Getting up at the A$% crack of dawn isn’t easy. The jarring feeling of the alarm clock going off at 5:00 a.m. makes my skin crawl. We’re so into sleep around here, that our alarm clock is in an entirely different room so that someone has to get up out of bed to go turn it off.

The idea is that since the alarm clock is so close to the coffee pot, once we are up we will stay up and have a cup of coffee or tea instead of  hitting the snooze button and crawling back into bed for another 10 minutes of bliss.

Last night I had the genius thought to get all of my workout things together on one hanger, so that when that alarm clock does go off at what feels like an obscene time, I can just mindlessly get dressed, have a cup of tea and head out the door. I even went so far as to pre-fill my water bottle and hang it from the hanger. Now, if this weirds you out, that’s cool. It doesn’t bother me to drink room-temperature water.

My plan worked and by 5:15 I was on my way to the gym for what ended up being one of my best elliptical workouts in recent memory. At the end of 35 minutes I felt strong. And proud.