the HITT again. And this time it feels like I am there with the form, which makes following the trainer so much easier.
Sunday
Today is the last day and I can’t decide which exercise to do. So I make up my own routine using a mixture of the dumbbell and HITT exercises. Oddly it works and I end up doing 15 minutes of exercise.
In conclusion, this hasn’t been the failure I thought it would be. But, I also wouldn’t say it has been a full success. It has certainly made me want to continue to exercise and given I have paid for the app, I will continue to exercise, but maybe starting with two times a week and going from there. I would love to be fitter than I am right now and I’m glad I took on the challenge of forcing myself to step out of my comfort zone and physically step out of bed to do some exercise!
But would I do another 5am workout challenge? Maybe in the summer… or maybe with more moral support. Anyone want to do one with me next year? Maybe the whole month?
Words By: Katy Colbert
Edited By: Dasha Pitts-Yushchenko