It's early....

I don't think I've been up this early every day since high school. Two things are a part of this.

1) A few weeks ago at church, my pastor EJ segued off into talking about sleep and ended up giving a challenge to get in a solid eight hours of sleep every night. I'd been waking up at 8:30-8:45 and rushing into work and it was just a crazy hustle every morning. I figured that if I got the sleep I needed to get it wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue.

2) We're busy starting a new company at work. Going in early lets me assess where things are going for the day before anyone else arrives in the office. It's a bit of a jumpstart. I don't have anyone underneath me yet, but that'll change very quickly and it's good to get into good habits.

3) Probably the most important reason I've been altering my sleep schedule is that once it warms up it'll give me time to schedule long runs/rides in in the morning and still be at work on time, or be able to leave work early this time of year and ride/run in the afternoon when it's warm.

I'm only a little over a week into the change in schedule, but so far it seems to be a good thing. I like being able to bug out of the office in the afternoon and not feel guilty. The only bad thing is that inevitably I get caught up in something at work and end up putting in nine and a half hours instead of eight, but it's a start-up. You do what you need to do.

This will be an interesting pre-training weekend. Saturday the aforementioned EJ (and his wife Jen) are having people up to their house in Castle Rock for a spaghetti dinner. Castle Rock is about 30 miles north, so my friend Russell and I might ride up their to get a nice long ride (for this time of season) in before eating spaghetti without any guilt.

Sunday, Russell has somehow convinced me to go out and run with a club that's obsessed with the Pike's Peak Marathon. Every week they get together and run something called 'the incline'. I love Russell like a brother, but I hardly have any base in. I'm sure I'll get used to the running pretty quick, but I don't see why this has to be the first training event of the year. Check these photos out...

http://stevegarufi.com/manitouincline0.jpg
http://ghostdepot.com/rg/images/royal%20gorge%20route/manitou%20incline%20pc.jpg
http://www.inclineclub.com/photos/incline24.jpg
http://www.inclineclub.com/img/p_inclineb.jpg

fun, no? Maybe it should be written, Fun? No. In any case, I'll survive I'm sure, but calling what I end up doing 'running' up the Incline might be a bit of a misnomer, but maybe I'll be proved wrong.

After that, a nice casual ride with the cycling club I ride with here in town. The Sunday rides they lead out of Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs have been on hiatus in January and February and they're back this weekend. It'll be good to see people I haven't seen in a couple months and just do some easy spinning.

Hopefully it'll be a good weekend.

I'll try and work up some little reviews for the stuff Ang and I have watched at the house this week. Wed. night we watched TADPOLE and a wonderful but horrible documentary called STEVE. Yesterday evening we watched a low-key scifi flick called CODE 46. I'm not sure what we're going to tackle tonight.