[music] Heather: Are you a bright and early
morning bird or more of a night owl? Your natural body coat will have a significant impact on your
ability to train and whether you're best suited to running in the morning or the evening. There are
pros and cons of running at either end of the day. Admittedly, I sit firmly at one end, but
I'm going to put that to one side today and give you guys an open argument as I compare the two.
Good morning, now no points for guessing, which end of the day I function best,
but I've always aspired to be an early bird and I still do.
Actual fact, I managed to do most of my runs in the morning. I'll explain why later on,
but first please just give me a moment to finish my coffee and wake up a little bit.
Stepping out of the door at this time of year certainly wakes you up. Although,
I think, the coffee has maybe played a little part too. I think it's time to address
all of the wonderful reasons for running in the morning,
and I've kind of already covered one. It just gets you going. It wakes you up and it gets your body
moving. Surely, that's got to be a good thing, hasn't it? If you think about it,
you have just had the best rest you're going to get in a 24-hour period. You've been asleep,
so your legs are rested. I'd like to say they're fresh, but obviously that does depend on what
you did the night before and also to a certain extent what you ate and drank the night before.
It sounds like we're moving on to nutrition, and there are some serious pros and cons to running
in the morning. If you want to incorporate faster training, then your early morning run is perfect
for this because you can save time and you don't need to worry about having breakfast,
so you can just get up and head out the door. It does come with a caveat though,
and I have to admit, I do a lot of fasted running sessions, but these are all my super
easy and relatively short runs in the morning. If you do want to do something that's going to
be quite a bit harder or longer, then you're going to need to think about fueling, because if you're
doing it fasted, you'll be putting too much stress on your body and your hormonal system.
There comes one of the cons or challenges of running early in the morning, when to eat and
what? You're going to need to have some amount of fuel if you're planning on doing something that's
going to be a little bit intense or longer, like I've mentioned, and you need to work out
what works for you, whether that's a banana, some toast, or basically anything that suits
your taste buds and your stomach, and you'll have to work backwards from that to see how long your
body needs to digest and kind of get moving, if you know what I mean. It's probably going to mean
you'll have to set your alarm earlier, which in my mind is never a good thing,
and you'll also need to consider what you've eaten the night before. It's probably not the
best idea to have a late-night curry if you know you've got a hard, early morning run to do.
I personally don't like that feeling of having a hard run that's coming up hanging over me
all day. I might start off being really keen to nail it, but by the time it gets to home time,
my enthusiasm has quite often started to dwindle. However, I do know that I'll be
able to nail that session far better in the evening than I would have done in the morning.
There's no right or wrong as to what type of session you should do at what end of the day,
but being brought up running with a running club, I seem to be naturally programmed to do my hard
sessions in the evening, and there are a few benefits. Your mind and body is most certainly
going to be awake. You've probably had a few cups of coffee throughout the day that's going to help
with your alertness, and hopefully you will have had two balanced meals at least to fuel you.
It's usually far easier to run in company in the evening. As I said, it's where most clubs meet up,
and if you want to go for a run with friends or a group after work, it's
kind of normally easy. There's no strict deadline of when you've got to finish by.
With that, as well, you can determine what type of session you do. You're not going to be
really tight for time, so you can probably do a little bit more, and if you're feeling good,
you can even extend that run and you might even have time or the inclination to do
a little bit more of a warm-down or stretching than maybe you would in the morning.
There is something that's just more sociable about the evening run. As a result, I find
it's much easier to get more out of yourself, or maybe that's just me showing my bias. However,
you do need to be careful not to procrastinate because it's really easy to put it off. There's
no strict deadline when you finish work in the evening. If you go home, whatever you do, avoid
sitting on the sofa, because once you've done that, it's usually too late. It's for me anyway.
Then you need to think about the seasons to a certain extent of when you've got daylight
hours. For example, here in the UK, in the winter, we tend to get a little bit more daylight before
work, so it's quite nice to actually see some kind of sunshine before sitting in the office
for eight hours, but if you maybe live somewhere that's really hot, you might only have the choice
of running in the morning because later in the day it would just be too scorching.
As you can tell, I am a fan of both types of running. I love that smug feeling of getting out
the door and doing something before you've even had your breakfast, but then I know I can nail a
tough session far better in the evening. I would love to know where you sit on the scale. Are you
one of those bright, early morning birds who could do any type of run before, or do you take a little
while to get going, and you prefer the evening? Do let me know in the comments section below, give us
a "Like" if you've enjoyed the video, and remember you can follow us on our social media channels,
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